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Part of the fun of living here is the new people that you get to meet. Especially Westerners.

It gets lonely, sometimes – days at a time roll by and everyone around me is very much the same race, speaking the same language. I talk to myself a fair amount purely for the pleasure of listening to English outside the classroom (happily, I am an excellent conversation partner – I share all the same interests as myself! What a happy coincidence). So, imagine my joy when, a few weeks ago, walking home from school, while waiting for the light to change so I could cross the street, I saw a pair of Western men standing outside the Japanese steakhouse.

They were both very young – late teens or early twenties – and very well dressed. They wore dark slacks, white button-down shirts with ties, and a nametag each. And, significantly, they were a pair. The light changed and they started across the street towards me, as I started towards them. As our paths crossed, I asked them, “Mormons?”

And so I met Elder Meeks and Elder Hanks.

Elder Meeks and Elder Hanks are two Mormon* missionaries living in Gwangju – old hands in Korea, but new to the city. Now, it is well-known that Mormon men, when they come of age, are highly encouraged to do two years of missionary work in the service of God, spreading the Good Word, teaching, and generally doing good works in His name. Meeks and Hanks were good Salt Lake City boys doing their bit to make the world safe for the Latter Day Saints.

We drew aside to the sidewalk and had a good talk there on a random Gwangju street corner. Their church is very near my apartment – in fact, I’ve inadvertently posted pictures of it before – and they operate all over my area. They were impressed with my knowledge of their faith – which, believe me, is no great shakes, but I know more than the average layman – and I was eager for friends I could speak English to. So, we made a dinner date.

I met Elder Hanks a few weeks later at a pretty nice pork cutlet restaurant just a block or two from my apartment. Elder Meeks had by then moved on to other pastures, but in his place was Elder Han, a young Korean man from Seoul just starting the first month of his new missionary journey. There are about 30,000 practicing Mormon Koreans, it turns out. Han had okay English and a charming habit of starting every utterance with the phrase “Actually…”

“Actually I’ve studied English for about four years now…”
“Actually you know quite a bit about Mormonism…”
“Actually, what do you think of the food?”

The food, for the record, was delicious. Pork, chicken, and fish cutlets, all manner of noodles, pasta, salad, and, weirdly enough, pizza – including pizza made using a fried chicken cutlet as the crust! Wonderfully decadent, I can’t believe that little innovation hasn’t made it over to the States yet.

Good as the dinner was, the conversation was better. We talked about religion, about how we came to believe in God, about history and Alexander the Great and Jesus of Nazareth. I learned about Hans’ life, about what it’s like to be a Mormon missionary.

I think there are still some groups that people unconsciously feel totally fine with being prejudiced or bigoted towards. People from the South. People who live on farms. And, largely, Mormons.

I mean, I get it. They’re pretty much all squares – clean cut, conservatively dressed, decent living, no drinking, no smoking, no swearing. They hold true to their traditions, which are often out of step with the quickly changing fashions of the wider world. And they’re determined to save as many souls as they can by spreading their faith as widely as they can, which many find obnoxious.

But I always have a soft spot for people who live true to their principles, and I have a soft spot for Mormons, too. In truth, while I don’t find Joe Smith’s archaeology convincing at all, I admire them.

By every measure, Mormons are one of the most successful religious minorities in the United States. It’s been a while since I looked at the statistics specifically, but in general Mormons have higher rates of education than the public at large. Lower rates of poverty. Lower rates of divorce. Lower rates of substance abuse. Lower rates of suicide. Lower rates of mental disorders, including depression and anxiety. Mormons are a disproportionate amount of our successful intellectual class – famous authors like Orson Scott Card, Brandon Sanderson, and Stephanie Meyer, whose books have sold millions of copies. Many of our most prominent elected officials – Mitt Romney and Harry Reid, for example. At Harvard Business School, female students note ruefully that attractive male classmates are invariably associated with one of the “three Ms”: the military, the management consultancy McKinsey or Mormonism. People who reach the tops of their professions are often Mormons – Stephen Covey, the author of 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, for example, or Andy Reid, head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs and probably the second best coach in the entire NFL (behind Belicheck, of course).

Look, I’m not trying to convert anyone to Mormonism here. I’m not a Mormon myself. But I do find them genuinely kind and decent people, and I really enjoyed my dinner with Hanks and Han. They live nearby and we’ll do it again. They only get one day off a week (Monday), so I won’t see them too much, but their primary amusement is playing board games, so I have that in common. We’ll do a board game night soon. In the meantime, I look forward to sharing more good meals and good conversation with them.

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”

– JRR Tolkien

*They prefer their church be referred to as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints; however, that is quite a mouthful to type and the demonym is quite difficult to wrap my head around. Purely for sake of brevity and clarity to my audience, I shall continue to use Mormon, with the understanding that this term is for convenience only and reflects no judgment on the truth of anyone’s religious claims whatsoever.

So, why spend 4 days in my ostensibly Korean blog talking about baseball? I know from the traffic stats that the vast majority of you don’t really care about any of this. I get that. I do. But it’s important to me. Now I’m going to tell you why.

What follows below is a copy of a reddit post I made back in October, 2015. It explains the reasons I love baseball, and why I will always be a Royals fan. It’s not about the winning, for me (although it’s nice when it happens). No, for me, it’s about honoring the memory of those I love.

Back to Korea tomorrow, I promise.

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Bit of a long story here, but honestly, it was more important that I write this than you read it. I’ll try to remember to throw in a tl;dr at the end out of courtesy.

Anyway, I’m a Kansas City native, born and raised. However, I have never, ever, ever, before last season, been a Royals fan. I only started liking them around the same time that they got good. It all started with my grandfather. He’d been a fan of the team ever since it was founded. Attended at least one game every year of his life, frequent season ticket holder, and, eventually, the mentor of his eldest grandchild – me. My parents and grandparents, in the misplaced hope that I could be taught to be a baseball fan, dragged me to game after game. I was loaded down with Monarchs and Royals paraphernalia. All my older relatives were baseball fans, and so I, as the first child of my generation in the family, would be too, dammit.

But I wouldn’t budge. The Royals were, frankly, terrible. Every game was a slow torture of dashed expectations, brief bursts of hope being met ultimately with disappointment. Around the same time I started bringing paperbacks to games, my family stopped dragging me along.

Until last year.

September of last year found me away from home, finishing my Master’s degree, and slightly homesick. My grandfather had been ill for weeks, and was about to undergo a dangerous surgery that promised to fix the problem. The Royals were hot ever since the All-Star break, but I couldn’t be bothered about that – it had been more than a decade since I had watched a Royals game. I was more concerned about Papa.

He and I were close, despite the baseball thing. He was one of the kindest, wittiest men I had ever known. I had never seen him lose his temper, never seen him treat any human being with anything but the utmost respect. He was still deeply in love with my grandma, took obvious delight in his large cohort of grandchildren, and in every way was the heart and soul of our clan – a true patriarch.

He was relatively young, only barely into his 70’s, and this surgery could give him potentially another twenty years. But, it was high risk – a 10% chance that he wouldn’t survive the operation, doctors estimated.

So, Tuesday, September 30 rolled around. Grandpa went in for his surgery. And the Royals, meanwhile, were going into their first postseason since 1985 – the first time ever in my lifetime. I was overwhelmed with worry for Papa, and then something odd happened. Of all things, I thought of his lifelong love of the Royals. I remembered suddenly all the discussion of their newfound ability, of Kansas City’s joy in having a team make the post-season for the first time in years.

And so I watched what we all remember was one of the best wildcard games, ever.

I was swept up in the magic and excitement of it. I replayed Perez’s game winning hit again, and again, listening to the deafening roar that swept the stadium as the crowd realized what had happened. It was electric. And, for one, brief, shining moment, I understood why my grandfather loved baseball.

Well, the Royals’ success on the field was not matched by success off it. My grandfather was one of the unlucky 10%. The best man I had ever known was gone.

But, the Royals weren’t. They crashed into the Angels, and before the best team in baseball knew what had hit them they were swept out of hte post-season. The Royals roared onwards, to Baltimore, and the most exciting series yet – and another victory.

By now the entire country was talking about the Cinderella team from Kansas City, /my/ Royals, the team I had watched as a kid with my grandpa. Every baseball fan in the nation was watching them.

And so was I, right alongside them. When the Royals were playing, it was like Papa wasn’t gone – I knew he was cheering himself hoarse right along with me, watching the team he had so faithfully followed for 40 years suddenly find success. I stopped hurting, a little bit, with every game.

It was like the games were a talisman, holding off and numbing my grief. And with every victory, the magic lasted a tiny bit longer, and the hurt got a little bit less, and I grew to love the Royals a little bit more.

