Tag: motherland

Parent Triggered

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

One of the things that I learned throughout my 30’s is to metaphorically not keep score with so many things in life.  Because life is not as fair as we’d all like it to be, and so very rarely is a perfect 50/50 balance, no matter how logical and equal people think they should be.

For example, say I meet up with a friend, and I pick up the check for a $40 dinner, and the next time we get together, they pay for a $20 lunch at Willy’s.  I could be a prick and mentally ledger that they still need to pay out another $20 for us to be even, or I can just appreciate the sheer reciprocity and be content that I’m getting one of my favorite foods for free.  Frankly, I’d rather do the latter than try to keep score.

My mom and I were talking about Korean politics way back when, back when Moon Jae-In had successfully reached through to the insane neighbors up north and made some massive ground in diplomacy.  Naturally, we were both dubious that anything was really going to progress beyond some monumental photographs, but her stance was that there was no way that the north was going to play nice enough for anything substantial to happen because there was no way that they were going to give anywhere close to equal what the south would have to give.

I explained that this was an instance where expecting fairness was never going to amount to anything, and that this was a prime example of where a 50/50 split just wasn’t plausible.  There are just some times in life where it might have to be 55/45 or even 65/35 in order for progress to be made, and sure it’s not fair, it’s not equal, but sometimes it takes one party to be bigger in order for progress to happen.

It’s like playing any variant of Civilization, like whenever India comes knocking on the door and you have Gandhi asking you for a king’s ransom’s worth of knowledge and technology, and refusing him results in him literally declaring nuclear war.  It’s not fair and it’s not equal that he’s asking for a 70/30 relationship, but when that 30 is the survival of your civilization, you still come out of the agreement knowing you made the right call.

You just can’t expect to live life thinking that everything is always going to equal out and everything is going to be fair, because it most certainly never will be, and thinking that will, only leads to frustration, angst and heartache.

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Nope.  Never saw it coming

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Four games.  That’s all it took for the 2020 Major League Baseball season to have its first cancellations on account of a coronavirus breakout, as the Miami Marlins are the first team to have an outbreak of COVID-19 cases, after 20+ team personnel test positive.  Effective immediately, numerous home games were cancelled for both themselves, as well as the Phillies, the last team they played prior to the announcement, and MLB will have a great time trying to figure out how to re-work all these cancelled games into their already abbreviated 60-game season.

Honestly, it’s about as surprising as finding out that dogs like to sniff butts that this happened so quickly.  Frankly, I’m surprised it didn’t take two games before the first cases started to happen, but then again considering MLB said that testing would only take place every other day, who’s to say it didn’t, but then there was a grace period of a day in between?

Anyway, this is just a microcosm of how fun the rest of this season is going to become, because as far as I can tell, from what I’ve heard is that there will be many more double-headers played this year to accommodate the crunch of games, and much like the Toronto Blue Jays will have to endure, since the entire country of Canada basically won’t let them back in, many of them will have re-jiggered to where the opposite team will be designated as the home teams, on the road.  I guess when there are no fans in the stands, it definitely makes the venues feel a little bit more neutral, but baseball players are neurotic weirdoes sometimes, so who knows how they’ll react to batting last in someone else’s ballparks.

Oh, and the double-header games will all be 7-inning games – just like in the minor leagues, which is an appropriate comp at this point, considering how bush league the season is becoming.

SO, this just opens up the door more for the possibility of some wonky seasons; I hope by the time we’re nearing the end of the 60-game season, the Seattle Mariners will clinch the AL West in Houston, where they’re the home team against the Astros at Minute Maid Park, and some guy from their taxi squad hits a walk-off homerun.  It would be the perfect beginning of their playoff run to their inevitable World Series date with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

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Still got it

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s funny.  As I’ve been combing through every single one of my old posts, I came across this one from back in 2011, where I had been applauding Julio Franco’s endless love of the game when he was signing with a semi-pro team in Japan at the age of 52.  I stated that I never wanted to see him ever stop playing the game of baseball back then.

Well it’s 2020 now, the world is at its knees, buckled by a global pandemic which has now been contained primarily in an America that had no clue or want to actually combat it, but out in presumably South Korea, video has surfaced of a now 61-year old Julio Franco, still taking cuts inside the batting cage.  And still with his trademark wonky batting stance, great bat speed and the ball coming off his bat with a satisfying crack.

