Photo via @DanielKimWEarlier this year, the Baltimore Orioles created something of an international incident when they signed Kim Seong-Min, a high-school student in South Korea who also happens to be a left-handed pitcher with a nasty curveball—i.e., one of just many things the team needs if they ever want to get out of the basement of the American League East.
Unfortunately for 17-year-old Kim, taking half a million dollars from a Major League Baseball team while still in high school landed him a lifetime ban from playing professionally in South Korea. And to punish the Orioles, the Korea Baseball Organization announced a ban on Orioles’ scouts at all games, practices and other league activities.
The Orioles promptly apologized for their attempted poaching of young talent and voided Kim’s contract, but the ballpark gates remained closed to Orioles staff looking to catch a game in South Korea.
Via Deadspin, we now have photographic evidence of the ban in effect. The sign pictured above was snapped by Daniel Kim, a sportswriter living in South Korea who followed the Kim Seong-Min story extensively.
Poor Orioles. Then again, is it ever unacceptable to give that team a hard time? As Deadspin’s Barry Petchesky argues—no, it is not: “It seems the Koreans neither forgive nor forget, or even they know it’s proper and acceptable to shit on the Orioles.”