Ultimately the ride ended, but not before we had given the Giants such a run for their money that nothing short of a superhuman performance by Madison Bumgarner could have stopped us. And when the 9th inning closed in Game 7, I felt something that I hadn’t since before Papa’s illness: contentment.

My grandfather might have been gone, but his beloved team wasn’t, and I still had the memories of those childhood games at his side. And now I would make new ones, watching with his spirit alongside me, and so preserve his memory a bit longer. I was a Royals fan for life, in my grandfather’s memory.

And so this season comes to an end. At the start the conventional wisdom said we couldn’t do it again, that last year was a fluke, that we were bound to regress back to somnambulant mediocrity. Well, here we are. So much for the conventional wisdom.

My grandpa’s team is respected again. No one laughs at us anymore (although some hate us – I guess I can live with that). And I’m onboard, every step of the way.

So, am I a bandwagon fan? You bet I am. I was not onboard this train before it left the station last September. But, now I’m on it, to the end. Because Papa never gave up on them, and in the end, they proved him right – so I won’t give up on them either. Call me a bandwagon fan if you like, but I’m a fan for life now. Thanks for listening.

Good luck tomorrow, and give ’em hell.

---

The Royals went on to win the World Series that year. The Royals won, Papa. You always believed.

Now I do, too.

Today is the last day I’m talking about the Wild Card Game. Even if you haven’t been following along, thanks for letting me take the time here (of course you had to let me, it’s my blog!) Even if you think baseball is boring and incomprehensible – you might just surprise yourself. I also thought baseball was boring and incomprehensible, but now I have been enlightened. 

I have one more post to come about why all this is so important to me, and then we’re back to Korea. Thanks for your indulgence.

———–

“Once Roberts got to Boston, he mostly sat. And sat. The manager kept an eye on him but didn’t call his name very often. It was as if Roberts had changed from a ballplayer into some kind of glass-front box with the words break in case of need for stolen base stenciled on the front. But Epstein’s orthodoxy, reinforced by special adviser, Bill James, the creator of the whole analytical business that had debunked stolen bases in the first place, held that if you built the right kind of team, Roberts’s skills set would be largely extraneous. Except – and this was the key part of it, the flexible part of it that most people didn’t get – except when it was necessary.

And so here Roberts was, glass broken, standing on first base with Bill Mueller at the plate, the only potential run of the year that mattered anymore. It was a desperate moment, but nonetheless a moment that had been planned for. That was the difference between this time around and 1949, 1978, 2003, and all the other disappointments of the last century. God was in the details, and so were playoff victories. And the Red Sox were finally looking after the details.

Rivera threw over to first. Once. Twice. Roberts got back to the bag. Every problem is a lock looking for a key. The Red Sox had spent decades half-asleep, oblivious to the locks, never mind looking for the keys.

Rivera returned his focus to the man at the plate. Roberts took his lead – not an inch shorter than before, maybe half an inch longer now. Rivera got set in the stretch, looked once more at Roberts, then committed to home plate with a barely perceptible transfer of weight to his right foot, his left foot now rising off the mound.

But Roberts was already gone, digging toward second, erasing the past with every step.”

– from the prologue to Mind Game: How the Boston Red Sox Got Smart, Won a World Series, and Created a New Blueprint for Winning.

“I remember Maury Wills on the backfield in Vero Beach,” said Roberts. “He said, ‘DR, one of these days you’re going to have to steal an important base when everyone in the ballpark knows you’re gonna steal, but you’ve got to steal that base and you can’t be afraid to steal that base.’ So, just kind of trotting out on to the field that night, I was thinking about him. So he was on one side telling me ‘this was your opportunity’. And the other side of my brain is saying, ‘You’re going to get thrown out, don’t get thrown out.’ Fortunately Maury’s voice won out in my head.”

– Dave Roberts.

Dave Roberts’ steal against Mariano Rivera in Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS, with the Red Sox down a run in the 9th inning and 3 games to 0 in the series, is unquestionably the greatest steal in baseball history.

But what’s the second-greatest steal in baseball history?

Maybe it came in the 9th inning that night, September 30th, 2014.

The Royals, fighting for their lives, had in a single inning closed a 7-3 gap to a single run. But they were down to the last three outs of their season, with Sean Doolittle, Oakland’s powerful closing pitcher, taking the mound. Due up to hit was Mike Moustakas, the third baseman of the Process who had struggled all year. Moustakas hit only .172/.241/.313 against lefties like Doolittle.

Now, baseball typically presents batting statistics in three numbers – your slashline. The first number is the hitter’s batting average – how often does he actually get a hit, per at bat? Moustakas successfully hit only 17% of the time, a wretched number when the league average is closer to 25%. The second number is the most important – your On Base Percentage, or how often do you reach base safely per at bat? This includes walks, and can be thought of as your probability of not making an out. Moustakas only reached safely 24 times out of a hundred – so he has a 76% chance of giving away one of the Royals’ precious three final outs. Finally, the last number is your slugging percentage – how many bases do you typically gain per at bat? Home runs are worth 4, triples 3, etc. Moustakas was only gaining roughly a third of a base per at bat – in a league where the top players, like Mike Trout, can have numbers above 1.

So Ned Yost needed another option. Sitting on his bench was that option: Josh Willingham, a recent acquisition, a veteran player who was in his first postseason ever. Yost activated Willingham and sent him in to pitch hit.

Willingham hadn’t had a base hit since September 10. Doolittle was allowing opposing batters only a paltry .169/.197/.262 off him. When Willingham fell behind in the count 1-2, it looked like the curtain was starting to fall on the Royals.

But then Doolittle left a 94-mile fastball just a hair too far over the plate – and Willingham was swinging – the bat caught the ball and sent it to right – and the A’s outfield was shaded just a little too far to the left, meaning that Reddick wouldn’t reach the ball in time – and suddenly the tying run was on first base again. And the Royals had one more pinch running weapon in their holster. Terrance Gore, the Fastest Man in Baseball, had already been spent. But Jarrod Dyson was quite possibly the Second Fastest Man in baseball, and he was even now trotting out of the dugout ot replace Willingham.

Between innings, with Lester out of the game, the Royals coaches met in the dugout to discuss whether to keep running now that Lester was out of the game.  Outs were precious, so perhaps the team should try to slow down and look for the long ball. “Heck no!” the Royals’ improbably named first base coach, Rusty Kuntz, shouted. “We’ve got to go.” The formula remained the same: Put the ball in play. Get on base. Run like hell.

But it’s hard to run on lefties like Sean Doolittle. The lefthanded pitcher faces toward first base as he winds up for his pitch – so he knows exactly where the runner is. If the runner takes too great a lead, the leftie can easily pick him off. Too small a lead, and he can’t beat the catcher’s throw to second. Dyson couldn’t run.

So instead, Alcides Escobar sacrificed him over. He dropped a bunt perfectly, the ball slowly rolling towards the pitcher while Escobar took off for first. Doolittle scooped it up and fired to first, easily bagging Escobar – but Dyson was safe at second. Now, Doolittle couldn’t keep an eye on him. Now, he could steal the base that everyone in the ballpark knew he had come in the game to steal.

Doolittle and Dyson engaged in a battle of wits. Doolittle lifted his leg to throw home – then spun to face second. Dyson was already there, not having bought the ruse. Dyson played possum, his posture slack, his whole attitude conveying relaxation. He carefully studied the A’s pitcher as he threw a ball past Nori Aoki, the batter. Another fake pickoff, again Dyson already safe at the base.

But Dyson had Doolittle’s tell. It would be picked up after the game, but when Doolittle turned towards home and lifted his leg at the same time, he was going home, not going to second. Doolittle turned and lifted – and Dyson was gone.

Norris scooped up the low fastball and fired to third in a heartbeat – but no catcher alive could have caught Jarrod Dyson that night. The Royals’ baserunner was sliding safely across the base even as A’s third baseman Josh Donaldson fielded the ball. The tying run was 90 feet away – and Nori Aoki, the man with the lowest strikeout rate on the team, was at the plate.

Dyson glanced at the dugout, at the crowd and then – with the Royals two outs from elimination – he revved the engines of his motorcycle.

As Rany Jayazerli would later write,

“If you want a single image to sum up the never-say-die attitude of the 2014-2015 Kansas City Royals, that’s the one. The Royals were still two outs away from elimination – and Dyson is revving the engines at third base, with complete confidence in himself and without an ounce of fear for the situation. It was if he was saying, “Nervous? Why would we be nervous?” We were losing our minds in the stands, but out on the field, Dyson didn’t have a care in the world. He was a 50th-round pick, a guy who was drafted despite not really knowing how to hit a baseball, who by sheer force of self-confidence and his God-given tools surpassed far more heralded prospects through the farm system, reached the major leagues when he was 26 years old, and has been one of the game’s best fourth outfielders ever since. That’s what speed – and a relentless belief in yourself – do.”

