Toward the post-Westernization of baseball? The national-regional-global nexus of Korean Major League Baseball fans during the 2006 World Baseball Classic

Abstract

This study investigates the multiplicity of South Korean Major League Baseball fans, with a focus on the tensions that they experience under the nationalistic aura surrounding MLB fandom while pursuing their individual hobby. For this purpose, it employs the idea of "post-Westernization" to interpret baseball as a global sport and examine its recent popularity in South Korea. By exploring the activities and voices of an online community among Korean fans, it demonstrates how national desires were complicated when they collided with a global strategy during the first World Baseball Classic in 2006. Analysis of Korean MLB fans during the WBC indicates both the possibilities and the limits of global baseball as a case of post-Westernization. The study shows that becoming an MLB fan in South Korea is at the intersection of national identity (nationalist fervor for MLB), regional rivalry (against Japan, the former colonizer) and global sensibilities (American sport fandom). Korean fans' responses can be summarized as the national-regional-global nexus in which they perceive the existence of regional and global hierarchies, but they also routinely contest their own and each others' perceptions. Finally, it suggests that fans' articulation of the national, regional, and global are far from being fixed or unidirectional: they are constantly under construction.

Not America’s Game: The Globalization and Post-Westernization of Women’s Baseball

“…Of course, without explicitly stating it, both Kelly and Cho are writing about men's baseball and the power structure dominated by MLB. Cho (2016) later engages with Rumford's (2007) idea of post-Westernization to examine the 2006 World Baseball Classic, a global tournament conceived and sponsored by MLB held every 4 years. He suggests that strong performances by the East Asian teams and high levels of fan interest in those countries revealed East Asia as an emerging "powerhouse in global baseball" (p. 758) and signaled that baseball is no longer simply a vestige of American cultural imperialism.…”

“…He further contends that “baseball has many local vernaculars of a single dominant language, and that is the dominant language of U.S. baseball” (p. 190), suggesting that the corporate imperatives of the American professional game drive its development elsewhere. Likewise, Cho (2016) notes that baseball has been “a symbol of American hegemony” even as it has attempted to globalize (p. 754), as MLB leverages the nationalist fervor of local fans to expand its market and increase it revenues. Of course, without explicitly stating it, both Kelly and Cho are writing about men’s baseball and the power structure dominated by MLB.…”

“…Drawing on these points, Cho (2016) identifies the potential for post-Westernization in baseball via shifting articulations of national, regional, and global fandom, but Butterworth (2010) contends that the goal of the World Baseball Classic focuses on “recentering the United States as the world’s most important nation, equally ‘indispensable’ to international relations and international baseball” (p. 155). W.…”

“…These critiques of MLB and its use of a superficial rhetoric of globalization point to the league’s drive for profit and corporate control, as it remains the desired destination for aspiring players even as it exploits and diminishes localized talent. So perhaps the verdict on post-Westernization in men’s baseball is not yet clear—Cho (2016) sees promise for shifting power relations, but other observers note the entrenched and unrelenting structural power of American baseball as epitomized by MLB.…”

“…After historicizing the globalization of women's baseball through three brief vignettes, I employ the idea of post-Westernization as explained by Rumford (2007) and applied to men's baseball by Cho (2016) to scaffold an examination of the diffusion and growth of women's baseball. I contend that contemporary women's baseball is best read as an example of post-Westernization, which sets it apart from its male counterpart still largely defined and controlled by the singular entity of Major League Baseball (MLB) based in New York City.…”