Baseball-Fans excited to see Ohtani as MLB opens season in Seoul

Baseball fans from around the world flocked to Seoul for Major League Baseball's first opening series in South Korea on Wednesday, excited to see Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani.

Baseball fans from around the world flocked to Seoul for Major League Baseball's first opening series in South Korea on Wednesday, excited to see Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani. Nearly 17,000 tickets sold out within minutes for the two-game opener at the Gocheok Sky Dome where the Dodgers play the San Diego Padres.

Roger Aranda, 49, said he flew from California with his son to cheer for Ohtani and the Dodgers. "My favourite player is Mookie Betts, now I'm becoming a big fan for Ohtani," he told Reuters, wearing a blue Dodgers jersey and a hat. "I hope our Dodgers win. I want to see a victory here today."

Drew Jackse, 26, travelled from San Diego for the game and said he just wanted to see game baseball. "The Dodgers are a good team, but we're good too," he said. "It's going to be a very tough game but yeah, it's going to be exciting to see what it's like on the inside."

U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, Philip Goldberg, shared photos of him watching the game with Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, on social media platform X saying it was great to celebrate "our shared love of baseball together". Hours earlier, police investigated a bomb threat but no sign of an explosive device had been detected, a security official at the stadium said.

The threat, written in English, was sent in an email to an official at South Korea's consulate general in Vancouver, Canada, and said the sender was a Japanese lawyer, the Yonhap news agency said. Officials at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency and Guro Police Station in the district where the stadium is located did not immediately confirm the report or could not be reached for comment.

When asked about the bomb threat at a news conference, Padres manager Mike Shildt said it was "unfortunate" news but he had "full confidence" in security authorities. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said he did not "pay too much mind" to the threat after hearing that it was cleared.

Kim Myeong-seo, a 33-year-old Dodgers fan from the southeastern South Korean city of Daegu, was not concerned about the bomb threat. "I have no worries as our country has very strict security," he said. "It was very difficult to get a ticket ... I'm just so excited and want to go in as soon as possible."