Quote:

On the next pitch, Aoki lifted a high fly ball to right field. Reddick was there to make the catch – but Jarrod Dyson, the Second Fastest Man in Baseball, had tagged at third base and was already on his way home. The Royals had gone to the glass box, “break in need of stolen base,” and there, ready to answer the call, was Jarrod Dyson. 

It was the bottom of the 9th inning. The Royals had one out left – and the score was 7-7.

======

Brandon Finnegan had come a long way in four months. He was a young man, only 21, sporting a scruffy beard in a vain attempt to make himself look less boyish. He was slightly stocky, with long brown hair curling out from under his cap as he sat in the Royals’ bullpen, watching the team carry out one of the largest comebacks in baseball history. Four months earlier, he had been a senior at TCU, pitching for his team in the College World Series. The Royals had drafted him that June – at #17, not even in the top half – and then Finnegan had caught fire, quickly working his way through the minor leagues. In September, the Royals had called him up.

“How the f*** do I know what I’m going to do with Finnegan if we make the playoffs?” Yost had commented at the time, when reporters pressed. Now, it was the 10th inning of the wild card game, and Yost needed a pitcher. Shields was done. Ventura was done. Herrera had pitched 2 innings already, Davis had covered the 8th, and Holland had covered the 9th, but not before using 23 pitches and loading the bases before escaping. Yost was almost out of pitchers. He knew now how he’d use Finnegan.

There have been easier assignments. Finnegan was up against the A’s explosive offense, which had already chastened James Shields, Yordano Ventura, and Kelvin Herrera with 7 runs – all pitchers with supposedly more talent and a lot more experience than the kid. Now, it was extra innings, and Finnegan had to be essentially flawless – any run the A’s scored could be the winning run.

And flawless he was.

In the 10th, he got Freiman to fly out. He put away Norris with a weak grounder on the first pitch. And then, getting ahead of Punto 1-2, he scorched a 96 mph fastball by him. Finnegan pounded his fist in his glove like a madman as he walked off the mound after the 1-2-3 inning.

In the 11th, after the Royals squandered a leadoff hit in the bottom of the 10th, Finnegan did it again. He struck out Coco Crisp. Sam Fuld tried to bunt his way on, but Finnegan fielded the bunt himself – a tricky play for a young pitcher, without fielding instincts yet – and cut him down at first. Josh Donaldson – who would be the AL MVP the following season – singled, bringing up Brandon Moss, who had already homered twice, with 5 RBI, in the game. The 21-year old faced down the man who had been killing the Royals all night, working the count to 2-2 – then fired a fastball just through the outside corner. Moss was fooled and struck out looking. Finnegan couldn’t resist a mini-fist pump as he walked off the mound.

In the 12th, though, the young pitcher’s stamina started to falter. He walked Reddick on 5 pitches, then Lowrie bunted him over to second to put the go-ahead run in scoring position. Yost came out to pull Finnegan, but the damage was done – Jason Frasor, the last pitcher the Royals had, threw a wild pitch to put the runner on third, and then yielded a single to Alberto Callaspo that let Reddick dart home. It was 8-7 Oakland in the 12th, and Finnegan’s heroic effort was destined ot end in a loss.

The Royals had already come back twice in this game, from being down 2 runs and down 4 runs – now they would need to do it a third time, down only a single run this time, but with only a single inning to do it in. 3 outs to go.

Which quickly became 2 outs as Lorenzo Cain grounded out weakly. He walked back to the dugout dejectedly, convinced the game was over, passing Eric Hosmer on the way.

The Royals’ win expectancy now stood at 11% – stratospherically higher than the 3% they had had in the bottom of the 8th, but still not great. 9 out of 10 teams in the same situation would lose.

A year later, Hosmer would review the at-bat:

Eric Hosmer sidled into the dugout at Fenway Park one day this past August. He peered down at an iPad screen replaying his last at-bat from that night. He did not require much visual aid. He watched this encounter countless times during the winter.

Hosmer had hit only nine homers during the regular season, but he wanted what all power hitters desire in these situations: a fastball up in the zone to drive out of the ballpark. The duel with Otero lasted six pitches. As he watched himself 11 months later, Hosmer pinpointed the fourth pitch as the most critical one. Hosmer had just fouled off two fastballs and was furious about missing them. Then Otero threw a slider in the dirt.

“After that slider, you can tell,” Hosmer said. “He threw that, and didn’t feel too comfortable about it. From that point there, after fouling off two heaters, especially in hitter’s counts, you’ve got a good feeling that a fastball’s coming.”

Hosmer sprayed another fastball foul. He planned to cheat on the next pitch, starting his swing early to generate as much power as possible. As the 2-2 fastball approached, Hosmer leaned his face closer to the iPad’s screen.

“There it is!” he shouted.

Quote:

The ball leapt off Hosmer’s bat, speeding for the gap in left-center field. Every head in the ballpark turned to watch it. Rany Jayazerli put his arms around both his neighbor’s shoulders, chanting, “It’s not going out, it’s not going out…” to keep from getting his hopes up. Outfielders Jonny Gomes and Sam Fuld were both racing towards the wall as the ball hung suspended in the air. The bar where Taylor Fritz and his dad were watching was dead silent, as everyone watched.

Gomes reached the wall, leapt to catch the fly – and Fuld was there too, also lunging desperately – and the ball was bouncing off the wall, back towards the infield – the two outfielders had hit the ground in a tangle, and now here came Gomes pushing himself to his feet and dashing after the ball – Hosmer was around second – and when the dust had lifted, Hosmer was standing safe at third, exuberant. There were only two outs to go (again), but the Royals were still alive. They were still in the game.

COming to the plate was yet another young player, Christian Colon. Billy Butler, recall, had been batting behind Hosmer, but he was lifted in the 8th for pinch-runner Terrance Gore. One thing the Fastest Man in Baseball is NOT, however, is a good hitter, and so Colon was put in Gore’s place to hit. He came to the plate needing to get the ball out of the infield to score Hosmer.

A’s pitcher Dan Otero got unlucky. He tried to blow a 92-mph fastball by Colon, with a nasty late sink to it that SHOULD have seen it smoothly dart past Colon’s bat. But instead, Colon desperately clipped the top of the ball. The ball shot straight down in front him – bounced off home plate – and into the infield. Colon took off for first – and down the third base line came Hosmer. Put the ball in play. Run like hell.

“High chopper!” the broadcaster, Ron Darling, exclaimed. “They’ll never get him! Tie game!”

8-8.

Otero got Gordon to pop out for the second out of hte inning, then was lifted for the A’s final pitcher, Jason Hammel. Coming to the plate was Salvador Perez, the young Venezuelan with a gigantic smile, who had been signed for $65,000 as a kid in 2006. Perez was a notoriously impatient hitter, offering at pitches nowhere near the Zone. Hammel quickly got him to 2 strikes.

Over at first base, Rusty Kuntz (heh) had told Colon that if Perez got to 2 strikes, Colon had to run. Unfortunately for Colon, the A’s knew he was going to run, too. On the next pitch, Colon took off – and the A’s pitched out.

A pitch-out is when the pitcher and catcher mutually agree to throw a ball far outside the strike zone. The pitcher will get it to the catcher as fast as he can, and the catcher can catch the ball already coming to his feet and firing to second base. It’s a play designed to foil steal attempts, and it’s almost never done – the A’s had pitched out only 16 times in 162 regular season games in 2014. But now they pitched out in the 12th inning of a tied double-elimination game – and they guessed right. Colon was dead to rights.

Except…

Except Derek Norris is not Gary Soto. He’s a fantastic bat, but a poor defender. His eyes were on Colon, not on the ball coming in – and it clipped off his glove. He missed the catch and the ball fell harmlessly to the dirt while Colon skidded safely into second.

Over at third base, Josh Donaldson shaded over towards second to help protect outfielder Jonny Gomes’s arm.

On the next pitch, Hammel through a slider. It wasn’t a great slider, but it was 6 inches outside. It was the 385th pitch of the game, and the time was 11:52 – 8 minutes to October. Perez lunged desperately for it. There were 2 strikes – if he missed, the inning was over and the game was going 13 innings, with the Royals pitching running on fumes.

But he did not miss.

The ball skipped down the third base line. Josh Donaldson hurled himself towards the ball, diving to stop it. He got close:

One inch from preventing history.

But Donaldson did not catch it. The ball skipped past – and Perez was running to second – and here came Colon around third and the crowd was erupting.

