Montgomery "Kimchi" Take the Mound on Korean Heritage Night
By Romen Basu Borsellino | 04 Aug, 2025

The minor-league team's brief transformation into a staple of Korean cuisine highlights an important business and cultural relationship.

Baseball fans expecting to see the Montgomery, Alabama Biscuits play on Saturday night arrived at Riverwalk Stadium to a surprise:

The Biscuits were nowhere to be found. 

Sure, all of their players were there: Pitcher Ty Johnson on the mound, Gregory Barrios at shortstop, and Noah Meyers in left field. But on the night of August 2nd, they all claimed to belong to a team called “The Montgomery Kimchi.” 

Montgomery's typical blue and yellow uniforms, adorned with an anthropomorphized biscuit whose tongue is a slice of butter, had been replaced with lime green jerseys that displayed Korean writing. The new baseball hats showed off their mascot for the night: A smiling pot of kimchi. 

It was the second and final time this season that Montgomery’s AA-level baseball team — a minor-league affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays — would transform into their alter-ego, the Kimchi, an annual tradition that began in 2021. 

“Why Kimchi?” the announcement on the team’s website asks. “We believe food is the gateway into culture. Just as biscuits are a mainstay on a southern table, Kimchi is a staple in Korean cuisine.”

But the better question might be: Why Korean Heritage at all?

After all, just 3.2% of Montgomery’s population is Asian. For context, 62.8% of the population is Black. That’s 2.3 times that of any other demographic. 22.6% of Montgomery’s population is White. 

But per the US census, Korea is the third most common country of origin for foreign-born residents of Montgomery. There are an estimated 10,633 Korean-born members of the community. Guatemala is second with nearly 20,000 residents and Mexico is first with approximately 52,200.

The explanation for Koreans’ strong presence in Montgomery can be traced back twenty years to May 20, 2005: The day the Korean car company Hyundai Motors opened the doors to its plant there, Hyundai's first in the US.

The 1,769 acre facility— which has added a third story since its construction — currently employees approximately 3,100 people. The plant annually produces up to 700,000 engines and 370,000 vehicles including The Hyundai Santa Fe, Hyundai Tucson, Hyundai Santa Cruz, and Genesis GV70. 

It was Hyundai’s sole US plant until just this past May when the company opened a new one in Ellaball, GA focused specifically on the production of the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Hyundai Ioniq 9, both electric vehicles. Hyundai also recently announced plans for a $5.8 billion steel plant set to open in Donaldsville, LA in 2027. 

The Biscuits-to-Kimchi transformation was done in partnership with A-KEEP, the Alabama Korean Education and Economic Partnership. The organization “works with members of the community to enable students, professionals, organizations and corporations of Alabama and Korea to take full advantage of the opportunities of growing economic ties between the two regions.”

A-KEEP also worked with the team to ensure that Korean heritage night wasn’t limited to a change in uniforms.  Rather, this was a full blown celebration of the culture. 

Concession stands were selling nachos and hotdogs topped with kimchi and martial artists demonstrated their Taekwondo skills on the field. There were also performances of Pugmul, the traditional Korean art of percussion, dance, and song. 

Korean food company Pulmuone was a sponsor as well. Their subsidiary Nasoya even provided an additional mascot in the form of a bow tie-wearing stock of cabbage — the main ingredient that’s fermented to make kimchi —which threw out the first pitch of the game. 

It’s not out of character for the Montgomery Biscuits to host theme nights. In June, they held a “Forrest Gump” night to honor the Oscar-winning film of the 90s. On Saturday, they'll be commemorating the popular sitcom “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia.” But aside from celebrating fun pop culture touchstones, none of these promotions tend to come close to the educational or business value of a Korean Heritage Night. 

The Kimchi defeated their opponents Columbus, Georgia's Clingstones, 3-2. According to Montgomery's website, The Biscuits get credit for the win…even though they were nowhere to be found.