Ulsan's 1st multicultural youth baseball team helps kids find their place

ULSAN — “Okay, this time, pretend you’ve hit a ground ball and run all the way to first base! I’ll roll the ball, and Team B will play defense!”

“Which one is Team A?”

“Why are you wearing someone else’s glove? You’re supposed to step on the base! Is that how you do it or not?”

“Nooo!”

“Everyone, focus! Focus! Keep your eyes forward and run!”

It is supposed to be a practice session, but the coach seems to be getting the most exercise. The players’ faces are full of smiles, and as soon as their turn is over, they quickly find something else to do. Every now and then, even a coach joins in the mischief before getting a scolding from the head coach.

They are still learning to tell a strike from a ball. But when someone manages a rare hit, everyone knows exactly what to do.

“Good job!”

“Nice!”

In one corner of the field, meanwhile, one batter practices swinging with surprising seriousness, as if determined to make every attempt count.

“Still, this year’s new members are pretty good at baseball. And since it’s the second semester, they’re less awkward around one another, too.”

There was a hint of pride in writer Seo Jin-young’s greeting as she watched the first practice session of the second half of the year at Daehyeon Elementary School in Nam Distric, Ulsan, Sept. 6. Seo had recently published a book about SWINGS, Ulsan’s first multicultural youth baseball team, and had come to the field to give copies to the children.

“I was expecting more,” this reporter replied.

But even to this reporter who knows little about baseball, the players looked, well, a little clumsy.

How much more chaotic had things been when they started?

Seo laughed.

“My nephew plays elite baseball at a middle school. I’ve watched a lot of students play, and they’re all incredibly good. But when I first met these kids a year ago …”

It was hard not to wonder what had turned a writer with a front-row view of youth baseball into such an enthusiastic fan of SWINGS.

Police officer, social worker join forces

The team was officially founded in 2014, but the idea dates back to 2011.

At the time, Officer Oh Joo-won of the Foreign Affairs Division at Ulsan Nambu Police Station — now a senior police inspector at Ulsan Jungbu Police Station — approached Lee Sang-min, then an assistant manager at the Ulsan Nam District Social Welfare Center and now its department head.

Ulsan, an industrial city, was seeing a rapid increase in multicultural families, with concerns also growing over adjustment difficulties and delinquency among children from multicultural backgrounds.

Oh believed that participating in a team activity could help children develop a sense of belonging and learn to work together. Lee agreed.

Few team sports require as much equipment as baseball. Its rules are also relatively complicated compared with football or basketball.

So why baseball?

Because Oh liked it.

He had spent years playing and coaching for the police station’s baseball club, Nambu Cops. His cousin, Oh Chang-sik, was a former player for the OB Bears, now known as the Doosan Bears.

Lee, who had previously run a youth soccer team, figured that if children could learn football, they could learn baseball, too.

The first SWINGS roster included 20 elementary school students from 10 countries and multicultural families: Mongolia, the United States, Vietnam, Egypt, Japan, China, Canada, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey and Korea.

Although baseball has traditionally been viewed as a predominantly male sport, the founders wanted girls to be included as well. If SWINGS was going to be a multicultural team, they believed, there should be no reason to separate children by gender.

Lotte Fine Chemical came on board as a sponsor.

All they needed to do now was play some baseball.

That turned out to be easier said than done.

Short on practice, even shorter on experience

Most of the children had arrived because their parents brought them along. Many barely knew what baseball was.

Thinking that getting them interested mattered more than teaching them the game right away, the coaches started with teeball. Even with the ball sitting still on a tee, however, the children repeatedly swung and missed.

When they occasionally played friendly games, losing by double-digit margins was common.

As the adults grew increasingly frustrated, the children became upset, too.

Oh and Lee knew that two hours of practice every Sunday morning were not enough.

SWINGS did not have a dedicated field, and for years, its practice location changed frequently, meaning parents had to drive their children from one place to another.

For many multicultural families, however, Saturdays were working days for parents. Once-a-week practice was often the best they could manage.

That put SWINGS in a very different position from ordinary youth baseball teams, including recreational squads that typically practice two or three times a week.

But the team had never been created simply to win.

When Oh took over as head coach in 2016, succeeding the team’s first coach, Oh Chang-sik, he adopted a simple philosophy: “Enjoy it together and take responsibility.”

That is also why the 13-year-old team does not even have the kind of elaborate fight song commonly associated with sports teams.

“As you saw earlier, they can’t even properly do the ‘one, two, three’ count during stretching,” Oh said. “I try not to put too much pressure on the kids like that. Instead, we just shout, ‘SWINGS, fighting!’ as loudly as we can.”