9-8, Royals.

“The noise felt volcanic. The stadium shook. In the stands, strangers embraced. Fans jumped on their seats. Beer and water rained down upon them. Inside Moore’s suite, George Brett, the legend who predicted victory when the situation seemed most dire, clasped his hands on his forehead and shouted. A mosh pit formed around Perez. The group somehow stayed upright, their momentum propelling them into center field. The stadium blared Archie Eversole’s “We Ready,” the song that became the team’s anthem en route to the World Series. After the celebration, Hosmer received a request from a team official to do a television interview on the field. “I literally told him I had to wait two minutes,” Hosmer said. “Because I felt like I was going to throw up.”

Inside the broadcast booth, Darling shook hands with Ripken and Johnson after they went off the air. Darling knew, already, it was one of the greatest games he had ever called. “My reaction, after the game, is unprintable,” Darling said. “It was ‘Holy (expletive). Can you believe what we just saw?’ I wish I could have said that on the air.” He walked back into the parking lot, which teemed with fans. To Darling, the group looked ecstatic. And exhausted. “It was almost like ‘The Walking Dead,’ ” Darling said. “The fans were walking around, zombie-like. Like they were kids who had too much sugar. Or adults who had too much coffee.”


Abby Elmer and her parents struggled to reach their car because of the crowd surrounding Joel Goldberg and Jeff Montgomery’s stage for Fox Sports Kansas City’s postgame show. For the drive back across the state, Seth Atkins listened to Josh Vernier on 610 Sports Radio. He lost the signal near Columbia, so he put the show on his phone.
At his home in Overland Park, Kent Swanson watched highlights until 3 a.m. When he heard Ryan Lefevbre’s radio call of the final hit, as the night baseball returned to Kansas City drifted toward the morning, he burst into tears.”

– From The Night KC Baseball Came Back To Life

Three times, the Royals had trailed. Three times, they had come back. They had overcome the largest deficit of any team in an elimination game in history. They gotten lucky, skated on the edge of disaster, they had been brilliant – and in the end, they had won. The most important game in Kansas City in 29 years ahd also turned into the best game in 29 years. The celebration throughout the city was universal.

“You can’t sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You’ve got to throw the ball over the damn plate and give the other man his chance. That’s why baseball is the greatest game of them all.” – Earl Weaver

To recap, the Royals were playing their first playoff game in 29 years, the same night my grandpa, a huge fan, underwent a risky surgical procedure. In the 6th inning, the Royals’ pitching had collapsed and the A’s had surged to a 7-3 lead – a deficit no playoff team had ever come back from. To win, the Royals would need to score at least 8 runs – and they had scored 8 runs in a single game only a few times all year. Their playoff appearance was all but dead.

In the bottom of the 8th inning, with 6 outs to go, Alcides Escobar singled.

Now, there’s been a lot of math done by the stats nerds on when it’s appropriate to steal a base. Stealing a base does one thing for you: It raises your odds of scoring that single run, as it gets easier for you to reach home from third or second than it would from second or first. However, if you get caught stealing, you erase a base runner and give up your team’s most precious resource: outs (remember, each team only gets 27 total). So in the 8th inning of this wild card game, Royals fans were horrified to see Escobar do one thing: He took off from first to steal second. Down 4 runnings, they didn’t need higher odds of a single run – they needed a big inning to have a prayer, and if Escobar had been caught, it would have basically ended the Royals’ chances then and there.

https://www.mlb.com/video/escobar-steals-second-base/c-36714545

But he was not caught. Jon Lester had thrown nearly 100 pitches, he was exhausted. And catcher Derek Norris is not a great defender. Escobar was safe and in scoring position.

In the stands, spectator Chris Kamler was ecstatic. “It’s time to run on Lester!” he howled to his companion, Rany Jayazerli (who would write up this incident), then pointed at his temple. “Get in their domes!” Of course, Kamler was certifiably insane (and possibly extremely drunk by this point), but there was something to be said for pressing the Royals’ speed advantage: Put the ball in play. Get on base. Run like hell.

Escobar’s steal loomed large, though, as Nori Aoki grounded sharply to second. If Esky had been on first, it would have been a double play, two outs. But he was not, and he was safe at third with only one out and Lorenzo Cain up to bat. And then…Cain came through, singling up the middle and scoring Escobar.

Throughout Kauffman stadium, there rippled an emotion that hadn’t been felt in Kansas City since the Reagan administration: hope.

Lester stayed on to face Hosmer, but his exhaustion and control betrayed him – he walked the first baseman. The Royals were at first and second, with only one out, and one run in. At last, Lester gave way to relief pitcher Luke Gregerson. His night was done. It was up to Gregorson to put out the fire and save the game for the A’s.

The hitter who Gregerson would face had been waiting for a moment like this, on a night like this, in this ballpark, for 10 years. The man who represented the tying run was Billy Ray Butler, the longest-tenured Royal. The stocky DH tended either to hit home runs or to ground into double plays, so either he would tie the game in a single blow, or end the rally and snuff out the Royals’ hopes. Eden or agony on one swing of the bat – this is what makes baseball a great sport.

Butler did not ground out, nor did he tie the game, but he did what – at his peak – he did as well as anyone: he stayed inside the pitch and took it the other way for an opposite field single. Lorenzo Cain scored, Eric Hosmer scrambled to third base, and the crowd…well, the crowd had never really been out of the game. Even down four runs with six outs to go, the stadium was still packed. But we hadn’t been particularly loud before the inning started. The volume started to build with the rally, and when Butler singled it hit a crescendo that was deafening. This was a ballgame again. This was definitely a ballgame.

He had barely touched the bag when Terrance Gore, who has a legitimate case to be called The Fastest Basestealer Ever, bounded out of the dugout to replace him. And suddenly, just like that, Terrance Gore was the tying run.

If you want to pinpoint the exact moment when 40,000-plus Royals fans at Kauffman Stadium all started to think, holy crap, we might actually pull this off, this is your moment. The Royals could tie the game without even the benefit of a hit. All Gore had to do was steal second base – and everyone in the ballpark knew that was what he was going to try to pull off. What we didn’t know was just how frickin’ easy he would make it look. I mean, we knew he was fast. We knew that he was almost impossible to throw out* even when the other team knew he was running.

But his stolen base still took our breath away. He took off on the very first pitch, and despite Derek Norris’ throw being right on the money, Gore was on the base before the ball hit Lowrie’s glove. It was breathtaking. It was like watching the unveiling of the B-2 Bomber: this mythical weapon that no one had ever seen before, that some doubted could even exist, and that only your side had. Put the ball in play. Get on base. Run. Like. Hell.

The panic was mounting in the A’s dugout as the impossible, improbable rally continued. Facing Alex Gordon, with the tying run on base behind him, the Fastest Man in Baseball, Gregerson floundered – and threw a pitch that dove into the dirt and skipped past Derek Norris. Norris scrambled after the ball, seized it, and whirled to throw to Gregerson, who had dashed for home as soon as he saw the wild pitch, all while Eric Hosmer came charging down the baseline. Hosmer slid home – safe. It was 7-6, Oakland, and the tying run was at third base.

The noise in Kauffman was deafening. At this point, the crowd had begun to believe: it was destiny. The Royals were not the Chiefs. This would not be a one-and-done playoff appearance. In the stands Seth Atkins allowed hope to reappear. “Maybe they do have a chance,” he told himself. Silent in the back rows of the upper deck since Moss’ homer in the sixth, Kent Swanson perked up when his friend received a text message at the top of the eighth inning. Two fans had vacated their seats closer to the third-base line. The duo navigated closer to the action as the comeback began. The shock lifted for Abby Elmer around the same time. Her optimism returned. She wondered if it was foolish to feel that way. But perhaps that was a good thing.

“I remember reading people saying that the Royals didn’t know that game was over, that they were supposed to lose it,” she said. “I feel like the fans were like that, too. They were like, ‘You know what? I’m over it. I’m going to be insanely loud. We’re going to win.’ Meanwhile, Taylor Fritz and his dad arrived at the bar and took a seat. They were still in their Royals gear, and set their tickets down on the bar. The bartender glanced at the tickets, then up at the two men. “Y’all were at the baseball game?” They nodded. “You left?” Nod. “Y’all are fuckin’ idiots.” He jerked his head at the TV behind him, showing the game.

But with Gore at third, the Royals faltered. Gregerson walked Gordon (who stole second, the Royals’ 4th stolen base of the inning- Escobar, Cain, and Gore had all stolen second), but steadied himself and struck out the young catcher Salvador Perez on 3 pitches and second baseman Omar Infante on four. The Royals had slayed Lester and trimmed the deficit to just one run. But they also squandered an opening. The tying run was 90 feet away with only one out, and they came up empty. Winter was not far away.

