Column
I Stayed Up All Night to Watch Korean Baseball Like a Real American
You can’t sleep on KBO if you’re as horny for sports as I have been
The pregame
Being a sports fan is its own form of voluntary jet lag. I live on the East Coast, so I know all about the NBA, the NFL, and Major League Baseball starting prime-time games too late and deliberately impinging upon my dad hours. On sportsless days, I’m in bed by 9:30 and asleep by 10. It keeps me beautiful. When sports are around, I violate that self-imposed curfew, because, like LeBron James, I will die for sports in general, which is neat, because American team owners are about to ask their players to do just that. But there haven’t been any sports around these parts for months now, and thus my sleep schedule has gone uninterrupted for the longest stretch of my middle age…
Until Saturday night.
On Saturday night, I resolved to stay up and watch the LG Twins and NC Dinos go at it in the Korea Baseball Organization. KBO began its season a week ago, with ESPN broadcasting the games live for a nominal rights fee. (The Worldwide Leader demanded the rights for free at first, and the KBO told them to go suck a used Covid mask.) I would watch this game. What’s more, I would watch it while…