MIAMI -- Dane Dunning has always straddled two cultures. His mother was from Korea, where she met his father, an American who was stationed there while serving in the military. It’s why he has a tattoo on his arm that reads “same blood” in Hangul, the Korean alphabet. He even grew up getting the choice of two meals every night – a dream for any child or picky eater. He could choose either a Korean dish his mother would cook for herself, or an American one she cooked for his father.
“As we got older, we kind of just picked-and-chose what we wanted to eat,” Dunning told MLB.com. “It was like, today I want to have bulgogi, kimchi and rice. And then the next day I want to have steak, baked potato and green beans. It just depended on the day and what looked good. It was always nice because we had essentially two meals that we could choose from. I wasn't stuck with, ‘You're gonna eat this and you're gonna like it.’”
Now, Dunning – who signed a Minor League contract with the Seattle Mariners in the offseason – is paying homage to his mother’s heritage by playing for Korea. Having the country’s name across his chest means the world for someone who wanted to play in the 2023 Classic, but couldn’t due to injury.
“It's honestly a really big honor,” Dunning said in Tokyo last week. “Being able to represent her and represent my family that's over in Korea is a great honor. I'm really excited for this WBC tournament. I'm really excited to spend time with the players and hopefully win a bunch of games. But just being able to represent my mom and mom's side of the family is really cool.”
Before the start of the tournament, his wife and two children got to meet his extended family in Korea for the first time. While Dunning missed out on the meeting between his children and his Halmeoni, the Korean word for grandmother, it means so much that his children were able to tap into the same heritage that he is now representing on the field.
“They got to surprise my grandma for the first time,” Dunning said, the emotion evident in his voice. “My Halmeoni has been able to meet my wife and kids. It was a really cool feeling for me. I was a little sad that I wasn't there. Wish I was able to see that, but I'm really happy that that happened.”
He’s also been immediately welcomed into a Korean locker room that features a blend of KBO stars, Korean players with big league experience like Jung Hoo Lee and Hyun Jin Ryu and players of Korean descent like Dunning, Shay Whitcomb and Jahmai Jones. It’s not just the friendships they’re building, but the ability to share playing experiences from around the globe.
“It doesn't matter how many years you play, you try to learn as much as possible. The play style might be a little bit different over here versus in the U.S.," Dunning said. "I mean, just from our stretch, there's a couple movements that I'm like, ‘Man, I need to incorporate this. I feel great after this.’ It's things like that you can learn immediately, but the most important thing is just being able to have the friendships between each player, just being able to go out and share a jersey, share a team, and be able to share these experiences together is really cool.”
Dunning has now taken the field twice for Korea, first giving up a home run to Stuart Fairchild in Korea's loss to Chinese Taipei before pitching a crucial scoreless inning against Australia in the team’s 7-2 victory. He felt he had let down his new teammates in that first appearance, so it meant a lot to him to perform as he did against Australia, pitching in a game where had they surrendered just one more run they would have been eliminated. Instead, thanks in part to Dunning’s performance, they’re in Miami and playing beyond the group stage for the first time since 2009.
After striking out Rixon Wingrove to end the frame, Dunning released a roar -- something he has rarely done on the ball field.
"I've never showed emotions. It's something that my dad always taught me was just, like, never let the opponent see my emotions, whether I'm mad or happy or whatever," Dunning said. "I'll always be the same, level-headed. But we had such small parameters to win, to be able to advance, and just getting out of that situation, I was just so pumped. I let my emotions show on that one and it was really cool. Even in the World Series, I've always been stone-faced off the mound. It was a cool feeling, for sure."
The team had first united around a celebration that featured airplane wings and a golden, inflatable ‘M’ for Miami. But now that they’ve made it to the quarterfinals, there’s one thing they want to do:
“[We want to] win it all,” Dunning said.
To get there, they'll need to first defeat a difficult Dominican Republic team that is playing some incredible baseball and hitting home runs with ease. That might mean pressure, but Dunning sees it differently -- especially on a Korean roster that is very young, with players like Do-Yeong Kim and Hyun-Min Ahn helping lead the way.
"We weren't supposedly supposed to be here, right? Like, we haven't been here in 17 years and the Dominican team essentially put together their Avengers," Dunning said. "We have a lot of young guys on the team, so obviously, we're going to try to play the best baseball we can and obviously try to go as far as we can. But it's a great learning experience for all these younger guys, just the atmosphere of being able to hone yourself in these situations and [learning to] calm your nerves."