By Robert Neff
It is said that in 1905, Phillip Gillett, an American missionary working with the YMCA in Seoul, was the first to introduce baseball to Korea.
While he may have been the first to help form a Korean baseball team, the Hwangseong YMCA Baseball Team, and set up the first official Korean baseball match on Feb. 11, 1906, he was not the first to introduce baseball to Korea.
That honor belongs to the American military in 1896.
In the early part of 1896, Korea was anything but the “Land of the Morning Calm.” Queen Min had been assassinated by members of the Japanese legation and disgruntled Koreans. Several months after the assassination, King Gojong and Crown Prince Sunjong escaped to the Russian legation where they ran the government and struggled to quell the lawlessness that plagued not only the Korean interior but the very streets of Seoul.
Many of the foreign representatives, alarmed by the unrest, summoned detachments of sailors and Marines to protect their legations and citizens. The United States was no exception.
In the 1890s, there was little entertainment in Seoul. The foreign community, mainly made up of missionaries and diplomats, generally partook in quiet tea parties, tennis matches and, surprisingly enough, lectures on spiders and poetry given by the American representative to Korea, John Sills.
It is no wonder that when the American legation guard challenged the American residents of Seoul to a friendly baseball match it became the talk of the town.
The game took place at 2:30 in the afternoon on April 25 in a small field outside the West Gate. According to the American representative’s wife, Sallie, “almost everyone went.” But not all of the spectators were foreigners — there were several Koreans who watched the game “with a great deal of curiosity.”
The game was very close but the Marines prevailed with a score of 21-20. Afterwards a luncheon was served, much to the enjoyment of the Marines who were probably tired of their own cooking.
The game was such a success that another was played on May 3. Like the first one, it was attended by “several lady spectators” as well as a large part of the Western community. The Korean spectators had also grown in number — now they were described as a ” who “seemed to get some amusement out of the game.” Once again, the Marines won, this time thrashing the home team 17-11.
The Marines, now confident in their own ability and less than impressed with the American expat community’s baseball prowess, challenged the English legation guards to a game. The British readily accepted.
The local English-language newspaper, The Independent, advertised the event as a contest between the Americans and the English and promised it would be “an exciting match.”
At the appointed hour on May 9, a large group, including several Korean officials, gathered to watch the event. It appeared that almost the entire Western community was there — everyone, that is, except for the English legation guard.
For over an hour, the American team and the spectators waited but the English “did not find it convenient” to show up and so an impromptu game was set up between the American legation guard and the American expats. This time, the expats won with a score of 23-19.
Robert Neff is a contributing writer for The Korea Times.