*The bullshit in the 7th inning at Houston the next year doesn’t count. He was safe.

Happy October 1st! It’s Halloweeeeeen season! 😀 But Halloween isn’t really a Korean holiday, sadly. Anyway, it’s also the start of baseball playoffs – tonight features the American League Wild Card, pitting the Tampa Bay Rays, one of the most innovative teams in the league, with perhaps the smallest payroll in baseball, against the equally innovative Oakland Athletics, made famous by the book & movie Moneyball. The Rays’ lone World Series appearance saw them lose to the Phillies in 2008, while the A’s made the World Series 3 times from 1988 to 1990, only winning in 1989 against the San Francisco Giants (the Bay Area Series, disrupted by the 1989 San Francisco earthquake). In celebration, I’m reposting some old baseball writing I did a while ago. Feel free to skip and come back when I start talking about Korea again in a few days.

EDIT: It has been made clear to me that tonight, is in fact, the NATIONAL League Wild Card game. That features the Brewers against the Nationals. The Brewers have appeared in the World Series, representing the American League in 1982, losing to the St. Louis Cardinals. They moved to the National League, where the most playoff success they had was reaching the NLCS in 2011 – where they again lost to the Cardinals, making them the only team in history to lose the Championship Series and the World Series to the same team. The Nationals, formerly the Montreal Expos, have never reached the World Series.

They’ve literally never won a clinching playoff game, ever.

SO history is not on their side, but on the whole they’re probably the stronger team tonight. I’d love to see the Brewers, with many former Royals on their roster, reach the World Series, though.

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After the first inning of the Wild Card Game, the score stood 2-1 in favor of the visiting A’s, and the Royals had seemingly blundered away a chance to tie the game in the bottom of the first. If they wound up losing a one run game, that mistake would haunt them – but fortunately for their legacy the score didn’t last. 

In the third inning, Mike “Moose” Moustakas, the Royals’ third baseman, one of the promised saviors of the team from the long 8 year Process, batted at the bottom of the order. Typically, your players at the bottom of a batting order will see the fewest at-bats per game – so you stick your worst hitters down there. Mike Moustakas was not a good hitter that year, showing none of the ability that had caused the Royals to draft him. Some even wondered if he should play in the wild card game, despite the Royals’ lack of real better options. He silenced the critics, though, blooping out a small hit off Jon Lester and scampering to first. Escobar sacrificed himself with a bunt, moving Moustakas to second, and then Nori Aoki grounded out to move him to third. This was not A’s baseball – no walks, no homers, just scratching and clawing their way around the diamond to bring a run home. Now, with 2 outs, Lorenzo Cain came through – he laced a clean double into left field, speeding into second as Moustakas reached home easily. The next batter, Eric Hosmer – another product of the Process – followed up, sending Cain home and giving the Royals a 3-2 lead. 

The crowd was going wild. The Royals had a one-run lead in an elimination game – at home. They just needed James Shields to get through 3 more innings – 9 outs – and then he could give way to the elite bullpen trio of Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis, and Greg Holland. As it stood, Hosmer would be the last baserunner from either team until the fatal 6th inning.

The major league strike zone extends roughly from a batter’s elbows down to his knees and stretches 17 inches across the plate, and is the most important piece of real estate in the ballpark. The heart of the game of baseball is the battle between the pitcher and the batter for control of that zone. The pitcher attempts to deceive the hitter, as his pitches dive over the plate, or tail away from it, or suddenly cut towards the bat, carefully working the edges of the zone and never giving the hitter a solid pitch to clobber out of the park. The batter fights off close pitches and avoids swinging at pitches out of the zone, waiting for a pitch that he can smack to his liking. From the moment the pitcher releases the ball to the moment it crosses the plate is often as short as .4 seconds – and the hitter needs at least .25 seconds to see the pitch and react, giving him a tenth of a second to judge if a pitch will be in the zone and hittable (and thus he should swing) or out of the zone (and thus he should take the pitch). A pitch out of the zone that the hitter refuses to swing at is a ball. A pitch in the zone that the hitter misses is a strike. Four balls and the batter is awarded first base for free – a walk. Three strikes, though, and he’s out. It’s a tough job, but major league hitters are the best in the world at it, and they punish any error on the pitcher’s part mercilessly.

Thus, major league pitchers have the hardest job on the diamond. They have more responsibility than any other player for the outcome of the game, and so they put their all into their pitches – hurling fastballs at over 100 miles per hour (that’s 160 kilometers an hour) over the plate, sometimes more than 100 in a night. The strain on the arm is severe. In more innocent days, pitchers would play the entire game, and would play multiple games in a row. As hitters got wiser, the competitive demands on pitchers grew, and their role gradually shrank. In modern times, the best pitchers – your starters-  can make it through 6 or 7 innings of the 9 inning game, starting only one game every five days – and still pitching careers are often cut short by injury, as the human arm simply isn’t engineered to take the strain major league pitching puts on it. So, the managers of the game innovated. The days of pitching a complete game are, barring exceptional performances, in the past – now is the era of the relief pitcher. 

The relief pitchers usually outnumber starters and gather in what is called a bullpen for reasons lost to history (or at least to me). They are specialists, without as many pitches in their arsenal as starters, and not nearly as much stamina. Typically they will work for only one or two innings. On most teams, the bullpen was an afterthought – a collection of guys who couldn’t hack it as starters, who were there simply to fill innings and try to bridge teh gap between the starter and the end of the game. The Royals, though, had built their team bass-ackwards. The Royals’ bullpen was filled with their best pitchers, their starters were only so-so. Herrera, Davis, and Holland had been unhittable in 2014, saving countless games for the Royals as they slammed the door shut on scoring. Herrera would pitch the 7th, Davis the 8th, and Greg Holland would close out the 9th.

But the 6th inning was a trouble spot.

The later into a game a starter goes, the less effective he becomes. The batters get more looks at him and are no longer fooled by his pitches. His arm, shaking from the strain of effort, starts to give out as exhaustion saps his strength. The speed of the ball falls, giving hitters more time to react, and the pitcher’s control fades, he misses his target more. James Shields ran into this as he worked into the 6th inning of the wild card. He was facing the Oakland order for the 3rd time, and he wasn’t fooling anyone. Sam Fuld opened with a single to right field. Then Shields walked Josh Donaldson. The tying run was at second, the go-ahead run was at first, and Brandon Moss – the man responsible for Oakland’s only 2 runs of the night – was stepping to the plate.

Ned Yost, the Royals’ manager, went to the bullpen.

But not to Herrera, his 7th inning guy. He wanted his elite relievers to work their assigned innings. Nor did Yost go to any of his other bullpen arms – veteran Luke Hochever, workmen Jason Frasor or Danny Duffy, or even rookie Brandon Finnegan.

No, he went with the Royals’ hottest new pitcher, Yordano Ventura.

Ventura was a product of the Royals’ renaissance, a 23-year old kid from the Dominican Republic. His fastball was ferocious, topping 100 mph, his talent was among the best anyone had ever seen, and his temper was fiery. But he was unpolished, and unused to pressure – and he was a starting pitcher, not a reliever. In theory that meant he could cut loose, give his all to a single inning, and not worry about saving the stamina for a long start. But it also threw off his routine – and it meant he was coming into a messy situation to face one of the most dangerous batters in the game.

Ventura was amped. His first fastball flashed past, high over the strike zone. Ball one. Sweat poured down the young man’s face. He steadied himself, drew a breath, and hurled again – high again. Ball two. Now he was in a fix. If he tried to skirt the zone again, his shaky control could cause him to throw ball 3, and then he was all but certain to walk Moss, loading the bases with no outs. He had almost no choice but to throw Moss a strike and hope it fooled him or blasted past him before he could react.

Ventura’s fastball did not fool Moss, nor did it surprise him. He was expecting it. His bat flashed out, and a heartbeat later the ball was flying over the outfield wall. 5-3, Oakland.

The crowd was stunned. Ned Yost hopped out of the dugout to come talk to Ventura – and the longest tenured manager in Royals’ history, the man who had led them back to the postseason in 29 years, was booed by the fans at his home stadium in his very first playoff game.

In the upper deck, Kent Swanson sat in silence, unable to speak for several innings. For solace, he scanned Twitter to read rage-filled posts about Yost. Seth Atkins assumed the game was over. As the night drifted away, Abby Elmer would begin to cry. But her initial reaction involved empathy. “Poor Ned Yost. That’s his career.” Taylor Fritz and his dad quietly walked out of the stadium and headed for a bar.

The Royals had scratched out three runs with five hits, a bunt, and a stolen base. The A’s had hit two balls into the seats with men on base, and had five runs to show for it. It was a microcosm of everything the teams do differently.

