Paper Abstract
4 pages in length. Baseball, America's hometown sport, has experienced a metamorphosis of cultural infusion since the early 1980s when a very large, very talented Mexican by the name of Fernando Valenzuela joined up as a pitcher with the Los Angeles Dodgers. After shutting out the Houston Astros in his first major league game, the country was swept with "Fernandomania," a grand reception for a foreign-born baseball player who single-handedly opened the door for all other international players to follow. Korean Pitcher Chan Ho Park, like his predecessor two decades before, also signed with the Dodgers but without benefit of any past professional experience. This critical detail did not impose upon Parks' ability to make a tremendous impression on the owners and the crowd alike, inasmuch as he inevitably made his first appearance on the season's opening day, 1994, a distinction that also cast him as major league's first Korean player. Bibliography lists 4 sources.
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