choi

VOLUME 1 | ISSUE 12

SPORTS

Choi to The World

by Bill Ellison

Take me out to the ball game. America's favorite pastime. Our national sport. Yes baseball, so American that it seems you have to be born in a foreign country in order to play it anymore. Go figure.

So there I was at Wrigley Field on May 7, when the Topps® 2001 Hee Seop Choi rookie card would be passed out to the first 20,000 fans. It was the last value day of the year, when prices are almost affordable again. The bleacher tickets go for $12. That's half off from the regular home price of $24 and nowhere near the prime home-game price of $30. The only trouble with bleacher seats on a baseball card day is that they don't give the cards out in the bleachers. I don't know why. They probably figure that the fans will just fling them out on the field like a Kung Fu throwing star, aiming for the opposing outfielder's jugular. Either that or the cards would just get soaked with beer and left for naught in the chilly afternoon sun.

It was me, my wife Renata, my buddy Paul Six and his buddy Windel. Our main reason for our going on that day was to get a Choi card. (Paul Six had dubbed the day "Choi Fest.") You see, this season my wife and I have unofficially adopted Hee Seop Choi. Last year it was Roosevelt Brown. It was just a good name to chant; "Roosevelt...Roosevelt Brown!" Well, Roosevelt is gone this season so Renata "adopted" Hee Seop Choi. She keeps referring to him as our "stepchild." I counter with "foster child" or "player to root for."

I made a sign to hold up at the game. It was about three by four feet in size and had the Korean flag on the upper part with the slogan "Choi to the World" beneath it. When we settled down at the start of the game, we saw that Choi wasn't even playing.

"That's not fair,"Renata shouted, "It's stupid to not let him play on his day."
I tried t o explain that they were only giving out his baseball card that day. It wasn't a special day dedicated to him, as if he had Hee Seop Choi's disease and had to retire, saying in his farewell speech: "Today, I feel like the luckiest 6'5 Korean in the world.

No. It was just a baseball card, not worth changing team strategy. Choi's a lefty and Milwaukee's pitcher that day was a southpaw, so right-hander Karros was playing first. Whatever.

By the seventh inning, the game was going well. The Cubs held the lead, yet still no sign of Hee Seop Choi. The rolled-up banner lay at my feet. The temperature started to drop. I reached toward my inner breast pocket for my flask. The day's choice was brandy. A few quick belts and it was time for the seventh inning stretch. Choi or not, it was time to hold up the sign. Renata and I each took an end and held it up while singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." Not a Choi in sight.

We decided to grab some seats in the sun on the lower level so we headed down in the eighth. Milwaukee made a pitching switch, so, lo and behold, in came Hee Seop Choi. Up went the sign.

After the final out - Cubs win - we stood on the seats and held up the banner again as the crowd filed out around us. The players were all shaking hands on the field and heading for the dugout. Would Hee Seop see the sign? He never looked our way. Finally, as we stepped down from our perches and began rolling up the banner, a reporter from a Korean radio station approached us, complete with a tape recorder and microphone. After a brief introduction he asked if he could interview us. We gladly consented.

"Why a Korean flag? he asked.

"Because he's Korean," I said, straight-faced. Paul Six threw in "Because it's easier to draw than an Australian flag."

"What do you mean, Choi to the World?"

I tried to explain the song "Joy to the World", but it didn't sink in. The reporter merely explained that Choi isn't really pronounced the way we all say it. It sounds more like a staccato version of "Chaw." Either way, we thanked him, took his card, I took another swig from my flask and called it a day.

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