Pirates' Derek Shelton: Watching KBO games get 'juices flowing'

When it comes to watching baseball, Derek Shelton doesn’t care who is playing, let alone whether the players in the game speak the same language.

The Pittsburgh Pirates manager jokes he has been known to watch the Caribbean World Series on ESPN, not that he can comprehend the majority of what is said in Spanish.

“No, I cannot,” Shelton said. “I get the excitement when somebody hits a homer or somebody punches out. My wife has walked out a couple times in past winters and was like, ‘You don’t speak Spanish. Why are you watching this?’ It’s baseball. Anytime we get a chance to watch live baseball, it’s good.”

So Shelton will be an interested observer of live telecasts of the Korea Baseball Organization, which aired its opener between NC Dinos and Samsung Lions overnight on ESPN. The network will televise games every day this week.

“I’m a baseball fan, so when they do come out, it’s going to be exciting to watch,” Shelton said. “You can only watch the ’84 World Series so many times or guys hitting for the cycle or watch perfect games of previous games.

“To have games that are live … it gets the juices flowing.”

The KBO, which delayed its opener scheduled for March 28, could be instructive for MLB as it looks for ways to start a season that has been shut down by the coronavirus crisis. KBO games will be played with no fans in attendance. The 10-team league, which produced former Pirates third baseman Jung Ho Kang, as well as major leaguers Josh Lindblom and Eric Thames, has unique rules. It uses a universal designated hitter and games end in a tie after 12 innings in the regular season.

Shelton will be watching not only for the entertainment value but also for strategic tips on how to handle playing baseball amid a global pandemic, knowing that the Pirates could return to playing sometime this summer.

“We can learn from how these organizations and leagues are coming back because we’re going to have to put in guidelines to come back,” Shelton said. “We have a little bit of a template with how these other countries and these other leagues are trying to do things.

“From a managerial point, the game’s played a little bit different so it will give me the opportunity to watch games and how they’re managed a little bit differently, and that’s always interesting to me. I like to talk to different guys about their managerial style, so to watch a game that’s managed a little bit different will be interesting.”