A debate has been raging for years now about ways MLB can “speed up” the game, and I’ll admit…at first, I was on board. I don’t have a mind for baseball. I grew up playing in the back yard with no idea whatsoever of the strategery involved in the game. So, if you don’t understand what you’re watching, yeah – baseball is boring.
Thankfully, we’ve got a baseball guy on the team now, so I’m hoping to become more educated on the game. Nonetheless, yeah, maybe ratings aren’t that great. Maybe people whine on Twitter about games taking too long and whatnot.
But, y’all there’s more at stake here than just our own selfish interests…
“As a totally blind person, I can’t enjoy the game visually, so I concentrate on the sounds of the game — the catcher catching the ball, the batter hitting the ball. I like the energetic sound of the game,” Kwon, 35, says.
I’m going to be honest, I hear this a lot from baseball guys who can actually see. It’s the sound of a baseball hitting the bat and the pop of a glove that really garners emotion. So, in that regard, maybe the blind Koreans aren’t actually missing out on much?
He points out that what annoys many sighted people about baseball is the same thing that makes it so accessible for the visually impaired — the slow pace. Other sports move too fast to follow, but baseball broadcasters describe the action on the field play by play, and there’s a lot of downtime to talk about things like a player’s stats, he explains.
This sounds beautiful, and reminds me of a tremendous book I read in 2007, In Praise of Slowness. Basically, we need to slow down and appreciate things like this more in life.
These are the kinds of things he discusses with his two co-hosts, Lee Chang-hoon and Ko Jeong-hyun, on their popular podcast, “Weekend Baseball Why.” Lee and Ko are visually impaired too.
“We don’t even tell our listeners we’re blind,” says Ko, 32. “They probably think we’re just average, amateur baseball fans.”
They also feature two sighted panelists who weigh in on the game.
Good for these guys – listen to their podcast even though the title makes no sense whatsoever and it’s probably in a foreign language. That’s what we do here at The SoBros Network…encourage support.
In 2012, Lee, 31, was invited to throw out the opening pitch during a ball game in Seoul. “It didn’t go so well,” he says with a laugh.
Should I or should I not make a joke about this? Instead of making a tasteless joke, as I’m oft prone to do, I will just say that I would LOVE to see a blind man throw out a first pitch somewhere. That is all.
Kwon and Lee both have other jobs in broadcasting beyond the podcast. But that’s not the main source of income. All three men work either full or part-time as masseurs, too.
South Korean law, for decades, has given the visually impaired the exclusive right to work in the massage business (though some sighted masseurs have found loopholes to get into the market).
But Kwon says for many of Korea’s blind, it’s still the only job they can get.
“There aren’t many jobs here for the blind other than massage,” he says. “It’s the job we’re encouraged to pursue.”
That is crazy – you go blind and you have to spend the rest of your life givin’ rubdowns in massage parlors? Man, pure insanity. So, the next time you want to bitch and moan about how long it takes to complete a baseball game, think about the blind Koreans and check yo damn self you selfish butthole.
Stoney Keeley is the editor of the SoBros Network and covers the WWE for WrestlingNews.co. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley, @WrestlingNewsCo
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