Anyway, lots of people were wondering why the Koreans didn’t walk Ichiro. Apparently it was due to miscommunication.  Could have been tied at the bottom of the 10th. Great game, though.

Korea manager In Sik Kim said he gestured to Lim from the dugout to walk Ichiro, but the pitcher felt he could get him out. Kim did not question his pitcher afterward, and indicated there was a miscommunication.”We tried to throw him balls out of the zone, and if that didn’t work, we wanted to walk him,” Kim said. “But the message was conveyed wrong from the catcher to the pitcher. In the end, it just didn’t work.”

Kim wanted Lim to throw Ichiro pitches out of the zone, hoping to get him to chase, but if that didn’t work, he wanted him to walk Ichiro.

But new catcher Min Ho Kang apparently read the sign wrong from the bench, and didn’t properly relay the message to Lim.

“When we had a change in the catcher, it was an inexperienced catcher,” Kim said. “Maybe the inexperienced catcher did not communicate and understand very well. So maybe the catcher did not understand well.”

Wow. I have to add a sports category.