Ventura was still rattled, and the flurry of blows continued. He issued a walk, then promptly threw a wild pitch to move the runner to second. A flyout – the first out of the long, fatal inning – moved the runner to third. Yost finally waved the white flag and sent for Herrera to put out the fire – but too late. Herrera could not stop the run from scoring, nor could he prevent the A’s forcing a fifth across the plate. By the time the dust cleared, the score stood 7-3, A’s.

The Royals went quietly in the bottom of the 6th, and the bottom of the 7th. They had six outs left.

By the this point, the Royals’ first trip to the postseason in 29 years was effectively over, after only a few innings of play. Just another Kansas City disappointment, as the city had been experiencing for more than 20 years by that point. Jon Lester was cruising – only 94 pitches in 7 innings of work, a real chance at a complete game. The Royals’ win expectancy stood at less than 2%. That is, in the history of baseball, less than 2% of teams in similar situations had gone on to win the game. In the 111 years since the foundation of the World Series, there had been thousands of playoff games. In all those games, how many teams had come back from a 4-run deficit in the last 2 innings of an elimination game?

Not one.

That was the funereal atmosphere in Kauffman stadium as the game entered the bottom of the 8th inning, the top of the Royals’ order due to hit. Alcides Escobar came to the plate for the 4th time that night. On Lester’s third pitch, Escobar grounded a single up the middle. A good defender perhaps makes the play; Jed Lowrie is not a good defensive shortstop, and did not make the play, as the bounce he anticipated never materialized and the ball went under his glove. It was ruled an infield single, and Escobar might have beaten it out even if Lowrie had fielded it cleanly, but it says something that MLB.com’s highlight of this play lists the caption as “Escobar reaches on error”.

Watching in the stands, we hoped Escobar’s hit was the start of something. It turns out it was the start of everything.

Gonna do something a little unusual here. No Korean adventures (although I do have some more to share), no poetry, no philosophy. Instead, for the next coupla days, we’re talking baseball.

See, today marks the 5th year anniversary of one of the greatest games of baseball ever played: The 2014 American League Wild Card game. A single play-in game between the Moneyball Oakland A’s, and the hapless, hard-luck Royals, who were hoping to make the playoffs and snap their 29 years of not making it, the longest playoff drought of any professional team in North American sports. For some personal reasons, the game is and always will be special to me. What follows is mostly a repost, from my telling the tale of the game elsewhere.

If you’re interested in reading Brad tell baseball stories, welcome! If not, I highly recommend that you at least watch the video to follow. If neither of those interests you, well, thanks for stopping by, glad to have you! I’ll do this every day for a couple of days, just as my own way of observing the anniversary and celebrating hte arrival of the baseball playoffs (hoping the Brewers/Twins go all the way – it won’t happen, though. )

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To recap: The Royals spent 29 years being the worst team in baseball, the butt of every joke in the league. They had gone longer without a playoff appearance than any other professional franchise in all of North America, and Kansas City as a whole had not won a single playoff game in any sport in 20 years. On September 30th, 2014, after decades of false starts, the Royals finally had a shot to make the postseason. But first, they had to win the wild card. One single game to determine their fate – win, and get the chance to play in the real playoffs. Lose, and go home. Just like every other year for almost thirty years.

What follows is the story of that single game. 

Now, our biggest fear, going into the wild card, was that the Royals would fall behind quickly and their playoff hopes would expire 15 minutes after the first pitch was thrown. This was not an idle fear – remember, the Chiefs, the other franchise in town, had repeatedly appeared in the playoffs since 1985, and they had lost every single game. One-and-done was the order of the day, and it was quite possible that Royals fans would not even receive the illusion of being in a competitive playoff game. 

Their opponents could not have been more perfect, narrative-wise: The Oakland Athletics (A’s). The Athletics had once been the Kansas City A’s, but had moved on to the west coast after failing to win anything here. Out in California, they had revolutionized the game of baseball. With one of the smallest payrolls in the sport, the A’s had consistently put together winning team after winning team. In the fiercely competitive AL West division, they had won 100 games time and again – in seasons with  division opponents like the Mariners, who had set the single-season record for wins (2001) or the World Series-winning Angels (2002). The A’s had ignored traditional scouting reports on players and instead found undervalued statistics like on-base percentage (OBP, the amount of times a player reaches base safely per at bat) and home run power, picking up secret stars on the cheap. Their process was made famous in the book and later movie Moneyball. At the climax of the book, and the film, the A’s are on the brink of a 22-game win streak, a record in modern times. However, the team blows an 11-run lead, only to win the game in the ninth. The A’s hapless opponent in the film (and book, and reality)? The 2002 Kansas City Royals, mired in the first of what would be 4 100-loss seasons. 

12 years later, in 2014, the A’s still built their team around walks and home runs. Their players would work pitchers, taking lots of borderline pitches and drawing walks, while punishing pitches inside the strikezone for home runs (which would also drive in all those guys who walked earlier). They discouraged risky moves on base, running conservatively, avoiding making outs, and waiting for a homer to drive them in. Their defense was modest but not spectacular, their starting pitching was very good, and they had a decent but not great bullpen. By contrast, the 2014 Royals were built, as I said, on a brilliant defense and unhittable bullpen. But they were not a great offensive team. They had to scratch and claw for every run. Their offense was free-swinging, aggressively attacking any pitch the Royals thought they could hit. Once on base, they would aggressively take extra bases, stretching singles into doubles, going first-to-third any chance they got, and leading the league in stolen bases. They struck out the least of any team in baseball – but also had no power and no walks, dead last in both walks and home runs.

To sum up: Put the ball in play. Get on base. Run like hell.

In other words, the Royals and the A’s had polar opposite baseball philosophies. For decades, the A’s had won while the Royals had struggled. The A’s showed the way of the future, the Royals were mired in the past. The A’s got the dramatic Hollywood movies made about their fortunes – and the Royals were reduced to the roles of the foolish losers. The A’s became the team most identified with sabermetrics, spawned the most influential sports book of the generation, and entering the 2014 had advanced to the playoffs seven times in the last 14 years. The Royals became the team most identified with old-school thinking and lost 100 games four times in a five-year span.

The Royals’ failures became as much a testament to the value of sabermetrics as did the A’s success. To paraphrase Voltaire: If the Royals hadn’t existed, we would have had to invent them. But we didn’t have to invent them. They existed, and I knew this because they were my team. For two decades, my grandpa’s heart was attached to a franchise that my grandpa’s brain would have sat on the porch, shotgun in hand, to keep away. Tonight would be the first time the two franchises had ever had a face-to-face showdown in the playoffs.

A generation of fans, my friends, many of them, who had never experienced playoff baseball flocked to the park. Seth Atkins, a 26-year-old from Olathe, took the day off work from the high school where he taught, outside St. Louis. He arrived at Kauffman Stadium when the gates opened. 

Taylor Fritz, a 21-year old from Lee’s Summit, arrived at the ballpark early with his dad. They had seats just behind the right field wall, and settled in, hoping to catch a home run.

Kent Swanson, a 26-year-old from Overland Park, bought a ticket at face value that morning. When he and a friend settled into their seats in the upper deck, he felt the tension. “There was just 29 years of aggression and angst and excitement in that building.”

Abby Elmer, a 21-year-old from Brookside, finished her classes that morning at the University of Missouri and drove from Columbia to attend the game with her parents. Growing up, the trio shared season tickets. She had never seen Kauffman Stadium like this. “I just could not believe how loud it was. How insane it was. You could not hear the person next to you, it was so loud.”

Starting for the Royals was James “Big Game” Shields, the centerpiece of a trade 2 years earlier that had seen the Royals give away their biggest young talent, Wil Myers, in return for the steady starting pitcher. Shields was in the last year of his contract – so this game was everything for him. If the Royals lost, Shields would leave and they would have given away a generational talent in return for – nothing. 

But as the game started, it looked like Royals’ fans worst nightmares were coming true. James Shields issued a walk to the A’s leadoff hitter. He seemed to steady himself with a flyout and a strikeout – but then he fell behind Brandon Moss. A few pitches later, he left a ball hanging just above Moss’s thighs – and the A’s batter demolished it, blasting the ball far out of the park. 2 runs scored and the Royals were losing before they had even had a chance to bat. The raucous crowd quieted. So it would be another Chiefs game after all. One and done. 

But then, in the bottom of the first, Alcides Escobar singled. A’s starter Jon Lester got 2 outs fairly easily, but then after a walk he gave up a single to the Royal’s chubby DH Billy Butler. Suddenly Kauffman was buzzing again – it was 2 to 1, and there were runners at first and third! The Royals might lose this game, but at least they would put up a fight.

