Well, not really, but the guy sitting next to me was from that state. If truth be told, I detest KFC in much the same way as I despise McDonald’s. Fast food chains are right up there with Wal-Mart and Exxon as symptoms of what's wrong with this planet, corporate giants who exploit their workers, customers, and the earth’s natural resources in the name of commercial gain. However, I’m not going to get into a diatribe on the evils of capitalism here. No, instead I’d rather turn to an altogether more pleasant topic, baseball, beer, and BBQ.

Over the summer months, after several seasons of trying and failing miserably (thank you so much rainy season), my friends and I started making it to the occasional baseball game at Citizens’ Stadium. It was here that we discovered the intense pleasure of kicking back, a beer in one hand, a drumstick of BBQ in the other, providing a running commentary on Samsung Lions home games. Of course, not every game was of the same quality, but there were always moments, whether baseball or other, that made the day special.

The first game we attended set the tone. As we walked into the stadium, who was there working security on the top tier of seats but Yoo-min, a friend of mine since I arrived in Korea, but with whom I had lost touch over the past few years. You can imagine the looks on our faces as our eyes met, instant recognition matched with incredulity that we should bump into each other on such an occasion. After several minutes of catching up and exchanging news about mutual friends, we took our seats, only for Yoo-min to appear again several minutes later bearing gifts of water for all. Our meetings became a regular fixture of future games, while the gifts gradually grew from water to 2% and finally to beer.

Speaking of which, there were, of course, the maekjoo ajumma. Wherever we sat in the ground, whether out in the bleachers or up in the stands, it wasn’t long before the welcome sight of a middle-aged woman, large bucket of cold beer in one hand, dried squid in the other, came into view. By the time of the second purchase, she knew our order well enough to make sure that she had a stock of Hite Prime Max in her bucket every time she passed. An unspoken agreement seemed to have been reached between her and the other beer sellers that we were her foreigners for the day, and she kept appearing with such impeccable timing that we rarely had to wait more than a couple of minutes between beers. Now that's what I call service!

Of course, if you're drinking beer, then you must have anjoo. This is Korea for goodness sake! Despite our affection for our personal beer seller, we were forced to betray her and head for sustenance to the BBQ stall under the main stand. From the first bite, the combination of tender fresh chicken and the wicked spiciness of whatever they put in the batter had us hooked. Saturated fats be damned, this stuff was great! From then on, baseball equaled beer and chicken, in no particular order. The one time that we left it too late to buy our tasty snack, we were left with a distinctly empty feeling, and not just in our stomachs. A part of the ritual, for so it had become, was missing, and the whole suffered for it.

In addition to betraying our trusty maekjoo mamma, we eventually ended up traitors to our home team. Wonderful armchair coaches that we had become, regularly criticizing the coach’s tactics and the players' approach, we shifted allegiance to Hanhwa just in time for the playoffs. Sitting in the seats behind first base, we found ourselves engulfed in a sea of orange. No offense, Daegu, I love you dearly, but your fans don’t hold a candle to these passionate men and women from Daejeon. They screamed, they shouted, they groaned, and they sang, but always with a good-natured abandon that fans of American baseball could only dream of. Our neighbors shared with us their food, their beer, and their cigarettes, applauded our sympathetic groans, and vehemently agreed with our chastisement of particularly strange umpiring decisions. They also apparently possessed a healthy contempt for authority. The classic image of one fan puffing on a cigarette while silhouetted against the score board flashing a screen-size no smoking message will remain with me for some time. They may have lost the game that night, but they won a few hearts.

The reason they lost was in no small part due to the evergreen Yang Joon-hyeok, 39 now, but still capable of hitting them out of the park, as he did that night with a huge bases-loaded blast to center field. Let’s face it, this is what most people come to a baseball park to see. Double plays are good, triple plays rarer and better, but nothing beats the sharp intake of breath that accompanies any ball going in the air, the steady increase in volume as the ball heads toward the fence, the roar as it settles in some lucky fan’s grasp and the hitter raises his fist in triumph. Sorry all you purists; this is where it's at.

If there was one disappointing aspect to our trips to the baseball park, it was in the size of the crowd. I have yet to see the stadium full. Even in the playoffs, plenty of empty seats were in evidence, and I couldn’t help wondering why, in a city of 2.5 million people, it was so difficult to attract a full house. Is Daegu not interested in sports? Having successfully secured the 2011 World Athletics Championships, Daegu has thrust itself into the sporting spotlight, there for all the world to see. I will be there, beer in one hand, drumstick in the other. Will you? Come on, I'll buy the chicken.