Seoul, South Korea – South Korea’s love for cabbage – the key ingredient in its national dish, kimchi – apparently doesn’t extend to the baseball field.
The Korea Baseball Organization ruled that wearing cabbage leaves inside a baseball cap constitutes as an “alien material” that may disrupt a game, the organization said in a statement.
The decision came after Doosan Bears pitcher Park Myung-hwan’s cap fell off twice in a game last Sunday, revealing frozen cabbage leaves. He was using the vegetables to keep his head cool and no measures were taken at the time.
“What will we do if another team argues that because the cabbage leaf fell just as the pitcher was pitching, the batter got confused?” league rules committee chair Heo Koo-youn said, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency.
Park said he had planned to give up his unusual cooling agent before the decision.
“I wasn’t planning to use cabbage any longer regardless of the decision of the rules committee, so I don’t care,” he told Yonhap.
