The most popular sport in Korea: Baseball; the history of professional baseball league
Some of you might feel weird when you hear that the baseball is the most popular sport in South Korea.
Why do Korean people love baseball?
- When did South Korea people start playing baseball?
Allegedly the baseball was introduced by Philip Gilet who was a US missionary to establish YMCA Korea in 1905.
When he was playing baseball with his co-workers, Korean people were looking at them very curiously so Initially he wanted to teach Korean people how to play baseball as a tool of his missionary work. Probably he would never know this sport will be the most popular sport in South Korea about 80 years later.
There is a movie about this YMCA baseball team. https://movie.naver.com/movie/bi/mi/basic.nhn?code=34217
In 1910, Korea was colonized by Japan and the Japanese government oppressed Korean people not to be united through sports so Phillip Gilet was deported to Shanghai, China by accusing him of trying to assassinate Japanese governor-general in Seoul. He kept helping Korean people to be unshackled from Japan for his rest of life in Shanghai.
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A picture From Naver News (http://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LSD&mid=sec&sid1=102&oid=001&aid=0009024889)
After the second world war, the US and its allies liberated Korea from Japan and set up a military government to maintain social order. Since then, up to now, US soldiers are staying in South Korea and their presence has seriously impacted Korean people's lifestyle. I believe that the popularity of baseball in South Korea is one of their influences, of course, McDonalds, too.
- Starting professional baseball league as a political tool
If you look at the number of high school baseball teams in the US/Japan/Korea,
US has more than 15,000, Japan more than 4,000, but South Korea only more than 50 teams.
The Korean professional baseball league started in 1982 with 6 teams. At that time, the high school baseball game was quite popular but with this number of teams and players, starting the professional league was too immature- maybe semi-pro league was appropriate- but it was done by the government. In the early of 1980s, South Korea was in a political chaos by military dictatorship which was not supported by people. The military government needed something to draw attention from people so it made people not pay attention on politics. In this context, the baseball was chosen.
As a result, it seemed to be successful for the military government at that time but later the head of military government, president Chun and his successor president Noh were imprisoned because many people who sought for democracy were killed by them and they abused their power to collect big money from "chaebol" such as Samsung, Hyundai.
- The number of teams in the league
Reference (http://www.namdonews.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=447203)
Year 1982~85 (6 teams)
Samsung Lions, Hatai Tigers, Lotte Giants, MBC Blue Dragons, OB Bears, Sammi Superstars
Year 1986~90 (7 teams)
Samsung Lions, Hatai Tigers, Lotte Giants, OB Bears, LG Twins, Bingre Eagles, Taepyungyang Dolphins
Year 1991~2012 (8 teams)
Samsung Lions, SK Wyverns, Lotte Giants, Doosan Bears, KIA Tigers, Nexen Heroes, LG Twins, Hanwha Eagles
Year 2013 (9 teams)
Samsung Lions, SK Wyverns, Lotte Giants, Doosan Bears, KIA Tigers, Nexen Heroes, LG Twins, Hanwha Eagles, NC Dinos
Year 2015~ current (10 teams)
Samsung Lions, SK Wyverns, Lotte Giants, Doosan Bears, KIA Tigers, Nexen Heroes, LG Twins, Hanwha Eagles, NC Dinos, KT Wiz
A professional baseball game is usually a money game. So in the past 80s, Samsung Lions mainly dominated the league by buying good players with higher salary than other teams. On the other hand, Haitai Tigers (Kia Tigers) was only one against Samsung Lions with poor circumstances. Kia Tigers won the Korean series last year and nowadays Kia Tigers and Doosan Bears who won KS in 2016 and was a runner-up in 2017, are dominating the league.
- Korean players in MLB
In 1994, Chan-Ho Park made a debut at LA Dodgers and through his career of 16 years in MLB, made 124 wins.
It was about the time that South Korea was going through the economic crisis so his success in MLB made people hope and motivated to restart from the scratch.
By the way, there are famous three "Park"s from the city called Gongju, Chungcheongnamdo, which is about 2.5 hour away by driving from Seoul.
Chanho Park (MLB Pitcher),
Seri Pak (LPGA Golfer)
(She uses "Pak", not "Park" in English but their last names are same in Korean),
Dongjin Park (Traditional Korean Singer "Pansori Epic Chant" UNESCO Heritage)
Reference (http://www.dtnews24.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=382026)
Reference (http://www.hankookilbo.com/v/1f7cb5a07f6b498aa3137e0a012d92bc)
The maestro Park passed away in 2003.
*Korean Players In MLB with their teams
Jung-Ho Kang (3B) Pittsburg Pilates (2015~Current)
Dae-Sung Koo (P) New York Mets (2005)
Byunghyun Kim (P) Arizona Diamondbacks (1999~2003, 2007) Boston Red Sox (2003~2004) Colorado Rockies (2005~2007) Florida Marlins (2007)
Sunwoo Kim (P) Boston Red Sox (2001~2002) Montreal Expos (2002~2004) Washington Nationals (2005) Colorado Rockies (2005~2006) Cincinati Reds (2006)
Hyunsoo Kim (OF) Baltimore Orioles (2016~2017) Philadelphia Phillies (2017)
Jekuk Ryu (P) Chicago Cubs (2006) Tampa Bay Rays (2007~2008)
Hyunjin Ryu (P) LA Dodgers (2013~Current)
Byungho Park (1B/DH) Minnesota Twins (2016)
Chanho Park (P) LA Dodgers (1994~2001, 2008) Texas Rangers (2002~2005) San Diego Padres (2005~2006) New York Mets (2007) Philadelphia Phillies (2009) New York Yankees (2010) Pittsburgh Pirates (2010)
Chaseung Baek (P) Seattle Mariners (2004, 2006~2008) San Diego Padres (2008)
Jungkeun Bong (P) Atlanta Braves (2002~2003) Cincinati Reds (2004)
Jae Seo (P) New York Mets (2002~2005) LA Dodgers (2006) Tampa Bay Rays (2006~2007)
Seunghwan Oh (P) St Louis Cardinals(2016~2017) Toronto BlueJays (2018~ Current)
Daeho Lee (1B) Seattle Mariners (2016)
Sanghoon Lee (P) Boston Red Sox (2000)
Changyong Lim (P) Chicago Cubs (2013)
Jinho Cho (P) Boston Red Sox (1998~1999)
Jiman Choi (1B) LA Angels (2016, 2018~) New York Yankees (2017)
Heeseop Choi (1B) Chicago Cubs (2002~2003) Florida Marlins (2004) LA Dodgers (2004~2005)
Shinsoo Choo (OF) Seattle Mariners (2005~2006) Cleveland Indians (2006~2012) Cincinati Reds (2013) Texas Rangers (2014~ current)
Reference (https://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/대한민국출신메이저리그베이스볼선수목록)
Based on the reference, it seems that there are 20 Korean players who played or are playing baseball in MLB.
Among them, the most 3 influential players to Korean people are, I think,
- Chanho Park (The frontier to MLB, there are so many Chanho Kids to make every effort to knock the MLB)
- Byunghyun Kim (The first Korean player who has the world series ring - of course, there was a nightmare against Yankees in the WS but as a closer, throwing on the mound in the WS is a tremendous honor.)
- Shinsoo Choo (The first Korean player who was through the minor league and became a great MLB player)
Reference (https://post.naver.com/viewer/postView.nhn?volumeNo=5548678&memberNo=34241755)
If you are curious about KBO, please let me know.
Thank you.