Of all the things I didn’t have on my 2020 bingo card, a crippling global pandemic tops the list. Murder hornets1 invading North America is a close second. Right behind those, however, is becoming a fan of a Korean baseball team. Prior to lockdown, I didn’t know the name of a single team in the Korea Baseball Organization. I hadn’t watched even a minute of one of their games. But here I am, a newly minted NC Dinos fan, with a jersey en route from a surely-illicit website. It all happened very quickly—around 16 hours—in a serendipitous and social-media-driven way.
Hey guys. ESPN is going to have live baseball six days a week. Live. Baseball. Almost. Every. Day.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) May 4, 2020
First pitch of the Korean Baseball Organization season is at 1a ET, less than 14 hours from now, and we’ll be calling the game between the NC Dinos and Samsung Lions.
11:44 a.m.
The news of live baseball returning has my fantasy baseball league4 abuzz. Our group Twitter DM has gone from dormant to electric in a matter of minutes. Those in the know are proclaiming their longstanding5 team allegiances. Meanwhile, I joke that “we need a BuzzFeed-style quiz for folks to figure out what team to root for.”
12:30 p.m.
I come across a tweet that likens every KBO team to their closest MLB equivalent. While not exactly a BuzzFeed quiz, it’s helpful enough. The singular truth I take from this is that under no circumstances can I be a Doosan Bears fan because fuck the Yankees.
MLB equivalents for #KBO teams - in 2min 20 seconds!
— Baseball Brit (@BaseballBrit) May 3, 2020
Doosan Bears = @Yankees
Hanwha Eagles = @Royals
Kia Tigers = @Cardinals
Kiwoom Heroes = @RaysBaseball
KT Wiz = @Padres
LG Twins = @Dodgers
Lotte Giants = @Cubs
NC Dinos = @Brewers
Samsung Lions = @Braves
SK Wyverns = @SFGiants pic.twitter.com/oaRXjMMuzY
1:27 p.m.
My phone vibrates. It’s an Instagram notification: “See your post from 2 years ago today.” Tapping through reveals a picture of my friend, Shawn Bainbridge6, that I took at Dino’s7 in Nashville, Tennessee. We were both in town at the time for the 2018 Craft Brewers Conference. The photo was taken at 1:10 a.m. We were drunk. And very hungry.
6:19 p.m.
I get a message8 from Shawn. It says, “Kyle, Google reminded me of this today,” along with a picture of me at Dino’s. Several other Dino’s-based images come through with the caption, “Burger time.”
I respond with, “Oh shit man. Dino’s” and then send along the photo of Shawn that Instagram had reminded me of.
Synchronicity. AI. There’s something in the air.
It’s at this point I remember that one of the KBO League teams is named the Dinos—as in dinosaurs—which is like Dino’s but without the apostrophe. This makes me feel a “Twin Peaks” level of eeriness. Those overgrown neck hairs are jostling again.
6:32 p.m.
I go back and double-check Passan’s tweet. Sure enough, the Dinos are playing in the first live baseball game to be televised in the United States this year.
7:45 p.m.
I take a post-dinner journey through NC Dinos history. They’re owned by the software development company9 NCSoft. They were established in 2011 but weren’t admitted to the KBO League until 2013, so they’re one of the younger teams in the league. They have two mascots: Dandi the Tyrannosaurus and Seri the Brontosaurus10. Dandi breakdances.
8:00 p.m.
I watch “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”11 to celebrate May the Fourth.
10:21 p.m.
I take a short nap to prepare for the game.
Tuesday, May 5, 2020
12:50 a.m.
I turn on ESPN. Scott Van Pelt is talking with Karl Ravech12 about the finer points of Korean baseball, specifically the epic bat flips. This is one of the few things I actually knew about the KBO League, and one of the many things I’m looking forward to in the upcoming game.
12:55 a.m.
Van Pelt throws to Ravech, broadcasting from his basement13, for the first pitch of the KBO League season.
🚨BUMMER ALERT 🚨
It’s raining in Daegu14. The tarp is on the field. The game is delayed. I say aloud, to no one in particular, “You've gotta be fucking kidding me." After waiting a little over six months for a meaningful baseball game, I will have to wait a little longer.
1:17 a.m.
Ravech and his broadcast partner, former MLB player Eduardo Pérez15, are killing time, talking about some of the differences between the Korean and American games, the culture of baseball in Korea, and, again, the bat flips.
1:31 a.m.
