Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association announced Friday morning that Major League players will travel to South Korea in November for a four-game exhibition series involving players from the Korea Baseball Organization. The “2022 Korea Series” will run from November 9-16 and feature two-game sets at Busan’s Sajik Baseball Stadium (home to the KBO’s Lotte Giants) and at Seoul’s Gocheok Sky Dome (home to the KBO’s Kiwoom Heroes). The four-game series is both a part of MLB’s new “MLB World Tour” initiative to expand the game’s global presence and a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the KBO.
“Major League Baseball is excited to travel to Busan and Seoul for this historic series,” said MLB chief operations & strategy offer Chris Marinak in a statement within this morning’s press release. “This tour is the next step of MLB’s plan to deliver regular baseball events in Korea in the coming years and follows our upcoming Home Run Derby X, scheduled for September 17th in Seoul. South Korea’s rich baseball tradition has produced many accomplished Major League players, including All-Stars Chan Ho Park and Shin-Soo Choo, as well as current Blue Jays pitcher Hyun Jin Ryu and Rays first baseman Ji-Man Choi. We thank J-One and the KBO for partnering with us and the MLBPA on this great event.”
As MLB’s release further indicates, this will be the first time Major League players have traveled to play games in South Korea in a century, when a group including Casey Stengel, Waite Hoyt and Herb Pennock, among others, made the trip back in 1922.
Under the MLB World Tour, MLB and the MLBPA have agreed to host as many as 24 regular season games and 16 exhibition contests between Asia, Europe, Latin America and Mexico through 2026. The KBO’s news release (hat tip: Jee-ho Yoo of South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency) indicates that KBO commissioner Koo-youn Heo and MLB commissioner Rob Manfred also discussed back in June the eventual possibility of regular-season KBO games being played in the United States and of regular-season MLB games being played in South Korea.
MLB and the MLBPA have yet to announce a slate of participants who’ll travel to South Korea for the event. The KBO release indicates that further details regarding schedule, matchups, ticket sales and participants on both the MLB and KBO side of the event will be announced at a September press conference.
You love to see it
Do I?
You do
No I don’t. What makes baseball special is the length of the season and the importance (usually) of it being a team game. Would rather watch true teams than travel teams quickly put together.
A decade ago, I would have agreed with you, but MLB games have gotten increasingly boring. For me, the best professional baseball is the Arizona Fall League. The teams in the league are made up of prospects from four or five MLB organizations, kind of a version of a travel team. The games are lively, players seem to be having fun, etc. Got to see Aaron Judge years ago crush one almost dead center. Ticker prices low, parks nice, beer cheap, weather nice, small, but knowledgeable crowd (I am being generous in using the word “crowd”). I’ll drive down to Phoenix for a AFL game (over 260 miles roundtrip), but have stopped driving down to Phoenix for MLB games (Ticket prices high, Chase Field terrible, beer expensive, weather hot, crowd doesn’t appreciate baseball).
Games in Korea? London? Don’t care for them one bit whether they are exhibition games or regular season games.
Wow all the MLB players must be so excited right now.
I feel like this is sarcasm so I’m failing to see the downside of a free trip across the world to a world class country to play baseball.
Because it takes place during the off-season, so unlike MLB regular season games played in London, this just adds unnecessary injury risk to players and teams. Yes it will be volunteer participation, but it’s not going to be a good look when some star player who thinks like you do (Yay! Baseball in Korea!) gets their leg blown out on a rough slide or breaks their hand on a HBP.
Especially when they’re likely be tired from the grind of the 22 season.
You will rather see a guy like Merrill Kelly pitch and not Jacob DeGrom. Guys on guaranteed contracts and capable and probably excited to do this. But no one will go 7 shutout innings, it will probably be more All Star like with someone going maybe 2-3 innings before handing the ball over to a Joe Jimenez. These guys might be more motivated to play a good type of baseball than a Bryce Harper.
And if anyone should get injured, they will just be added to the list of players who get hurt in the off season lifting weights, slipping getting out of a bathtub/shower, cooking in the kitchen, playing with the kids or pets, etc… Those things happen every off-season too.
