What is your image about baseball? Is it still boring and uninteresting, or a sport that totally turns you on? Sooktrike is a newly born club which was made just last year, but the members’ passion to baseball isn’t a shallow one. The Sookmyung Times (SMT) met the two principles of Sooktrike (First principle Son Hyunjung, and the second principle Song Youngeun) and the interview went like a pleasant chat.
SMT What kind of activities run in Sooktrike? Can you explain in detail?
SOOKTRIKE The main activity is watching baseball games, of course. At the beginning of the semester, we gather together and choose 5 or 6 most interesting games that we are going to watch that year. We decide it by majority vote. Since our goal of making this club was to equally cheer eight baseball teams, we try to go various kinds of teams’ games and cheer for each one. Also, from this year, we are having regular meetings about twice a month. In this meeting, we discuss about the way we can promote baseball to women, the right future of Korean baseball, and so on. Actually, from this year, we are going to pick one pro-baseball team and be the sports marketers for it. So we are preparing some projects. Since we were made just last year, we haven’t been to MT (Membership Training), yet. However, from this year, we are planning to visit Busan Sajik Baseball Stadium as a one night, two days MT.
SMT It is true that many women like watching baseball, but there are still many who don’t like baseball. What kind of chance made you like watching baseball? Also, what is the interesting part of baseball?
SOOKTRIKE It is certainly true that the number of women who like watching baseball has increased rapidly! When we go to watch baseball games, the ratio of men and women is like 6 to 4. It seems it has increased more and more. At first, we were women who thought baseball is just boring and a game that went over our heads. However, we became big fans after we visited a baseball game just once. We both went there by our acquaintances’ strong recommendation (one is friend and one is father). We were just amazed at the baseball game. To some people, baseball’s long game time is boring, but to fans, the possibility of a comeback lies anytime. It makes baseball games thrilling. The other interesting part is cheering! There is a certain cheer song and cheering performance for each team. For example, Lotte Giants fans are famous for wearing plastic bags on their heads. Wearing the plastic bag is not only for cheering, but also for cleaning the stadium after the game. We scream and sing at the baseball stadium and all of our stress just goes away. When people who don’t like baseball experience this thrilling amusement just once, we are sure they will be the fans of baseball, also.
SMT I heard that your club is very popular, and that there are almost 30 applicants. It seems Sooktrike runs really well, but is there any problem or comments you want to say?
SOOKTRIKE Actually, we are not an official university-approved club, yet. If we want to be the official approved club, we need an advisor professor. However, it is hard to find professors who can be advisors for us. We hope we can find one professor soon, and become an official university-approved club. That’s the only thing we are hoping right now.
