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[KCS] From Bautista to Korea, the art of bat flipping is reaching a touchstone moment

October 16, 2015

Blue Jays right fielder Jose Bautista tossed his bat after hitting a three-run home run during the seventh inning in Game 5 of the American League Division Series between Texas and Toronto on Wednesday. (Chris Young/AP Photo)

[KANSAS CITY STAR]

Everett Teaford had been in South Korea for barely three weeks before he finally asked the question. Maybe his curiosity got the best of him. Maybe he just wanted to know about this foreign culture.

It was April 2014, and for close to a month, Teaford, a former major-league reliever, had watched baseball bats go flying all over stadiums across the Korean Baseball Organization, the top baseball league in South Korea. Teaford had started the season with the LG Twins, a team in Seoul, and when a teammate or opposing hitter would make contact with a baseball, the result was almost always the same: The batter would finish his follow-throw, then flip the bat in the air like LeBron James heaving chalk skyward before an NBA Finals game. It was a little majestic, a little ostentatious, and sometimes, Teaford says, it was a little hilarious.

“It’s a single through the six-hole? Boom. Bat flip,” said Teaford, who pitched for the Royals from 2011 to 2013. “The only thing they don’t bat flip is probably a drag bunt. We had bat flips on foul balls. If you could bat flip it, they bat flipped it.”

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