To my understanding, he’s been a hitting coach for the KBO’s Lotte Giants, and has been since 2016, which means that he is still actively getting paid to contribute to the game of baseball.  God bless this guy and his passion for the game that can probably never be rivaled throughout the passage of time.

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100 Days

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Today marks 100 days since the birth of my child.  All jokes aside about my Americanization, it’s always been important to me that my kid hold onto facets of the Korean part of her heritage.  Her middle name is Korean, and mythical wife and I have every intention of having her learn some Korean eventually, so she can communicate with the elders on my side of the family among other worldly benefits.  But also to recognize Korean traditions like baek-il (백일), because they are most definitely a part of her as they are all other Koreans out there.

In Korean culture, the first 100 days of life is a celebrated occasion.  Historically in the old world, 100 days meant a lot to Koreans, because it genuinely was a milestone for a baby to survive that long, due to disease, famine, harsh climates and other various factors that worked against their survival.  To this very day, 100-day celebrations are commonplace to Korean culture, in remembrance of tradition and history.

Obviously the advancement of technology and medicine throughout time have diminished the underlying concern over the 100 day survival of modern Korean children.  However in 2020, the year of my child’s birth, America is dealing with chaotic civil unrest and the highest mortality rates of a global pandemic on the planet.  It certainly feels closer to the old world than the modern one, when you look at it that way.

But social commentary aside, today is still a joyous celebration for my family.  My kid has made it 100 days, and given the state of the world right now, that’s more of an accomplishment than it really should be.

Baseball is great, but sometimes I fucking hate MLB

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I was reading this article about how David Wright is still going to be making $12 million dollars in 2020, regardless of if any baseball happens or not, and it leaves me with a feeling of disgust for Major League Baseball for allowing shit like this to happen.

In this particular instance, I can’t blame David Wright for anything other than being a leech and not retiring four years ago, because the Mets and MLB allowed this contract to happen, and MLB doesn’t have the balls to reject the Players Association’s demand for guaranteed contracts, falling back on insurance policies to cover up for the sunk costs.  But the reality is that David Wright hasn’t played in a meaningful game since 2016, missed all of 2017, played in two symbolic games in 2018 to signal his retirement, but didn’t actually retire and continued to get paid throughout 2019, and will get paid in 2020, the final year of his contract, in spite of the very good likelihood that there will be no MLB at all this year.

Also mentioned in the article is Prince Fielder, whom like David Wright, called it quits in 2016, but by virtue of not actually retiring on paper, continued to cash in over the last four years by virtue of the remainder of his contract.  In fact, Prince Fielder stands to be the highest paid player in all of MLB in 2020, because unlike all the active players that are sitting home doing diddly squat on prorated per-diems, Fielder’s remaining $24M is 100% guaranteed, and I suppose there’s something in the literature that even protects it from complete work stoppage.

Let that sink in for a second; two guys that haven’t even played baseball in four years, will be making more money for not playing baseball, than guys like Mike Trout and Bryce Harper, who have the highest respective contracts in baseball currently, because even if some hackneyed season does come to fruition, it’s a safe bet that they’ll be on prorated salaries.

Speaking of prorated salaries, let’s talk about about Tampa Bay pitcher Blake Snell, who has boldly stated that he will outright refuse to play in 2020, unless he’s going to be receiving his full prorated pay, because the current proposal dictates that there be a 50/50 split between the owners and player salaries, meaning players would effectively be receiving 50% of their prorated salaries if a season were to occur.

So for example, if MLB gets their shit together and slaps together a season of 81 games, or half of a season, than Blake Snell should be contractually obligated to half of his $7.6M salary, which would be $3.8 million dollars.  But with the 50/50 split coming into play, then that $3.8M is reduced to $1.9M.

$1.9 million dollars.  To play baseball, ultimately a children’s game.

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The KBO should really just tell ESPN to fuck off

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s no shock that in the midst of a global pandemic, ESPN is getting starved out when it comes to having live content.  They can’t broadcast NBA, they can’t broadcast MLB.  They can’t even broadcast minor league variants of either.  No hockey, no spring football scrimmages, there’s not even any collegiate soccer, baseball or even fucking ultimate frisbee or Quiddich to show.

And with no sports to talk about, their excessive lineup of talking head shows have no real reason to air, although they’re still managing to squeeze out a regular schedule of circle-jerking/talking about the NFL, justifying my nickname for ESPN being NFL Network Ocho.

In fact, ESPN has gotten so desperate for content, that they’ve even resulted in broadcasting basically YouTube clips of things such as competitive Tetris, among other eSports, mixed in between a cavalcade of “classic” games, in an attempt to draw any sort of ratings. 

