I’ve never seen a circle-hop.
Korean baseball takes violence very seriously. By hopping around like that, the players avoid automatic fines and suspensions.
I can’t believe I managed to type that out without laughing. I’m pretty certain it’s just a joke, as evidenced by the watching players laughing at the end of the clip.
I’ll also point out that in the long shots and in the final scene of the watching players the stands seem to be completely empty. Looks staged to me.
That’s a common schoolyard game. Two combatants hop on one foot like you see in the clip and try to knock the other to the ground or out of the ring formed by on-lookers.
In the context of a baseball players, I’d guess it’s a less-violent way to resolve conflicts that Americans would resolve with fists.
They start hopping at one another long before the ring forms. And everyone is hopping, not just the pitcher and catcher.
I have absolutely zero certifiable evidence, but that can’t be real. Or if it is, it’s a joke between the two players or teams.
Thank you for my daily “WTF”.
Yeah, I know. I’m just trying to give the cultural context of what they’re doing. They’re not really playing the schoolyard game, but their actions are referring to it. So it’s not a staged event, it’s Korean men challenging each other in a way similar to how Korean boys do in a schoolyard. Juvenile and light-hearted, but still displaying real aggression.
Hmm… I don’t know. If you see some of the congressional sessions in Korea, they don’t hesitate to fight it out with fists. I’m leaning toward joke here.
Side question: do they not do that game in the US as children? I remember doing it quite a bit when I was little, but I ‘imported’ many Korean games to my elementary school so maybe that’s why.
Is it possible that there’s some superstion thing going on? Like, guy gets beaned, everybody must hop on one foot until pitcher falls down or something.
I now finally understand the meaning of the term, “hopping mad”.
Though I think now that “mad” has a different meaning than I originally thought.
Yes, I noticed that, too. But it apparently is raining, and maybe it was some kind of exhibition game, with low turnout. And the other players don’t really seem to be laughing, just satisfied that their guys apparently “won.”
Still, whether joke or not, it’s pretty funny to watch. It only happens when the pitcher hits the batter, which is often, in the U.S., seen as a deliberately aggressive thing for a pitcher to do. So maybe it’s a way of de-escalating the situation but still “taking offense.”
Are you sure it wasn’t the Taiwan congress you were watching?
I’ve heard about their congress sessions too, but no, this was Korea. I don’t think it happens very often, but it was a little startling to see.
I’m still going with joke, but next time I talk to my baseball obsessed cousin in Korea I’ll ask him about it.
Looking at the replay, the pitch looked more like a soft overhand lob rather than a real pitch.
On Japanese TV, it’s not uncommon to see comedy-variety shows filmed inside the Tokyo Dome when the Giants aren’t in town. The comedians are usually in mock uniforms and are doing something baseball-related, including playing a straight game but with random silly rules added in (TV comedy here really splurges on the writing budget). Hopping on one leg seems about the level of humor most of them shoot for. This could be something similar.
I’m with Sublight on the pitch. Whether or not it invokes the idea of a schoolyard game, this scene was a setup.
I was expecting the two “combatants” to pull off their cleats and smack each other in the heads with them.
“Baseball à cloche-pied”
Translation anyone?
If thats the way they fight - no wonder the stands are empty
“cloche-pied” = “hopping”
Now surely you’re not calling those committee meetings you see in MLB a real fight?