Yes but those are unavoidable parts of life for baseball players, as well as most people. You’re still more likely to get injured in a game or as a result of a game than you are living your life in the off-season, so playing extra games adds to the injury risk. This isn’t hard to understand.
Lol
You want to know how the trip to Korea is like to the pro sport players? Ask Cristiano Ronald or the F1 racers back in 2010.
Pad See Ew and baseball: the ultimate combo
That’s Thai food, bro, not Korean.
Lol. Don’t tell my girlfriend I f’ed this up. I’m begging you
Sorry: I f’ed this up.
I am sorry about that. BB.
Dollar signs. That’s all this is. Nobody cares about this. At all.
It is possible for it to both generate revenue for MLB and still be popular among fans. Your comment is one of the very, very few negative replies I’ve seen. The response on social media is overwhelmingly positive.
And why shouldn’t it be? Even if MLB’s very top players don’t go, it’s still more baseball that’ll be played in front of a likely sold-out crowd with a high-energy atmosphere. Plus, exposure to a set of players (KBO) that North American fans rarely get the opportunity to see. I’ll be watching.
I will say I doubt many major league baseball fans to interested in this. They might just come out and say wow this is great but I doubt many really mean it. Just another way to water down baseball. I’m all for making money and they probably will make money. I’m not a believer in this latest expedition.
You don’t speak for me. I will be watching, authentically excited for this friendly between international leagues.
Lol.
It should be cool to watch just hope the MLB team doesn’t totally destroy the Korean team. Avg KBO velocity is only 88mph to MLB which is 93 mph
You’ve made your statement and I along with many other fans disagree with it.
Maybe not American people, but I bet Koreans are excited to see Dominican, Japanese, Cuban, and other star players they only would dream of seeing live. Sometimes it’s not about Americans getting anything out of something. I’m also sure some Korean major leaguers are overjoyed to go back home as a MLB player and their families can see them play.
Notice I said not many major league fans will be interested in this. Never mentioned these other places but I did say they will probably make money doing this.
Sorry I hurt so many feelings. My apologies. I still don’t see to many MLB fans paying alot of attention to this in November.
Meanwhile, North Korea will be launching baseballs into the sky as a show of force.
Nutting would move the Pirates to Pyongyang if he could make a few extra wones.
I’d really like to see MLB set up shop in some of these country.
There are plenty of MLB shops in Korea. Granted 80% of the merchandise is different varieties of Yankee caps.
Knockoff Yankee caps but that’s not what I meant.
Maybe the Supersonic Jet Air Travel will make this easier to achieve.
and all made in China
I wonder if MLB will compensate the first team that loses a player for the next season due to injury because of this unnecessary spectacle.
Do they compensate for injured players from the WBC, Dominican league, winter ball, Olympics, etc.?
WBC, they should.
Olympics do not feature MLB players.
Winter ball is a completely different animal. Most players doing that are developing younger players or fringe major leaguers that wouldn’t be missed. You rarely see MVP candidates playing winter ball.
I seriously doubt MLB will do this with anything less than stars.
David Robertson participated in both the Olympics and WBC.
I dont see the negatives.
Obviously, the MLB rosters will consist of players who volunteer to go.
So what if the roster isn’t composed of the absolute best MLB players?
It will be a thrill for the ones that do go, and an even bigger thrill for South Korean players and fans.
The atmosphere will be electric…which is kinda the idea for a sporting event.
Maybe MLBPA can finally stand up and honor that $1M pledge they made to stadium workers for lost income during Spring Training…
Maybe Molina and Pujols will play in it.
Pujols will M*A*S*H Korean pitching.
He’ll ground into a double play.
The Bad News Bears Go To Korea
Seems like an awesome opportunity for a Ha-Seong Kim return appearance in Korea.
It’s lost in all the drama around Tatis, but Kim has accumulated 3.9bWAR this year filling in for him and is one of the top defensive players in the game.