However, the rally ended on a muffed play.

See, it wasn’t common knowledge yet, but the A’s pitcher Jon Lester had the yips. Specifically, he was unable to throw the ball to first base. Any time he tried, the ball sailed off into the stands or the dugout. And so, quietly, not drawing attention to it, he had stopped throwing to first entirely in the last few seasons – meaning he could not hold even the slowest runner on the base, because he’d have to win a footrace with the baserunner in order to have a chance to get him out. Which, in turn, meant that baserunners could take a huge lead off Lester and steal second easily. No one had noticed yet – except the Royals’ scouts.

Butler was quietly told to steal second. The slowest player on the team, Butler thought that the coaches were out of their minds. But while Lester chased Butler, it would give Eric Hosmer, standing on third, the chance to scamper home and tie the game. Shaking his head, Butler stepped off first…

…and it was a fiasco. Lester awkwardly stepped off the mound and scooted towards Butler – and Hosmer froze. He just couldn’t believe that a major league pitcher could not make that throw. Belatedly, he shook off his amazement and darted for home – but it was too late. Lester had gotten close enough to another player to awkwardly shovel him the ball, and the A’s shortstop whipped the ball home just ahead of Hosmer. The Royals’ first baseman dived in a desperation move, colliding with A’s catcher Gary Soto, but no good – he was out and the inning was over.

As a minor consequence  of the play, Gary Soto injured his thumb in the collision. The A’s catcher came out of the game and was replaced by Derek Norris. Norris was a much better hitter than Soto – but a far worse defender. The main job of a catcher is to throw out base runners attempting to steal. Norris was far, far worse at that than Soto.

The Royals didn’t know it, but they had just had their first big break of the night.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!

– Shakespeare, Henry V

Once more I made an attempt at my oft-desired burrito. Friday night I found myself back downtown. The others had some sort of super-lame workshop seminar (mandatory attendance), giving advice on things like classroom management, classroom apps, activities, and so on. Stuff that might have been useful a month earlier, but at this point they’re all veteran teachers. I, however, was exempt because my school is super-weird (it’s a private academy, so I alone amongst my peers do not work for the Gwangju Metropolitan Office of Education). SO! I joined them downtown after the seminar.

We wandered around the Asian Culture Center, where there was some kind of festival going on, lots of vendors, a stage blasting K-pop, and a lovely walkway lined with umbrellas. We had to pause for a photoshoot:

This was not a voluntary photoshoot. I was soon forced into taking a photo myself. Maria coached me. “Now, look off into the distance. No, more into the distance. Try and look more heroic, will you? There you go: noble adventurer.”

Anyway, we went for a walk out the backside of the culture center, when suddenly I saw a gigantic glowing sign: Dozen’s Bar.

Suddenly, the neighborhood snapped into place. Just beyond Dozen’s was a small alley. And down that alley was Ahorita – the Mexican restaurant I had so fruitlessly camped outside for two hours a few weeks ago. I STILL hadn’t had a burrito. And around me? The others were debating where a good dinner restaurant might be found.

I led the way. We found Ahorita. It was open. Full of anticipation, I followed the others inside and sat at our table. The restaurant was bright and cheery, with the usual Mexican decorations you’d find back in the States – a few rural paintings, some plants, the obligatory sombrero hanging on the wall. Eagerly I snatched up the menu and started flipping through pages.

And kept flipping.

First page? Nothing. Just appetizers. Well, no worries. Next page, we’ve got…ah, some enchiladas, very nice, nachos, always a favorite…hm, third page? Tacos, well, naturally…page four is, hm, taquitos and other dishes…fifth page? Oh, that’s drinks.

I flipped through again, just to be sure.

Then once again, in case I missed something.

I didn’t miss anything.

Ahorita, it turns out, does not serve burritos.

This perfect boy turned 14 a few days ago.

It’s not every day a dog turns 14. I’ve been struggling for two days to write something that fully captures Rowdy.

And, I’m sort of giving up! I can’t do it! Every time I start, I think of more things I want to say about him, more things I love about him, more quirks he has, more superlatives to heap on him. I get tongue-tied, and my usual effusive vocabulary vanishes into ether. Instead, let me just spam a bunch of dog pictures at you and I’ll gush.

Rowdy originally belonged to my grandparents. I have known him since he was a wee puppy – the latest in a long line of Shih Tzus they owned. His official name, on his official Kennel Club Certificate (certifying his pure Shih Tzu breeding) is Justa Rowdy Boy. He goes by Rowdy, Rowds, Big R, Rowdster, Lil’ Rowdy, Peach Pit, Peaches, Chicken Noodle Soup, Noodles, Borkums, Sir Borksalot, Stinkbreath, and a hundred other nicknames depending on Lona’s mood.

He likes to play, especially with his favorite toy, Lambchop. Rowds first stayed with Lona when my grandparents went to Florida and discovered their condo allowed two cats – or a dog and a cat – but NOT two dogs. The new puppy, Snickers, was still bonding with my grandparents, so Rowds was shipped back to Kansas City and became Lona’s companion during her time living alone, working for the KC Film Festival. He helped keep her sane, and the two became fast friends.

A few years later, with my grandma unable to give Rowdy all the care and attention he needed (and clearly deserved), he came to us. He settled into life in St. Louis pretty quickly. Here, he enjoys himself at the annual Purina Pet Parade in Soulard.

He has become the most treasured part of our household. He travels with us wherever we go, and enjoys his walks around the neighborhood. He is spoiled with an extreme amount of treats and an even more extreme amount of love from Lona and I.

His vacations include a trip to Table Rock Lake, which he did NOT enjoy. Rowds hated the water. BUT, there was a large female dog living next door, named Ellie. Rowds LOVES large female dogs. When Ellie came on the dock, Rowdy practically pranced. His tail perked up, and he had eyes only for her. Unfortunately, he did not walk where he was going and plunged straight into the lake.

Later, he sneezed too hard on the deck and pulled a muscle in his leg. Poor Rowdy had to limp around on three paws for the next month or so. Suffice to say, he is not a fan of the lake.

He loves holidays, though. Look how horrifying he is on Halloween! He enjoys frightening trick or treaters.

He gets into the spirit of things at Thanksgiving. Wiped out and time for a nap on top of a clean plate.

Rowdy is less fond of winter. Especially snow. He would like to go inside, please.

He has many dog friends. Someone made the mistake of touching the dog treats, drawing the instant attention of Max, Tucker, and Rowds. He waits patiently for his turn, though – he is a good boy.

Sometimes, I think Rowdy misses Snickers. He went back to visit her once – she rode him like a pony and later (pictured) defeated him in mortal combat. He enjoyed playing with his much younger sister, but she exhausts him. I think Rowds was happy to get back to his own house.

His other hobbies include photography – Lona’s influence, no doubt.

For me, Rowdy is always associated with Papa. I can’t disentangle the two in my mind. Every time he barks at me because I am insufficiently speedy and generous with the treat supplies, I can hear Papa’s gruff voice growling in my ear, “You bein’ mean to my dawg?”

I’m so, so grateful that Rowdy is a part of my life. I love him so much.

Sometimes, his little dog body can’t contain all the beauty that is his tongue, and it leaks out a tiny bit.

This happens a lot.

Our little family would not be complete without Rowds. I know that everyone thinks that their dog is the best dog in the world. I know it’s impossible to put into words how special Rowdy is, or how much my heart overflows for him.

So, imagine how you feel about your dog, or your pet. Such is Rowds, to me.

He likes us, too. Every afternoon he would insist that we go outside and wait for Lona to get home from work. He would sit, enjoy the sun, and watch the neighborhood – but when she got back he was instantly ready to go back inside.

Once there, he would take a well-deserved rest from being so perfect all the time.

Happy birthday, Rowds. I love you.

This isn’t where I expected to begin my fourth decade here on Earth. Heck, this isn’t where I expected to be on my last birthday. But, here I am.

Now, it’s actually the 25th here, but I’m hoping to get this out before the 24th ends back home – I was making rather merry last night (to quote Bob Cratchit) and didn’t have time to write. I really don’t have time to write now, because I wanted to take some time to reflect on thirty. It’s a big milestone. Young adulthood is starting to slip into the rearview mirror and middle age is looming before me. I’m now the same age my father was when I was born. Did Dad feel as uncertain as everything as I do? Was he just making it up as he went along, too?

Probably.

So I have some thinking to do, and some writing. But to give that the time it deserves means not publishing something today, and I really do want to get in the habit.

I’m a long way from just about everyone I know. Apart from a handful of acquaintances in Japan, every human being I’ve ever called friend is about 15 timezones away from me. So I was worried about being lonely on my birthday.