From ‘multicultural students’ to baseball players

Little by little, the children improved.

They began to get a rough sense of their positions, with some even looking distressed and asking to switch.

Older players started passing their baseball know-how down to younger teammates, although there were occasional moments when a senior player would bark at a younger one for doing something wrong.

As some players wanted to keep playing even after aging out of the youth baseball program at 12, SWINGS created a student coach system.

Then came a breakthrough.

In 2022, SWINGS won a friendly tournament against two other youth baseball teams.

One of the most memorable moments came when Ban-seok, a player once regarded as the team’s “weak link,” made a sliding catch to record the final out.

Oh still remembers another moment involving Min-sung.

“When I ask Min-sung to play catcher, he comes up with all kinds of excuses because he doesn’t want to do it,” Oh said with a laugh. “But one day, without anyone even teaching him, he tried to throw out a runner stealing a base. That’s when I feel a real thrill.”

The changes, however, have gone far beyond the baseball field.

Being treated not as a “multicultural student” but simply as a baseball player has helped the children build a stronger sense of self-worth.

The most important rule at practice is also clear: no profanity and no racial discrimination.

“Kids like Da-eun are good students, too. When the children mature through their time with SWINGS, it can help change how people view multicultural families.”

Oh’s pride in his players seems endless.

Parents, too, say they can relax when they come to a SWINGS game or practice.

Nobody looks twice even if they speak in their native language. They can also exchange information about employment opportunities — information that can be difficult to find through Korean-only community networks.

Jo Jae-young, whose three sons all graduated from SWINGS, took the initiative in forming a parents’ association and served as its president for 10 years.

“I didn’t like the idea that people assumed multicultural families should simply be given support,” Jo said. “I wanted to do something, even if it was just making sure the kids had snacks.”

Hundreds of ‘children’ over hundreds of Sundays

“That boy is on the waiting list, so he’s wearing another child’s uniform.”

Assistant manager Ahn Kyung-ho, who was filling water bottles for the players, explained the situation to this reporter.

Ahn joined the project earlier this year at the welfare center, taking over from his senior colleague Lee, who had become a department head and could no longer run the program directly.

Asked about his plans, Ahn offered a simple answer, “My advantage is that I’m closer in age to the players than the department head is.”

Lee, standing nearby, burst out laughing.

Had his family ever complained about him giving up his Sundays?

“I felt sorry toward my wife and two children because I was doing this work without even getting overtime pay,” he admitted. “In fact, I delayed my promotion to department head as long as I could. I only took the position earlier this year.”

Even after stepping back from the front line, Lee still puts on a uniform and joins practice about once a month.

He says it feels like visiting children who have grown up and left home.

More than 600 Sundays have passed.

Not all of them have been happy ones.

One player discovered a talent for baseball at SWINGS and prepared to enter an elite middle school baseball program, only to lose the opportunity when his father lost his job.

Another child, as passionate about baseball as anyone, fell into delinquent behavior after his parents divorced.

A few years ago, a player lost control of a bat during batting practice, seriously injuring a teammate in the face.

‘Just build us one baseball field’

Despite everything, the adults involved say there are countless things they still want to accomplish through SWINGS.

Oh, now a senior police inspector, has set his sights on creating a recreational baseball program for children in the region before he retires in six years.

Lee, meanwhile, has long shared SWINGS’ progress on social media and dreams of the day he can finally stop using the hashtag: #JustBuildOneYouthBaseballFieldInUlsan

The two men even indulge in another dream: seeing a professional baseball player emerge from SWINGS.

Seo, who has published several books about local communities, said she came away from the project believing SWINGS might be an ideal example of what “local” can mean.

The team was not a specially designed cultural program or built around a single celebrated figure. Instead, it has gradually developed its own identity by connecting with the local community, one practice and one child at a time.

“I didn’t want to define SWINGS as just one thing,” Seo said. “That’s why I titled the book 'There’s Something About SWINGS.'”

When the day’s practice ended with an in-house game between the two sides, the children suddenly became as well-mannered as if their earlier mischief had never happened. They removed their caps and bowed to one another.

Then Oh began handing out copies of Seo’s book.

“Next week, instead of practice, we’re having a book talk.”

Chaos erupted again.

“What’s a book talk?”

“Hey, your name is in here!”

“Am I in the story, too?”

“That picture is so funny!”

From across the field, student coach Seon-woo shouted at the younger players:

“Start by putting the equipment away!”

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.