Baseball fans help grieving American

Paul Vogel poses with a KT Wiz jersey signed by players.
/ Courtesy of Paul Vogel

By Patrick Bourgo

Paul Vogel, despite never having been to Korea, is a huge Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) fan and supporter of the KT Wiz, the league's newest team. Living in Arizona, he stays up late many nights to watch his team in action.

One morning in early June, he heard a knock on his door and it was UPS delivering a package from Korea. "It felt kind of like Christmas to be honest," Vogel said. "I got a fairly large box from somewhere on the other side of the planet, it was pretty cool."

In April of this year, Paul's older brother Jeremy passed away. And while Paul is no stranger to adversity -- at only 28 years old he is already a cancer survivor -- the loss of his brother was a devastating blow. A baseball fan in his youth, he decided to return to the sport to help him get through his grief, though it was not Major League Baseball (MLB) that he turned to, it was Korean baseball.

In the package he received was some gear from his favorite team, the KT Wiz, sent to him by a couple KBO fans in Korea.

While he was happy to receive the KT merchandise, the sentiment behind it meant much more to him.

"It was nice to know that people, even though you've never met in person and you may not even know someone that well, it's nice to know that some people are actually nice, especially on the Internet. So it was a pretty cool experience to see that so many people took part and contributed."

Vogel recognizes that his interest in the KBO might sound a little strange, but, "what makes it so enjoyable to me, is that every game, both teams seem like they have a pretty good chance of winning. I don't know. I just love it."

Looking for an outlet after his brother's passing, Vogel recalls, "like a week and a half, two weeks after the funeral I had remembered seeing a (Korean baseball) video on YouTube a year or two ago."

From there he began to search for more videos and information on the league, and ultimately found MyKBO.net, an English-language fan site devoted to the KBO.

After spending some time on the site, he joined the Facebook group and started posting, mostly questions at first trying to learn more about the league. "Well, everybody in the group was really nice to me when I joined and that helped," said Vogel.

It was on this message board that Paul got to know Andre Linde and Matthew Care, two rabid KBO fans living in Korea, and the ones who had sent him the KT merchandise.

Linde grew up in Oregon and came to Korea in 2010. He is a fan of the Incheon-based SK Wyverns and has followed baseball since his youth.

Care also came to Korea in 2010, but being a native of England, he is a more recent baseball convert. "I properly got into baseball around the middle of 2010 when I started going to Lotte Giants games down in Busan." These two became friends in Korea and frequently attend games together.

After hearing about Paul's situation, Linde immediately wanted to do something for him. "In 2011 my dad passed away in November and I had to wake up to that news and that was pretty crappy news to wake up to, and so that was honestly one of the reasons I wanted to do this for him, because I know what it's like to lose a member of your direct family."

Understanding the sensitivity of the situation, but also knowing that Vogel had expressed an interest in wanting to buy some KBO merchandise, Linde decided to first approach him with the idea of collecting some money and buying something for him.

After receiving Vogel's consent, Linde put up a post in the group seeing if anyone would like to pitch in some money to buy a jersey, and immediately a number of members in the group contributed, including Care.

After purchasing the jersey, Care decided to try to reach out to one of KT's players. He sent a message to Chris Oxspring, an Australian and a five year veteran of the KBO, currently a pitcher for the KT Wiz, Vogel's favorite team. "I was honestly just expecting no reply, but then Chris sent an email back within like 20 minutes."

Care brought the jersey to the stadium and met Oxspring before the game. Instead of just signing the jersey though, he got all of his teammates to sign it for Vogel, and added a few baseballs signed by KT players as well.

When asked about his motivation to contribute, Oxspring replied, "Personal reasons. When I heard why, you know, like he had a brother that passed away and stuff like that, you know that kind of touched a nerve with me, so I was willing to help out."

The KT pitcher continued, "Sometimes just the smallest gesture can mean so much to some people. You know he was looking for a new avenue to gain some enjoyment in life and to take his mind off the problems that were going on around home, so for me it was not a difficult thing to do."

While Vogel knew that Care and Linde were sending a jersey, the autographs and baseballs were totally unexpected. "Yeah, absolutely I was surprised and excited. It's cool to think that people that you like watching play a game every day, so many of them take a second to sign something for you ... it was pretty cool," said Vogel.

In addition, when packing up the gear, instead of using bubble wrap Care and Linde decided to pack it with some popular Korean snacks figuring, "let's also give him a taste of Korea."

This personal touch was not lost on Vogel. "Instead of using packing material and stuff, they used like bags of candy and stuff and different snacks, which were all delicious and helped."

He continued, "Everyone involved really went above and beyond, and they really deserve some recognition." But for Care and Linde, they are just "happy that something we did is helping him get through a tough time."

Linde, Care and Oxspring have stayed in touch with Vogel and all of them have expressed a desire in seeing him make it out to Korea, and especially get to a KT Wiz game. Unfortunately, due to the realities of life, visiting Korea anytime soon is a long shot for Vogel. "Hopefully someday I will (visit Korea), but it's more of a life goal, than one that's achievable right now."

While Vogel is still dealing with his loss, he says "This whole experience has really only made me want to go to Korea that much more." Adding, "I even started learning a little Korean."

Patrick Bourgo is a Seoul-based baseball researcher and writer. Follow him on Twitter: @kballhistory.