Yahoo! Yagoo!

While American fans get ready for the 111th season of pro baseball, fans in South Korea eagerly await the start of No. 1, their very first season. In the Land of the Morning Calm, baseball is called yagoo, and since missionaries brought the game, nearly 70 years ago, it has become an avidly followed amateur sport. Playoffs among the country's 52 high school teams are so popular that they are televised during hours of low electrical demand so that the games will not cause brownouts. But somehow no one ever put together a pro league until this year. It will begin with six teams supported by large industrial companies. Though the season does not start until this week, yagoo players have been feted at emotional preseason rallies attended by hundreds of fans. Players, who have yet to hit their first "goodbye" (South Korean for a game-ending home run), are already treated as matinee idols. Some fans are dreaming even now that in ten years South Korea will be ready to challenge the U.S. in a real yagoo World Series.

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