The game finally begins. The stadium is empty AF. No fans. The only people in the stands are team personnel and the necessary camera crew. It’s odd to see baseball this way. It feels sterile. Unreal. Fake. I can sense that the players are a bit out of sorts as well. There’s a nervous energy. But just as the first pitch is thrown, everyone snaps out and tunes in, as if dictated by muscle memory. I lean forward on the couch and smile.
Baseball is back.
2:13 a.m.
The announcers’ video stream goes out. Ravech and Pérez are still on the air, but they can’t see anything happening in the game. The viewers can. It is extremely awkward and I giggle uncontrollably.
2:26 a.m.
Dinos home run! Or is it? Everyone, including the batter16, thought it was a foul ball. There’s confusion. No bat flip. It's ruled a homer. But the call is under official review.
2:29 a.m.
The call stands. HOME RUN. The Dinos are up 1-0. But the lack of a bat flip is disappointing.
3:15 a.m.
HOME RUN DINOS17. They’re up 3-0. But still no bat flip. What’s going on? Are the players holding back knowing an American audience is watching? Where’s the damn bat flip? After all the buildup and anticipation and supercut videos and touting, nothing. I’m bummed.
3:17 a.m.
I jump up off the couch and yell, “HOLY SHIT.”
HOME RUN DINOS18. BACK-TO-BACK JACKS. AND AN EPIC BAT FLIP.
3:18 a.m.
I am overjoyed. The months of offseason waiting. The weeks of regular season postponement. The days of whispered rumors. The hours of anticipation. The promise of Korean baseball has finally been realized and a small ray of positivity has shined upon my locked-down ass.
4:42 a.m.
I wake up on the couch. The TV is off. The apartment is quiet. For a moment, I wonder if it was all a dream19. I pick up my phone and scroll through the missed notifications. There it is. The final score. Dinos won 4-0. It was real. It really happened. And a lifelong NC Dinos fan was born.
1 I mean, look at this fucking thing
2 ESPN Major League Baseball Insider and fellow Cleveland expat.
3 Due to the crippling global pandemic that is COVID-19, Major League Baseball, along with most professional sports organizations in the United States and across the world, has been forced to postpone their season. I’m a sports fan in general and a baseball fan in particular, and this whole aspect of the crisis has been extremely depressing, and left a giant, sports-shaped hole in my psyche.
4 The name of my fantasy baseball league is Ten Cent Beer Night. The name is taken from the infamous incident instigated by my beloved Cleveland Indians.
5 There’s no way in hell these guys have any true allegiance to any KBO team and it’s incredibly unlikely their knowledge of the KBO extends beyond the few former MLB players that ended up there in the twilight of their careers.
6 Shawn is the co-founder of Halfway Crooks Beer in Atlanta, Georgia. They make delicious beverages. I profiled them on this website in 2019.
7 Dino’s is Nashville’s oldest dive bar and serves greasy, delectable, flat-top burgers in a punk-ish atmosphere. Anthony Bourdain visited in 2016.
8 Shawn and I communicate exclusively via the encrypted messaging app Signal, because Shawn is worried about government surveillance, the Deep State, and appearing basic.
9 KBO teams are generally owned by corporations, which is where their team names are derived from, unlike MLB teams, whose names generally include their geographic locations. It’s like if the Detroit Tigers were actually called the Little Caesars Tigers.
10 If you Google “NC Dino Mascot” the search results will return the name “Swole Daddy.” That is, in fact, not its name. It’s Seri, which translates roughly to, “hit it.” The Swole Daddy moniker came from an SB Nation post stanning the jacked dinosaur, which gained enough pageviews to change the Google results. I’m okay with it. I love the name Swole Daddy. I just wanted to set the record straight.
11 “Rogue One” is criminally underrated, imho. I rank it behind only “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” among the most contemporary films. Don’t @ me. I will be on the right side of history.
12 Karl has called baseball games at virtually every level, from the Little League World Series to the College World Series to the MLB. He will be the one behind the microphone for the first KBO game to be broadcast in the U.S.
13 He’s actually watching the game on his laptop and calling the play-by-play from that stream, which seems a little juvenile and unprofessional, but beggars can’t be choosers.
14 Daegu, South Korea is the city in which the Samsung Lions stadium is located.
15 Pérez also played in the Nippon Professional Baseball Organization, the highest level of baseball in Japan, so he can lend some insights into the Asian baseball experience.
16 Na Sung-bum, the Dinos’ designated hitter.
17 Park Sok-min, the Dinos’ third baseman.
18 Mo Chang-min, the Dinos’ first baseman.
19 I used to read Word Up! Magazine
