EWC: Can you explain who Kang Byung-kyu is and why he’s been in the news recently?

Jee-ho: Kang Byung-kyu is a TV personality and, as he likes to make it known from time to time, a former baseball player with the OB (now Doosan) Bears and the SK Wyverns. He was a decent pitcher, mostly a starter and a spot bullpen guy. In 10 seasons (from 1991 to 2000), he went 56-63 with a 4.15 ERA.

A few days have passed since I first got these questions and Kang, who was already in the news before I got to answer you, has now also been linked with a gambling scandal.

But first things first: at the Beijing Olympics, the Ministry of Culture funded the so-called ‘entertainer cheering squad,’ made up of some middling TV types desperate for attention. Their stated purpose was to go to different venues and be the cheerleaders for Korean athletes. Kang, being the former athlete, was the head of that delegation.

The problem was that these entertainers could not secure tickets to enough venues to really be the cheerleaders. They also stayed at expensive hotels, spent an inordinate amount of money scalping tickets, and generally didn’t do much other than sightseeing and hanging out in Beijing. All on taxpayers’ money, of course.

The whole issue came to the surface at a recent inspection by the National Assembly (it’s an annual political circus in Korea where lawmakers with a lot of free time on their hand dig through files at different ministries and find things to criticize, just so they appear that they’re doing some work).

A side note: The Ministry of Culture came under heavy scrutiny over this and the minister himself was caught uttering a cuss word on live TV while answering questions about this cheerleading deal and had to issue an apology.

Anyway, Kang has been dropped from a couple of TV programs he was hosting. And just when the cheerleading fiasco was about to die down, Kang was implicated in an illegal Internet gambling scandal involving some 130 individuals. According to the Seoul prosecutors, Kang has lost about 400 million won (just about 300 grand U.S.) in cyber gambling.

He’s going to be summoned for investigation this week. Not a good month for this guy.

EWC: Is there anything like sports talk radio in Korea?

Jee-ho: There’s a program called I Love Sports (audio link in Korean), from 9:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. on MBC radio on weekend nights. The host, named Lee Eun-ha, does call-in interviews with some athletes and provides some updates and all. That’s just about the only all-sports radio program in Korea.

I once had a 30-minute sports segment in the EBS Radio’s morning English program called Morning Special. I had that gig from November last year to August this year, appearing every Thursday morning from 8:30 to 9. They let me go before their fall re-scheduling. But since the show was to the general audience who mostly tunes in to study English, I had to dumb it down quite a bit (like, explaining what an inning or a save was).

I am also doing a seven-minute, Monday-to-Friday, sports news update for the English-only station Arirang Radio. It’s a phone-in and is only available on DMB radio and on the Internet.

EWC: What do you think of the fact that the two top managers in Korean baseball declined to manage the WBC team? Do you think this will have a negative effect on the mindset of the team going into the tournament? How do you feel about the choice of Hanwha’s Kim In-sik?

Jee-ho: I did a column on this a few days ago. Yes, I definitely think this mess will have a negative effect on the team. On Nov. 13 the Japanese team announced its provisional roster including MLB guys with their manager, Tatsunori Hara, firmly in place. That provides a stark contrast what Korea has gone through over the past couple of weeks. It’s November yes, but it’s never too early to get the coaching staff all set in stone. (Ed note: tell that to the U.S. team)

As I pointed out in the column, the whole process of the manager selection left an impression that the WBC is not that big a deal. If managers can’t decide if they want to coach or not, what kind of message does that send to the players?

And there’s no military service exemption carrot for the WBC. The young guys who already got their exemption from the Beijing Olympics will have a little less motivation this time.

While the fact that the WBC is played in March can be cumbersome to some players, everyone else is experiencing the same dilemma. It’s not like the MLB training camp opens in May.

As for Kim In-sik: given the way he was, ahem, named the manager, I am not sure how motivated he will be in the dugout. He’ll probably be grumbling all the way to the Asian qualification (“Gosh darn it, Kim Sung-keun didn’t want to do this thing.”). But he’s one of those managers who never seem to be in good mood anyway. He did manage the 2006 team that reached the semis.

I just don’t think Korea will do much at this WBC, no matter who the manager is. The KBO players are overworked—teams engage in the so-called ‘wrap-up training’ right after the season ends and that often goes until the late November. They get maybe a month off before the training camp for the new season gets underway. I’d be shocked if Korea reaches the semis again.

EWC: The MLB offseason is a big attraction with trades and free agent signings, but the KBO has very little player movement. Why is that? Do you think it’s a bad or good thing?

Jee-ho: I’ve done a couple of stories on this over the past year or so. Free agents aren’t really ‘free’ in Korea because of the heavy compensation packages.

If a player joins a new team, that team must pay the original team 4.5 times the player’s previous salary, or pay the original team 3 times the previous salary and send that team a player.

So for example, if Park Jin-man, who earned 450 million won last year, signs with a team other than the Samsung Lions, that team must pay Samsung 1.85 billion won or 13.5 billion won and give them a player. And that’s on top of the new salary that team will be paying Park.

So you can see why teams would be reluctant to sign big-ticket free agents. And given the recent economic hardships, the usually cool market will be close to frozen this year.

And what’s worse, the KBO said it will apply the FA rules more strictly this year. Teams can’t ink FAs to a multi-year deal (it has to be one year) and can’t give them a raise of more than 150 percent from the previous salary. Silly, isn’t it? The rule has been in place all along but teams haven’t followed it for some reason.