Oh Se-hoon appears as the first pitch of the Toronto home game
Seoul’s new city brand debut overseas

·Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon stood on the mound of Rogers Center, the home stadium of the Toronto Blue Jays in Major League Baseball (MLB). Toronto’s Ryu Hyun-jin, the only Korean pitcher to play on the MLB stage this season, heated up the atmosphere by himself as a starter.

Mayor Oh threw the first pitch ahead of the 2023 MLB Toronto-Boston Red Sox match at Rogers Center in Toronto, Canada, at 3 p.m. on the 16th.

Mayor Oh’s first pitch is an event designed to commemorate the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Korea and Canada. It was also the first time to announce the new city brand of Seoul, SEOUL, MY SOUL, which was announced in August, to the overseas stage.

The city promoted Mayor Oh’s first pitch with the goal of imprinting “Seoul, My Soul” in the hearts of people around the world through the first pitch of an MLB game with an average audience of 40,000 and an average daily audience of 2 million.

For Mayor Oh, who started an eight-day business trip to North America from this day, the first pitch of the Rogers Center was his first official schedule. Mayor Oh wore a Toronto home uniform with his English adult “Oh,” the number 5, and a hat with a heart, exclamation mark, and smile picture design of “Seoul, My Soul.”

After the wind-up, the ball thrown by Mayor Oh was sucked into the glove of Ryu Hyun-jin, who was in charge of the shot. Ryu Hyun-jin took the ball out of his glove and signed it on the spot and presented it to Mayor Oh. It was a performance that was possible because it was not the starting day. Ryu Hyun-jin also stopped by the first pitch practice range to greet Mayor Oh.

From 1 p.m. before Mayor Oh’s first pitch, a Seoul public relations center was operated near the entrance on the first base for three hours to announce “Seoul, My Soul.” It captured the footsteps of Toronto citizens with various things to see and enjoy, including the performance of Seoul’s representative B-boy group “Gambler Crew” and instant quiz events. When B-boys expressed each syllable of “Seoul, My soul” with a breaking dance, Mayor Oh responded to the dynamic movement with applause.

Mayor Oh said, “I think it is very meaningful to welcome the new Seoul brand ‘Seoul, My Soul’ and introduce it overseas for the first time,” adding, “We will make Seoul a global central city where ‘people and companies’ and ‘capital and information’ gather through overseas marketing.” 스포츠토토