Published: 22 Oct. 2024, 13:40 Updated: 22 Oct. 2024, 17:35
- JIM BULLEY
- jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr
Yang Joon-hyuk, left, and Lee Jong-beom [JOONGANG ILBO]
The Kia Tigers and Samsung Lions face off in the Korean Series this year for the first time since 1993, when the Tigers were still owned by Haitai and the Lions owner had just dropped the three stars logo for the ubiquitous blue oval and soldCJ CheilJedang.
On the baseball field there were changes afoot too.
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Tigers rookie Lee Jong-beom was enjoying a huge breakout year, leading the league in runs, stealing 73 bases, winning a Golden Glove and, when the Tigers eventually won the championship, Korean Series MVP. Lee, nicknamed the Son of the Wind, would go on to be one of the greatest KBO players of all time and still holds the KBO single season stolen bases record: 84 in 1994. His son Lee Jung-hoo now plays for the San Francisco Giants.
Lee was not the only All-Star rookie. On the other side of the ticket was Samsung's Yang Joon-hyuk, a fiery local boy who had pipped Lee to the Rookie of the Year title after taking the KBO batting title with a .381 average. Yang dominated KBO hitting over his 17-year career and was the first player ever to pass 2,000 hits. When he retired in 2010, he was the all-time leader in nine batting categories.
But despite their huge careers, the arrival of Lee and Yang was not even the most memorable thing about the 1993 Korean Series. Instead, that honors goes to another rookie: Park Choong-sik.
Park, a Lions rookie with 14 wins and 7 losses and a 2.54 ERA on the regular season, was tipped to start for the Daegu team in Game 3, facing the veteran hand of 1988 Korean Series MVPMoon Hee-soo. What followed was one of the greatest pitching duals in KBO history, played to a 2-2 tie over 15 innings. Park, who had turned 23 just a month earlier, pitched all 15 innings for Samsung, throwing a total of 181 pitches to hold the Tigers' bullpen to the tie.
Park Choong-sik [JOONGANG ILBO]
Like Lee and Yang, Park went on to have but injury-laden successful career. He retired — somewhat ironically with the Tigers — in 2003 and went on to be secretary general of the KBO Players Association.
Thirty-one years later, Lee and Yang — long having hung up their bats in favor of coaching and TV roles — sat down with the JoongAng Ilbo, an affiliate of the Korea JoongAng Daily, to reflect on 1993 and discuss the latest Tigers-Lions clash.
“It feels so different to hear that the Lions and Tigers are meeting in the Korean Series,” Yang said. “I vividly recall my memories from 1993. The third game, where Park Chung-sik pitched 15 innings, was one that Samsung absolutely had to win. I still feel that we should have won that game that we tied 2-2.
“I personally have sore memories of not performing well in the Korean Series. I was struggling with illness and I think it effected my performance.”
The Lions have one uncertainty that could prove to be fatal in this year's Korean Series: Outfielder Koo Ja-wook’s availability. Koo sustained an injury during Game 1 of the second round of playoffs against the LG Twins on Oct. 15, missing Game 2 and Game 3 of the series.
The Samsung Lions' Koo Ja-wook exhibits pain during the KBO playoff against the Kig Tigers in Daegu on Oct. 15. [YONHAP]
“Koo’s fitness is key,” Yang said. “It will be a huge loss if he cannot play at 100 percent fit, as he is an important player not just overall squad strength wise, but also for the team’s mentality.
“The batters’ unimpressive performance during Game 3 and 4 of the second round of playoffs has a lot to do with the absence of Koo. Samsung have to play well with the batters they have. If the batters regain their form during Game 1 and 2 of the playoffs, I think they will score quite a lot of points.”
Lee is also looking forward to this year’s Korean Series.
“Samsung and Kia are traditionally the fiercest rivals,” Lee said. “I hope the players show a performance worthy of that reputation.”
“I think the Tigers have a better squad overall,” Lee said. “Looking at the stats, the side that had a bye straight to the Korean Series has an advantage. I wonder how the [Tigers’] unbeaten streak in the Korean Series will impact things. I think the players can win the 12th title if they take the pressure off and find their own style of play.”
Although neither team has been particularly dominant in recent years, the match-up between the Tigers and Lions in the Korean Series brings together two of Korea’s biggest baseball dynasties.
The Haitai Tigers celebrate after beating the Samsung Lions to win the 1993 Korean Series [JOONGANG ILBO]
The Tigers are the most successful team in Korean Series history, winning the title 11 times in 11 appearances — meaning that 1993 series was a win for the Gwangju club. Nearly all of those titles were in the 1980s and ‘90s, with only two since the turn of the century: 2009 and 2017.
The Samsung Lions are the second most successful team in Korean Series history, with seven titles, but have made it to the series a huge 17 times. That number, the highest in the league, means the Lions have lost more than they won.
All seven of the Lions’ titles came after 2000, with the Daegu team dominating much of the late 2000s and early 2010s. Samsung also won the league in 1985, but no Korean Series was held that year, so they took the championship title too.
This year’s Korean Series marks the first that the championship has been played entirely out of Seoul since 2012, when the Lions beat the SK Wyverns, now the SSG Landers, and the first time outside of the greater Seoul area (which includes Incheon and Gyeonggi) since 2006, when the Lions beat the Hanwha Eagles.
It also means that the KBO crown is guaranteed to go to a different team for an eighth consecutive season, with the last back-to-back titles secured by the Doosan Bears from 2015-2016.
BY JIM BULLEY AND KO BONG-JUN [jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr]