Dreaming of making it big in baseball, teenage brothers An Seung-han and An Seung-young travelled hundreds of miles away from home to remote Deokjeok island, where the sport and their team, are now the closest thing they have to a family. The boys are among a few dozen teenagers who have left the bright lights of some of South Korea's biggest cities to join a specialised sports academy set up by Kim Hak-yong, former manager of the elite Dongguk University team that has produced scores of players in the national KBO major league. In addition to helping the boys achieve their dreams, the sports academy has breathed life into Deokjeok, which was struggling to retain, and attract, youngsters, like many other rural areas in the world's most rapidly ageing society.