Going to game in Korea isn't complete without cheer squads, players' songs

SEOUL -- “L-A Dod-gers, Jason Heyward! Ahn-tah, home-run, Jason Heyward! Ahn-tah, home-run, Jason Heyward!”

Well, if Jason Heyward hadn’t heard his name sung melodically around an instrumental interlude -- on repeat -- he sure has now. And so have all of his teammates, who each had their own songs recorded and piped through large speakers at the base of Sections 104 and 105 at the Gocheok SkyDome, as entire sections of fans rose to their feet to sing, dance and clap along.

Welcome to the world of Korean baseball, where that’s the norm in terms of the gameday experience for fans and players. The goal is to give MLB players and fans a personalized taste of that culture, said Myung-Sip Oh, the bright-faced gentleman who served as the Dodgers’ “cheermaster,” in a Korean-language interview with MLB.com following the Dodgers’ 14-3 exhibition win over the Kiwoom Heroes on Sunday.

• Everything you need to know about the Seoul Series

“Just like how K-pop is popular, I have some hope that this sort of K-cheering culture gains some international recognition, too,” Oh said. “Much like how the cheering we had in the World Cup became famous, you see it in Taiwan now, too -- how they're making an effort to adopt our cheering style, or so I hear. With this Seoul Series, maybe they see this new way of cheering and hope that they get a feeling for something new like this.”

Let’s set the scene here.

There are two dueling “cheer squads,” set on platforms in front of fan sections down the left- and right-field lines, matching the orientations of the teams in the third- and first-base dugouts. When it’s their team’s turn to play defense, fans and cheerleaders alike will sit down and wait their turn.

But when it’s their team’s turn to hit, fans get to their feet and the cheerleaders will take their positions. On Sunday, each team in both exhibitions had a cheermaster leading a team of four cheerleaders, with the Dodgers’ cheerleaders -- borrowed from the KBO’s Hanwha Eagles -- wearing matching crop tops and white shorts, and a drummer taking his position at a large bass drum.

When the Heroes came up to bat in the first inning, the entire section broke out in a choreographed song that went through the entire starting lineup, one through nine. Considering the Gocheok SkyDome is the Heroes’ home stadium, they were well-represented in the stands, with fans readily following along to all the individualized songs that played whenever a Heroes player would step to the plate.

“In the KBO, when your team is up to bat, there's always music and singing,” Oh said. “After having done games with the KBO in that style, we prepared to cheer on the Dodgers in that fashion, too.”

On the Dodgers’ side, fans obviously didn’t know players’ songs by heart (those songs didn’t even exist), so the cheermasters -- organized by a company called CHEERKINGKOREA -- had to come up with a plan.

At first, there was some thought of having lyric-less music for fans to follow, but that would have sounded weird, they thought, so Oh said there was a 48-hour scramble in the days leading into Sunday’s exhibition to record all of the music. To help fans follow along, they used existing music for certain active KBO players and replaced their names with those of the Dodgers.

“Gavin Lux, whoa-oh-oh-oh,” the crowd sang together on repeat.

“L-A-Dod-gers, da-da da-da-da Will Smith!” they later sang as they quickly caught on with Will Smith at the plate. (By the way, in Korean, "Smith" is pronounced in three syllables.)

“L-A-Dod-gers, Free-man ahn-tah, whoa-oh-oh-oh,” they’d later sing on repeat with Freddie Freeman at the plate.

“Ahn-tah” means “base hit” in Korean, by the way. Most of these songs and chants revolve around asking for hits and home runs from hitters. As each pitch is delivered, the four cheerleaders face the field and extend their left hands toward home plate and their right hands straight up in anticipation.

At times, the cheermasters have to improvise.

Oh had to do a lot of that on Sunday, when he and his team had to deal with the piped-in recordings of organs and clapping patterns, as would be played between pitches during games in the United States.

It didn’t help that he ran into audio issues at the start with his microphone and speakers not working at full power while those audio interludes would interrupt him, so he had to improvise by yelling and adapting chants around those patterns.

Clap, clap, clap-clap-clap, “Free-man, ahn-tah!”

Amusingly, when Shohei Ohtani would come to the plate, that cheer would turn into the following:

Clap, clap, clap-clap-clap, “Oh-tani, home-run!”

Same pattern, different expectations. You know, because he’s Ohtani.

Amazingly, at the end of nine innings, Oh was still on his feet and had a voice, simply smiling when asked how he mustered up all that energy.

“Well, when you're up in front of the fans, you have no choice!” Oh said.

“The environment, atmosphere was great,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “A lot of energy tonight, certainly on their side. We're not used to having cheerleaders during games. So that was exciting for everyone. Just seemed like everyone kept their energy up throughout the whole night.”

Especially Oh. As the audio kinks got worked out and his speakers grew to full power, he and the fans eventually got caught up in their personalized music to the point where they could drown out and power through the American-style stadium audio interludes, singing as one voice in the ninth inning.

Come Opening Day on Wednesday, they’re hoping to put on a full, polished display of what it means for an MLB team to be cheered on in the Korean style.

“The games are in Korea, so we want to help them understand that there's this sort of culture here,” Oh said. “I hope the players have fun with it. And in the future, maybe some of them will get to a point where they'll want to play in the KBO, thinking, ‘Oh, this is a really fun environment, and I want to be cheered on like this.’ I hope that comes across well to them.”