오 필승 코리야!! Excuse me while I brag. . .

Ok, first of all I will brag that I have the most amazing wife in the whole world. Mimi is incredible. Saturday night, we were watching Korea beat Venezuela to advance to the World Baseball Classic final. I thought out loud (hoping for a yes answer), "what if we went to the final game to watch Korea play?" Mimi turns and says, "why not?"

So we researched some tickets and on Ebay found a good deal for tickets front row in the left field bleachers. The game started Monday night at 6:30 pm so we left Vegas around 1pm and arrived at 5. Now let me brag that we got to watch one of the greatest baseball games ever. Listen to what the sportswriters said:

"Here's what I saw Monday night: The players from Japan and Korea lined up on the dugout rail, from the first pitch to the last. Fans of each side clapping ThunderStix and chanting for four hours straight. . .

"Hitters running to first base after drawing walks like they had snatched some jewel from the hands of their enemies, and pitchers sprinting to the mound at the start of each inning as if they thought maybe they could sneak a strike over before the hitter stepped into the box.

Japanese left fielder Seiichi Uchikawa skidding to cut off a sharply hit ball in the corner later in the fifth, and then popping up and firing to nail Korean second baseman Young Min Ko at second base -- a play from start to finish I cannot imagine a single current major leaguer even attempting, let alone pulling off.

Japan collecting 13 singles and 15 total hits, but Korea making them strand 29 runners, twice stemming the tide with critical 5-4-3 double plays, the second of which featured a stout, quick turn and was, in the words of one of my colleagues in the press box, "a legitimate 180-footer like you almost never see."

Two strike-'em-out-throw-'em-out double plays, one by Korea in the fifth and one by Japan in the sixth.

Japan taking the lead four times and Korea battling back to tie the game on three separate occasions.

Guys in each dugout, in the heat of the battle, playing catch, as if they were too jacked to stand still.

People still coming into Dodger Stadium in the seventh and eighth innings, just for a glimpse of the action from the upper deck, like word had gotten out in Koreatown and Little Tokyo in Los Angeles about what was happening.

Ko laying out to stab a Hiroyuki Nakajima screaming liner with a runner on in the ninth to keep Korea within striking distance.

I didn't see a game so much as a happening, an event in which every moment, from the plays made in the field to the explosive cheers in the stands, felt charged with intense desire and fierce competition.

I hope you saw it too. I hope, like me, what you saw made you think the lingering questions about whether the WBC is here to stay seem silly. I hope, like me, what you saw made your worrying and wondering about what happened to Team USA and about why the U.S. has failed to win this tournament twice now seem entirely beside the point.

I hope you saw Japan 5, Korea 3 for what it was: A great night of baseball, a great night for baseball."

"We don't really have to watch the San Diego Padres after this, do we?"

"The old ballpark shook like this for Kirk Gibson and Steve Finley, for Fernando Valenzuela and Manny Ramirez, but those were moments. This went on from the first pitch to the last, four hours of joyful noise."

"Silence? Not for a second. Loud cheers for a sacrifice bunt, oohs and aahs for a pop fly, a deafening eruption for a home run."

"a once in-a-lifetime baseball game."

Korea ended up losing the game but it was seriously an unreal experience. One that I will brag about to anyone listening. The best baseball game I have ever been to (I wasn't at 2002 game 6 like Dad).

Also check out this article.
And this video.
And this video.