He’s started games. He’s pitched in the eighth inning to set up a lead. He’s closed games out in the ninth. On September 3, at age 41, KT Wiz sidearm pitcher Woo Gyu-min added one more line to a career that has already covered every job a pitching staff can ask of a man: he … Read more
Baseball’s roster math doesn’t always reward the hottest bat. Just ask Kim Hye-sung. Over his last seven games at Triple-A Oklahoma City, the 27-year-old infielder went 12-for-25 — a .480 batting average that would headline any prospect report in the sport. It’s the kind of stretch that usually gets a player’s phone ringing with a … Read more
For nineteen years, no one in the KBO had hit a baseball 150 meters. Not once, across nearly two decades and thousands upon thousands of games. Then, on September 2 at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul, a 35-year-old American import stepped into the batter’s box in the fifth inning, turned on a 132 km/h changeup, … Read more
Every major professional baseball league has some version of a monthly honor that lets fans pause the marathon of a 144-game season and ask a simple question: who was the best player in the league over the last four weeks? In Major League Baseball, that recognition is the Player of the Month award. In the … Read more
He left the LG Twins as one of the best closers in the KBO, bound for a big-league bullpen with the San Diego Padres. He returns to LG three years later with a very different job description. On September 1, LG announced it had signed right-hander Go Woo-suk and completed his player registration — bringing … Read more
A few weeks ago, the Hanwha Eagles were the feel-good story of the KBO season — a team that had built its identity on dramatic, come-from-behind victories, the kind of games that make casual fans check the score twice. On September 1, at KT Wiz Park in Suwon, that identity felt like a distant memory. … Read more
Choi Ji-man has already done the thing most Korean amateur players spend their entire adolescence dreaming about. He played 525 games in Major League Baseball. He hit 67 home runs at the highest level the sport offers, wearing the uniforms of six different organizations across nine seasons. By almost any measure, his career is a … Read more
South Korean soccer had two very different stories to tell in August. In Madrid, a 25-year-old attacking midfielder was winning over one of the most demanding coaches in European football. In Los Angeles, the country’s most recognizable soccer export was in the middle of the longest scoreless run of his current club career. Lee Kang-in … Read more
Two months of rain built a story line that baseball never got to finish. When the San Francisco Giants and Atlanta Braves finally played out their rained-out June makeup game on August 31 at Truist Park, the marquee subplot — a head-to-head look at Major League Baseball’s two South Korean everyday players, Lee Jung-hoo and … Read more
American sports fans know exactly what an attendance record means. It’s the number network broadcasts flash on screen during a pennant race, the stat that shows up in year-end wrap-ups about a league’s health, and the figure team owners point to when they want to prove a sport is still growing rather than fading. So … Read more