Everyone's got toothpaste down their demons

...is not a line from "Jumper" by Third Eye Blind. It's "Everyone's got to face down their demons," and if you heard it as "toothpaste", you're either dumb, crazy, deaf, or me.

Actually, that has nothing to do with the topic of this post, but I've been waiting to work it in as a blog title.

The championship game of the World Baseball Classic was a classic, with Korea coming from two runs down with a run in the eighth and another with two outs in the ninth to tie the game. Sadly, Japan got two in the tenth to win.

The sports-fan segment of the Korean population is terribly let down, of course. The two countries, who have the strongest baseball teams in the hemisphere, are fierce rivals on the field (and in the East Sea [Sea of Japan], where they are disputing ownership of a few tiny worthless islands that the Koreans call Dokdo; "Dokdo is Korean!", the posters say.) The Japanese, as a rule, look down on Koreans, and Koreans must feel about Japan as Poles would about Germany if the German government had never really apologized for what they did in both World Wars.

Think of Korean baseball fans as Yankee fans when the Bosox came from 3-0 down in the playoffs, or Bosox fans when the Yankees made up a 15 1/2 game deficit and won the pennant. There is no joy in Koreatown.

...but it's only ten days till the Korean League season starts! Go, Samsung Lions!