This aerial photo taken Oct. 20, 2024, shows Gwangju-Kia Champion Field in Gwangju, some 270 kilometers south of Seoul, on the eve of Game 1 of the Korean Series between the home team Kia Tigers and the Samsung Lions. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
GWANGJU, Oct. 21 (Korea Bizwire) — This year’s Korean Series between the Kia Tigers and the Samsung Lions is a clash of two titans in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), bitter foes whose four-decade rivalry transcended the sport.
The Tigers are based in Gwangju, the heart of the liberal Honam region, and the Lions represent the southeastern city of Daegu, a conservative stronghold located in the Yeongnam region. Their battles in the 1980s were often waged against the backdrop of political tensions.
The KBO had its inaugural season in 1982, only two years after a pro-democracy uprising in Gwangju against the military junta led by Gen. Chun Doo-hwan. Chun, who is from the Yeongnam area, was president when the professional baseball league was launched, and the Tigers, then operated by the confectionery company Haitai, were among the original six clubs.
The Tigers won the 1983 Korean Series title and captured four consecutive titles from 1986 to 1989. With the memories of the bloody suppression of the Gwangju uprising still haunting people in Gwangju, the Tigers offered a perfect distraction. They became an institution and a source of civic pride in Gwangju.
The Lions mostly played second fiddle to the Tigers. They lost to the Tigers in the 1986 Korean Series in five games, and then got swept the following year. The two teams met again in 1993, when the Tigers won in seven games, with a tie included.
Whenever these two teams squared off in high-stakes games, the intensity of their rivalry often spilled into the stands, and none more so than during the 1986 Korean Series.
During Game 1 in Gwangju, the Lions were leading 2-0 through seven innings and pitcher Jin Dong-han was in the midst of a scoreless relief outing. But after the end of the bottom seventh, a Tigers fan threw a soju bottle at Jin, who was standing in front of the dugout, and it struck Jin on the head just after he had taken off his cap and was wiping sweat off his forehead.
The Lions were forced to replace the injured Jin, and they ended up losing the game 4-3 in extra innings.
The series shifted to Daegu for Game 3, with the teams tied at 1-1. Lions fans, convinced that Jin’s unfortunate head injury was the reason their team dropped the first game, got into some scuffles with Tigers fans inside and outside the stadium even before the game.
Things went further out of control after the Lions blew a 3-0 lead during the game. After the Tigers hit two home runs in the top third to tie the score at 3-3, empty soju bottles started raining down from the stands.
The Tigers scored three more times in the top seventh and held on for a 6-5 win. Angry and inebriated Lions fans then hurled more bottles, cans and plastic garbage bins onto the field.
A few minutes later, hundreds of fans came out of the stadium and took out their frustration at the Tigers’ team bus in the parking lot.
A few broke windows of the bus and one person is believed to have set curtains inside the bus on fire.
Firefighters couldn’t get past a human blockade and helplessly watched as the bus burned down. Police had to fire tear gas to disperse the mob.
The KBO called an emergency meeting that same night. League officials even considered moving Game 4 of the series to Seoul as a neutral venue, thinking it would be too dangerous to play more games in Daegu.
The league ultimately decided to keep the fourth game in Daegu and asked local police forces for additional security.
About 500 police officers were dispatched to the stadium for Game 4. But they could not stop another postgame riot, following the Lions’ 7-4 loss in 11 innings. Police once again resorted to tear gas.
These two teams clashed again in the 1987 Korean Series. Riots from the previous year were still fresh in the national consciousness, and political tensions between the Honam and Yeongnam regions reached a fever pitch. In light of nationwide democratic movements in June that year, conservative presidential candidate Roh Tae-woo accepted calls for a direct presidential election system, a decision known as the “June 29 declaration.” The presidential election, which Roh would win, was set for December, about two months after the Korean Series. Roh, a Daegu native, was up against Kim Dae-jung, a liberal candidate from South Jeolla Province in the Honam region.
On the baseball field, though, Daegu’s team once again lost to its Gwangju rival.
The Lions posted the best record in the regular season to grab a bye to the Korean Series, and boasted the league’s most lethal offense, too. The Tigers squeezed into the postseason and had to win a five-game series just to reach the Korean Series. They remain one of just two teams with a minus run differential during the regular season to play in a Korean Series.
But once the series began, the tables were turned.
The Tigers scored three runs in the top of the first en route to a 5-3 win in Game 1 in Daegu. They eked out a 2-1 win in the next game.
In Game 3 in Gwangju, the Tigers erased a 2-0 deficit for a 4-2 win. And they closed out the Lions with a 9-2 victory in Game 4, enjoying the first four-game sweep in Korean Series history. The 1987 Lions are still the only No. 1 seed to be swept in a Korean Series.
This was the Lions’ fourth appearance in the Korean Series and they had lost all four.
Rosters for both teams during this era were dotted with MVPs and All-Stars, including pitcher Sun Dong-yol, first baseman Kim Sung-han and third baseman Han Dae-hwa for the Tigers, and pitcher Kim Si-jin, catcher Lee Man-soo and outfielder Jang Hyo-jo for the Lions. They were synonymous with 1980s KBO baseball and all six of them were named to “KBO 40 Legends,” the league’s 40th anniversary team unveiled in 2022.
The Lions would lose another Korean Series in 1990, that time to the LG Twins. Their sixth loss came in 1993, at the hands of the Tigers.
It was a new era of their rivalry, as the first generation of stars on both sides gave way to new faces. In 1993, Yang Joon-hyuk of the Lions beat out Lee Jong-beom of the Tigers for the Rookie of the Year award, but Lee got the last laugh as the Korean Series MVP. The Tigers once again broke the Lions’ championship dreams by winning the final three games of the best-of-seven series.
The Tigers added Korean Series titles in 1996 and 1997, but the fates of the teams began to change at that point. Amid a foreign exchange crisis, Haitai Confectionery went bankrupt. The Tigers missed the postseason from 1998 to 2001, and underwent ownership change as Kia Motors took over.
The Lions, backed by the country’s biggest conglomerate, qualified for 12 consecutive postseasons from 1997 to 2008. All seven of their Korean Series titles have come in the 21st century, starting with the 2002 crown and followed by back-to-back titles in 2005 and 2006. They captured four titles in a row from 2011 to 2014, tying the 1986-1989 Tigers for the longest such streak.
The Tigers re-emerged as a force and won the 2017 Korean Series title, just when the Lions were rebuilding. And when the Lions returned to the postseason for the first time in six years in 2021, the Tigers didn’t qualify.
The 2024 Korean Series will be the first postseason meeting between these rivals since the 1993 Korean Series. The last time they even made the postseason together was 2011.
This year, the Tigers and the Lions finished 1-2 in the regular season, raising the possibility of a much-anticipated showdown in the Korean Series. The Tigers had the bye to the championship round, and their Korean Series clash materialized Saturday, when the Lions knocked off the LG Twins in four games in the best-of-five second round.
Will bottles be thrown? Will another bus be burned? Fans are far more civil now than 40 years ago and bottles are not permitted inside the stadium. And there hasn’t been any incident of fan violence in recent years.
But by the end of this Korean Series, one team’s championship dream will have been broken. It will either be the Tigers doing the Tigers thing by denying the Lions a title for the fourth time, or the Lions finally getting their revenge all these years later.
No matter how it ends, this has the makings of a fascinating series, sure to take older fans on a trip down memory lane and let younger fans watch a classic rivalry being renewed on the biggest stage.
(Yonhap)
