Korean baseball ‘eliminated from the preliminary round again’… ‘Was it a frog that didn’t fall into the well?’

◀ Anchor ▶

The Premier 12 baseball team won against Australia, but ended the tournament by being eliminated from the preliminary round.

The KBO League recorded the highest box office success of all time, but Korean baseball lost its competitiveness on the international stage and became a ‘frog in a well’.

Reporter Myungno Lee reports from the local area.

◀ Report ▶

Last night, the national team, which was unable to advance to the semifinals, finished its final match against Australia with a 5-2 win led by Kim Do-young’s home run.

In this competition, now in its third year, we experienced the bitter taste of being eliminated from the group stage for the first time.

Even though key starters such as Won Tae-in and Moon Dong-ju were missing due to injury, the mound performance was worse than expected.

Not a single member of the starting lineup, including Ko Young-pyo, Kwak Bin, Choi Seung-yong, and Lim Chan-gyu, took responsibility for the fifth inning.

In the most important match against Taiwan, they missed the time to replace the pitcher and failed to use the ‘bee swarm bullpen’, resulting in the ‘Taipei tragedy’.

[류중일/야구 대표팀 감독]

“Isn’t this a competition where we lost the battle for selection… I think we need to address the various problems one by one.”

Although the KBO league has achieved record-breaking success, reaching 10 million viewers, and has expanded quantitatively with news of large-scale free agent contracts coming out every day, Korean baseball was at a shabby level on the world stage.

Excluding the gold medal from the Asian Games, which involved military service benefits, he placed 4th at the Tokyo Olympics, followed by last year’s WBC, and failed to even cross the preliminaries threshold for this tournament, further lagging his international competitiveness.

[고영표/야구 대표팀]

“It would have been nice to have had a good game, but that part left me a little disappointed… I think I threw from the mound with a feeling of a little sorry to Korean baseball fans.”

The only consolation was that the main hitter Kim Do-young and new closer Park Young-hyun confirmed their potential.

[김도영/야구 대표팀]

“I think it’s a good thing because it’s an opportunity to grit my teeth and prepare for the upcoming international competition.”

It appears that changes are needed in the overall operation, including regular convening of the national team and overseas evaluation matches.

Without thorough reflection, the glory of Korean baseball, which has been pushed to the periphery, will have a long way to go.

This is Myungno Lee from MBC News in Taipei.

Video coverage: Jeong Yeon-cheol / Video editing: Park Cho-eun

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