#BAT SIGNAL SHINING IN THE SKY GIF TV#
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His name is Kerry Maher, and he's attended every Giants home game since moving here a few years ago to teach at a rural university, becoming something of a local celebrity. Several of them follow the lead of a burly, bearded American wearing a Giants jersey. Throughout the game, the fans perform a variety of coordinated moves: tomahawk chops, gentle thrusts, wax-on, wax-off hand motions. Then, seconds later, it starts again - new batter, new song, new dance. When Son's at-bat ends, the crowd goes quiet. When the Giants' leadoff hitter, Son Ah-seop, emerges from the dugout, loudspeakers start blaring music, and everyone around me rises, performing the same dance and chant: As someone bangs on a traditional drum, he lifts a bullhorn and starts bouncing, clapping his hands wildly. A small, spry man wearing a Lotte uniform - the 'cheermaster,' I later learn - hops out in front. Then, halfway through the first inning, everything changes.Īs the home team prepares to bat, four women wearing luminescent makeup and denim microshorts strut onto a raised platform. Aside from the snacks and signs, the scene feels similar to an MLB outing. When the game begins, they're quietly munching on dried squid and sliced pig feet. After surveying the field, I decide to skip the Camping Zone (an outfield seating area with tents) and the Exciting Zone (along the first-base line) and sit in a section dense with fans wearing headbands with a little seagull - Lotte's mascot - fastened like antennae. On a sticky July evening, thousands of them file into Sajik Stadium, a concrete bowl surrounded by high-rises. THE SEASIDE METROPOLIS of Busan is home to the Lotte Giants, a team famous for its zealous fans.

'I want to know: Where in Korea did it originate and why?' 'People ask me, 'Why can't we do this in Major League Baseball?'' he says. It's just part of the game.' Kurtz explains that bat flips, which are called ppa dun in Korea - a term that combines the words for 'bat' and 'throw' - are ubiquitous in the KBO. 'A guy flips and the pitchers don't do anything about it. 'A bat flip isn't disrespectful here in Korea, which is a very formal, respectful country,' says Dan Kurtz, a Korean-American who started in 2002 as a message board for English-speaking fans. Meanwhile, in the Korea Baseball Organization, bat flips aren't just permitted - they're embraced. It's a conflict between those who believe the game should embrace the traditions of other countries and flashier elements of other sports, and those who, as Bautista wrote in The Players' Tribune, are 'old-school, my-way-or-the-highway type of people who never want the game to evolve.'

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'Bautista is a f-ing disgrace to the game,' Gossage said.Īs Major League Baseball struggles to overcome its staid image and lure younger fans - according to Nielsen, most of the sport's TV viewers are over 50 - the simple bat flip has come to symbolize the culture war being waged within its ranks. But some current and former players, such as Cole Hamels, Mike Schmidt and Goose Gossage, were not. This tension came to a head last October, when Blue Jays outfielder Jose Bautista triumphantly flipped his bat after a magnificent home run during the American League Division Series, a viral gesture that was codified into memes, baseball cards and, most recently, a corn maze in Canada. What was this place, this parallel sports universe where baseball players could shatter the game's unwritten rules? While American ballplayers from Mickey Mantle to David Ortiz have flipped their bats, the act is still perceived as a great offense here - an insult to the pitcher, the opposing team and all that's sacred in America's pastime. When I first saw the clips, I was astonished.

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This KBO Bat Flip Will Rock Your World, Free Your Soul Korean Baseball Player Flips Bat Like a Champion Montages surfaced on a website called, gifs hit social media, and ecstatic headlines soon followed: Their contents were joyously unfamiliar: Korea Baseball Organization sluggers walloping balls and then flipping their bats with abandon, sending them spiraling through the air. The videos started to appear in America a few years ago, crossing the Pacific and landing on our digital doorsteps like mysterious gifts.

The KBO is scheduled to begin playing games Tuesday (overnight Monday in the U.S.) on ESPN.

Editor's note: This story on bat flips in the Korea Baseball Organization was originally published on Oct.

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