My work was handing out tickets to the World Baseball Classic, and I’m all about free tickets, so I of course opted in, even though I’m not what you would call a baseball fan.

I didn’t even know who was going to be playing tonight until I looked it up, a minute before hopping in the car. And like I mentioned earlier, I’m not what you might call a baseball fan, so I was a bit taken aback by the crazy fans. Honestly, I’d always thought of baseball as kind of sleepy, although I knew that wasn’t necessarily the case, having gone to one game with my former coworker Josh.

Yes. Fans kept up chants, Japan fans chanting “Nippon!” and Korean fans chanting, “Go Korea!” in Korean. Some brought drums, one guy behind us brought a pair of drumsticks he banged on the seats, and there were a LOT of flags. Knowing the Los Angeles has a huge Korean population, the stadium shook when Korea hit a homerun at the top of the fifth or sixth inning. But Japan’s fans weren’t too shabby, either. In fact, all the non-Asian people around me cheered for Japan.

There happened to be one guy behind us, to our left, who seemed to be going for team beer — really. One play, he’s doing the “Go Korea!” chant. Next inning, he’s chanting, “Nippon! Nippon!” Then, during a chant for Ichiro, he started chanting “Puerto Rico! Puerto Rico!” He apparently also got flack for wearing an A-Rod jersey. Another guy, sitting next to his girlfriend, who was sitting next to Trinity, got so emotional when Korea tied the score in the ninth inning, he started cursing and even said something along the lines of, “I told y’all n*ggas!” That snapped Trinity’s head around.

However, dude spoke too soon. Ichiro (pictured here from earlier in the game) buried Korea with a hit that yielded two runs. Korea’s team just couldn’t get any other runs in.

It was a fun night. I’d never been to a championship-type game before, and didn’t realize how nutty the fans could get. Now, I know better. :)

Check out the whole Flickr set here.