But I failed to take the environment into account.

See, human beings, I think, have a way of responding to pressure. If life is easy and mostly stress-free, if we’re comfortable, we’ll stick with our chosen groups, and it becomes hard to meet people and make new friends. From the time I graduated to the time I came here, I made very few new friends – basically just my coworkers at Wydown, and my natural introversion meant it took literal years for me to open up to them, much as I love them. I’m not good at making fast friends.

But put us in a high pressure environment and we’ll cling to anyone who can empathize, like a sailor to a rock in a storm. Think of the people you meet at, say, freshman orientation in college. It’s almost a desperate frenzy to connect with people all week – people are never again so welcoming in the cafeteria every day! Two people I met my first week at Truman – more than ten years ago now, can you believe it? – I still call friends, although I see them far less often than I should like (I miss you, Lauren & Josh. I hope you’re both living your best lives. If you read this, I send my love).

Korea, it turns out, is similar. The four hundred of us at orientation were again in that almost desperate race to make friends, to find people who might be near us, anyone who could give us some company and support as we hurtle into the deep end of a totally alien existence.

If you remember, I’m…not good at that. I remember walking, lonely, around the lake, wondering how I would hold it together for a year. As I made my way back into the dorm, after sunset, I passed a group of people sitting outside at a picnic table. Now, at orientation, we all had to wear nametags, which also shared our province. And as I walked by, I happened to see out of the corner of my eye – Gwangju.

I nearly went in. I was tired, and it was late, and I was in low spirits.

But I did not.

I turned around, and found that the table was full of everyone going to Gwangju, the group having declared a bonding experience before departure. I joined them, and didn’t go to bed for hours.

We rode the bus down together, and we have a group chat, and through the last month the dozen or so EPIK teachers who arrived with me have been my closest support group here in Korea. So, with my birthday rapidly approaching, I thought to see if anyone would want to go to dinner with me, even though it was Tuesday night, to celebrate.

Not even a hesitation. Everyone flooded out – Shelby, Sadia, Saoirse, Shanice, Sarah, Rachel, Tom, Lily, Erica, Maria, Nadine. We met up at a Korean barbecue restaurant a veteran teacher had recommended to us.

I had told them I wanted three things for my birthday: Good food, good drink, and good conversation. All three were to be had in abundance. Our conversations wandered from Harry Potter (“There are only two real houses – Hufflepuff, and Slytherin.”) to Shakespeare (a no-talent hack stealing all his plots, or a genius wordsmith? Why not both?) to Blade Runner and all manner of other subjects. A steady supply of Korean beef and pork flowed across our plates. The lights were warm, and the drinks were good. Allow me to quote Virginia Woolf –

And thus by degrees was lit, half-way down the spine, which is the seat of the soul, not that hard little electric light which we call brilliance, as it pops in and out upon our lips, but the more profound, subtle and subterranean glow which is the rich yellow flame of rational intercourse. No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself. We are all going to heaven and Vandyck is of the company—in other words, how good life seemed, how sweet its rewards, how trivial this grudge or that grievance, how admirable friendship and the society of one’s kind!

– Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own.

It was one of the finest meals I can ever remember (rivaled only by a dinner on a rainy Guatemalan evening at Cafe Sky, with the glow of Antigua around us and in the shadow of the volcano, and by a warm summer’s lunch in the agora of Athens, enjoying ouzo and bruschetta on the same stones that once saw Socrates driving his countrymen insane with questions). I was so grateful to everyone for coming out to join and celebrate thirty with me.

Naturally, we went out for dessert – bingsu (I hope I spelled that right).

I was taught to arrange my fingers in the shape of a heart for a picture with the dessert…but I regrettably couldn’t quite grasp the concept.

Gradually, the night grew old – we did all have to teach in the morning after all. So we began to drift towards our separate busses and subways, headed home to face another day in Gwangju paradise. But before I went, my friends surprised me with one last surprise: A card, signed by all of them. ;_;

And so closed an evening that, in the end, was everything I could possibly have wanted for my thirtieth birthday. I’m not lonely here. Not anymore. I do miss everyone back home, of course. All of you, reading this – I can’t wait to see you again and to have the “subterranean glow” of discourse. But in your absence, though, I will be okay.

Thinking on it reminds me of the old song that Mrs. Files had us sing in 8th grade choir to warm up our vocal cords every morning:

Make new friends
But keep the old –
One is silver
And the other gold!

Today, I had a chat with Dong. Dong is an 18 year old, a 3rd year. He used to live in Denver, when he was young, but moved back to Korea 4 years ago and wants to practice his English. So, we meet every Monday afternoon, have a cup of tea together, and just chat. He’s an intelligent, kind young man and I have quite enjoyed our chats.

Today I happened to ask Dong about what his daily life in school was like. I see the students when I arrive every morning at 8, but after I leave at 4:40, what happens? What’s it like living in the dorms?

Well…Maybe this is the Westerner in me talking, but it sounds insane.

At 7:30 every morning, music plays throughout the dorms, pulling the students out of bed. Every student must report his wakefulness on a board, or else receive extra cleaning duties.

By 8 am, all students MUST be out of the dorms. They will not return all day.

Breakfast is from 8 to 8:20. “What do you eat for breakfast?” I asked. “What’s a Korean breakfast?”

“Mostly the same as lunch…kimchi, some meat, rice…” So, no special breakfast foods, like back home – with our vast spreads of bacon and eggs, omelettes and hashbrowns, pancakes and waffles and cereal and toast and French toast and –

I miss breakfast.

Anyway, after this seemingly dull and (to my palette) strange breakfast, the students need to be in homeroom by 8:20. Homeroom lasts for 20 minutes, then classes start.

Classes run from 8:40 to 12:30. Biology, physics, math, earth science, chemistry – it is a science high school. Once a week, English conversation with me. Korean history. English reading and writing.

At lunch, a brief rest. No classes until 2:30 – but PE, art, or a similar “elective” seminar in the auditorium starts at 1:30 and is, of course, mandatory. Then two more classes in the afternoon to carry through to 4:40.

After 4:40, school is “over” – but it’s time for an “after-school” class on a subject of the student’s choice. It is, of course, mandatory. At 6:30, it is dinner time – the same as lunch, which was the same as breakfast.

7:30 brings the first study session. The students troop to the study room, a vast cubicle-filled hall with sound-muffling on the walls and individual study nooks. Two hours of self-study follows, homework, etc. Then a break at 9:30.

Then two more hours of self-study.

At midnight, the students are released to the dormitories, with fully 7 and a half hours available to sleep in. Naturally, they stay up 3 hours or so and socialize with their friends, because let’s face it – when the hell else can they do it? Then four hours of sleep before the music starts next morning.

This lasts all week. On the weekend, Saturdays start at the same time, but instead of class at 8:20, it’s time for self-study! Two hours, then a break, then two more hours til 12:30. Lunch. Same as breakfast was. Same as dinner will be.

At this point, Dong admits, self-study would be a little tedious, so the students go to a sports club, or an art class, or music, or some such elective. Dong enjoys basketball, but sprained his ankle. He doesn’t mind stumping around in the cast, though, because it means he doesn’t have to put his name on the wakeup board in the morning.

In the afternoon, it’s more self-study until dinner. Then four more hours until “bed.”
Sunday, more of the same.

Every other weekend, the students go home and see their families.

…

I’m sorry, this sounds insane. I…can’t really coherently put my thoughts to paper at the moment, but how is the students’ mental health? All this, plus the pressure of the one-and-done exit exam at the end of high school (do well, or never go to a good university and suffer in grinding poverty forever!), the pressure from parents and elders to succeed…I keep coming back to insanity.

Now, Korea has very high scholastic achievement, sure, and has worked wonders with its economy, growing from one of the poorest nations in the world in 1953 to the 10th richest today. Surely their incredible dedication to work is partially responsible for this.

But at the same time, Dong admits, he doesn’t feel that he’s learning much more than he did in Denver. That doesn’t especially surprise me.

The human brain is capable of only so much focus at a time. Try to press beyond that and you get massively diminishing returns. Sure, you can squeeze out a little more here and there – but on the whole? How much productivity is lost through student stress and inattention? If, say, the 4 post-dinner self-study hours were dedicated to leisure and recreation, would the students be sharper, more attentive during the day? Dong says half of ’em just sleep through first period anyway (which makes it a freaking miracle that all of my first hour students are awake every day!).

How much more creative could they be? Where’s the opportunity to explore other things? To read a book, just because you can? Pretty much all my own education, especially in history (which, let me tell you, I know a modest amount about) came on my own time, because I was curious, and wanted to read.

Could I do that in Korea?

Madness.