It goes without saying that no matter how much original content ESPN can produce, they’re still nothing without there being any actual sports to broadcast or at least talk about.  Once The Last Dance airs its last episode, there’s really going to be nothing left for anyone to have any reason to tune into ESPN afterward.

Luckily for them, there are actual great countries out there in the world, like Korea and Taiwan, who have withstood their own coronavirus onslaughts and are way more on the mend and road to recovery than America is.  And among the things returning to normalcy for them is live baseball, with the Korean Baseball Organization and the Chinese Professional Baseball League both announcing that they are going to be starting their baseball seasons in May; granted, they’re going to be empty stadiums at first, but it stands to believe that as things improve, fans will eventually be allowed in.  But it’s certainly more progress than suggesting all MLB personnel go into a bio-dome in Phoenix and play a condensed season in one city over four months.

So over the last few weeks, there’s been intermittent news about how ESPN has reached out to both the KBO and the CBPL, and testing the waters to see there was any interest in making arrangements to have Korean and/or Taiwanese baseball broadcast globally (really just America).  To no surprise, both are definitely interested, why wouldn’t they want to have their product draw interest overseas, and perhaps earn some respect that’s typically reserved for glorious Nippon-anything because America is full of filthy weeaboos.

However, a massive speed bump in negotiations has basically been the fact that ESPN doesn’t want to pay anything for the rights to internationally broadcast KBO, claiming that they should really just be grateful that they’re being given the opportunity to gain exposure outside of their native country.

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New Father Brogging, #004

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The last time I wrote about my plight of being a new dad, mythical wife and I were staying overnight at the NICU as the last milestone necessary in order for our kid to come home.  That being said, baby is now home where she belongs, and thus begins (really) the rest of our lives, and the start of our lives as a family unit.

Honestly, it hasn’t been as tragically difficult as people love to expound that new parenthood really is.  Sure, we’re operating on the NICU’s general schedule of feeding every three hours, so that our premature child can gain weight as efficiently as possible, but I imagine this is something that my body will get used to as time progresses, not to mention the fact that as baby grows and develops, she won’t need to be on this kind of timeline forever either.

So mythical wife and I get up at 2:30 and 5:30 in the morning each night to feed our baby, and slog our way through the motions in the AM hours.  I get up at around 7:45 to make sure that I’m logged into work on time, but then I go ahead and take care of the feedings at 8:30 and 11:30, while I frantically do my best to do work-related things in between.  Yes, I am still working from home, and it is truly an unprecedented brave new world we’re all operating in these days, and I often have anxious thoughts about the future of my own career, as I wonder if the longer all of this goes on, the more expendable my team’s work will become perceived.

Work aside, being a dad is pretty great.  I don’t mind the dirty diapers and the demanding schedule, because I have a beautiful daughter that I enjoy just sitting and watching sometimes, wondering how her features are going to grow in, and despite the fact that she had more of my features at birth, I can see glimpses of lighter brown hair, and there’s no mistaking the large eyes she sprouts whenever they open up, that definitely come from mommy and not from me.

I love changing her outfits and seeing her in the large varieties of adorable baby clothing that we’ve purchased in advance as well as inherited from the generations of cousins ahead of me.  I’ve been peed on and I’ve witnessed various catastrophes of soiled diapers, but they’re no big deal at all.  I refuse to be a stereotypical dad that can’t handle changing diapers or think I’m too macho or manly to do things that people tend to associate as being “mom work.”

In fact, it kind of makes me a little sad whenever people have given me praise over my indifference and enthusiasm for doing things like changing diapers or bathing my kid.  It speaks volumes of the amount of men out there that don’t do the littlest things that instill love and affection for their children, and if there’s one thing that I want to accomplish as a dad, it’s that my kid grows up knowing that I love her more than anything, from the big things to the little ones.

Eventually, we’ll hopefully get to a comfortable rhythm as it comes to living with a child in tow now.  As much as I want to use this additional time at home to catch up on cleaning and making the house as great as possible for our kid, or I want to be a lazy slug and watch television and movies in between feedings, I just don’t feel like I ever have the time.  Three hours sounds like a lot of time, but given how much of it I spend cleaning bottles or pump parts or straightening things out for the next feeding/changing session, then I feel like I don’t have enough contiguous time to do anything productive or enjoyable, so I usually dick around on my phone or watch YouTube videos instead.

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