JoongAng: Oakland Sacramento Las Vegas The Athletics receive large investment from Team61, a group led by former great Chan-Ho Park, making him the first Korean to have a stake in a Major League Baseball team
If there were ever a more tailor-made story for me to want to write about, here it is. Much as the Dodgers have basically sold themselves to Glorious Nippon, it seems fitting that Korea is attempting to gain control over an MLB organization as well, with the team formerly known as the Oakland A’s, eventually going to be landing in Las Vegas one of these days.
But it’s not just the simple fact that Koreans are entwining themselves with an MLB team, it’s who. Led by the ultimate Korean pioneer into MLB history, Chan-Ho Park, the first Korean-born player to make it in Major League Baseball, and his investment group Team61, Park once again finds himself making firsts in MLB, becoming the first Korean to have ownership stakes in an MLB team.
Obviously it’s completely relevant to mention all of his baseball statistics and serves as more than adequate justification to why he is qualified to become a part-owner in an entire club, but it’s not just Park that makes this whole thing so entertaining to me.
Among the other names that comprise of Team61, are notable Korean celebrities, such as Suga from BTS and actor Daniel Dae Kim, but the one that really got me, aside from Chan-Ho Park, was comedian/actor Ken Jeong. Like, I love Dr. Ken as much as anyone else, but it’s just hilarious and tickles me to think of the notion of him having anything to do with the ownership of an MLB team. But Koreans like making money, and it doesn’t seem like there’s any easier way to make money these days than with investments, and all four of these members of the Korean Avengers probably aren’t hurting for capital, and good on them to get in with sports franchise ownership, which has proven to be as endlessly inflating as much as gas prices.
I really wish there were a good photograph of the four Korean Avengers together, all wearing A’s jerseys, but in the spirit of timeliness I can’t find any. So the one with Park, Jeong and some generic looking bald old white guys whom I’m assuming one is John Fisher, the hated owner of the team, will have to suffice, for now.
All the same, whilst I will remaining rooting and being a shitty worst fan ever for the Barves of my city of residence, if there were ever a time for me to be a real shittier and worst-er fan ever and pledge a modicum of allegiance to another team, it’s time to become an A’s fan. Not that I had any beef with them in the first place, I just never cared about their existence, until now.
Future A’s vs. Dodgers games are about to become lit, and hopefully being in Las Vegas one day will make it really easy for the A’s to book Korean hotties to throw out first pitches, and combined with his degenerate gambling addiction, absolutely cripple Ohtani and his teammates whenever they take the field against my new team.
