November 14, 2018

On Monday, November 12, the SK Wyverns defeated the Doosan Bears 5-4 in 13 innings to win the Korean Series, the championship of the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), four games to two. KBO is South Korea’s top professional baseball league and features some of the world’s best players. SK’s last KBO title came in 2010. For Doosan, it was their fourth-straight appearance in the Korean Series, and their second-straight defeat (the Bears were KBO champs in 2015 and 2016).

KBO is the top professional baseball league in South Korea. Credit: © Korea Baseball Organization

Baseball has been played in Korea since the early 1900′s, when it was introduced by Christian missionaries from the United States. The sport flourished in Korea during the time of Japanese occupation from 1910 through 1945. (Baseball is also extremely popular in Japan.) After Korea was divided into North and South, baseball continued only in South Korea. KBO began as a six-team league in 1982, and now has 10 teams—5 based in and around Seoul, the South Korean capital, and the others in the cities of Busan, Changwon, Daegu, Daejeon, and Gwangju.

The KBO regular season covers 144 games from March to October. The best team during the season automatically qualifies for the Korean Series championship. The next-best four teams then compete in rounds of playoffs to determine the Korean Series challenger. In 2018, Doosan ran away with the league with a dominating 93-51 record. SK finished second (78-65) and survived a tough playoff series against the fourth-place Nexen Heroes to face Doosan. Nexen had earlier eliminated the third-best regular season team, the Hanwha Eagles.

KBO is similar to Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the talent level is equivalent to the high minor leagues. KBO has a few differences, however. In South Korea, extra innings are limited to 12 during the regular season, and 15 during the postseason (MLB has no innings limit). If the game is still tied at the innings limit, it must then be replayed from the beginning. Several ballplayers from the United States and other countries play in KBO, but no team may have more than three foreign players. KBO is a high-scoring league, and all teams use the designated hitter (meaning pitchers never bat). In MLB, the American League has designated hitters, but pitchers bat in the National League.

KBO teams are named for corporate sponsors rather than their home cities. The Doosan Bears, for example, play at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul, but take their name from the Doosan Group, a conglomerate known for its heavy construction equipment. The SK Wyverns, who play near Seoul at SK Happy Dream Park in Incheon, are sponsored by the SK Group, a conglomerate that owns the nation’s largest wireless company, SK Telecom. A wyvern, by the way, is a mythical two-legged dragon commonly seen in British heraldry.

Several KBO players have enjoyed success in MLB. The first notable star was pitcher Chan Ho Park, who debuted for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1994. Other South Korean stars in MLB have included pitcher Byung-Hyun Kim (Arizona Diamondbacks), outfielder Shin-Soo Choo (Cleveland Indians and Texas Rangers), and pitcher Hyun-Jin Ryu (Dodgers). South Korean baseball teams have enjoyed success in the Olympics and the Little League World Series, as well as in the World Baseball Classic, which serves as professional baseball’s World Cup. A team comprised of South Korean players, Geelong-Korea, is a 2018 addition to the professional Australian Baseball League.

SK’s American manager Trey Hillman, a former minor league infielder who previously managed MLB’s Kansas City Royals, is the first skipper to win titles in both South Korea and in Japan’s top league, Nippon Professional Baseball. Hillman guided the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters to the Japan Series title in 2006 before taking the reins at SK in late 2016.

August 29, 2018

On Sunday, August 26, an all-star baseball team from Honolulu, Hawaii, won the Little League World Series by defeating a team from Seoul, South Korea, 3-0. The Little League World Series is a competition played each year in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania, among kids aged 11 to 13. The tournament, first played in 1947, includes 16 Little League teams from the United States and the rest of the world. Little League Baseball is the world’s largest organized youth-sports program, with nearly 180,000 teams.

The Honolulu Little League all-stars flash the traditional Hawaiian shaka “hang loose” hand greeting after winning the 2018 Little League World Series on Aug. 26, 2018. Credit: Courtesy of Little League Baseball and Softball

The ballplayers from Honolulu Little League dominated the final at South Williamsport’s Howard J. Lamade Stadium. Starting pitcher Ka’olu Holt went the distance, limiting the South Koreans to just two hits and no runs over the game’s six innings. Holt fanned eight batters and surrendered just one walk. On the offensive side, Honolulu first baseman Mana Lau Kong homered on the first pitch of the bottom of the first inning, igniting a boisterous Hawaii dugout. Seoul starter Yeong Hyeon Kim settled in after that, but he was the victim of his own lack of control in the bottom of the third. With the bases loaded on a hit and two walks, a wild pitch allowed Honolulu’s Zachary Won to score from third base, and an errant throw on the play brought Taylin Oana home from second to make the score 3-0. Hawaii played flawless defense, and Holt recorded the final out in the sixth on a swinging strikeout.

2018 Little League Baseball World Series.
Credit: © Little League Baseball

After a joyful celebration in front of the pitcher’s mound, members of the Honolulu team thanked their South Korean opponents. They then raced to the center field wall to rub the bronze bust of the stadium’s namesake, Howard J. Lamade—a longstanding tradition for the winning team. (Lamade was a Pennsylvania newspaper publisher and a key figure in the early years of Little League Baseball.)

The Honolulu all-stars rolled through the United States bracket of the tournament, winning all five of their games by a combined score of 26-3, including a 3-0 win over Peachtree City (Georgia) American Little League to reach the World Series final. The championship was the third for the state of Hawaii: the Ewa Beach team took the title in 2005, and the little leaguers from Waipio won it all in 2008. The Seoul, South Korea, squad fought through the tough international tournament, edging the all-stars from Kawaguchi, Japan, 2-1 to reach the final. South Korean teams previously won the Little League World Series in 1984, 1985, and 2014. The 2018 tournament’s 32 games drew a total of nearly 500,000 fans.