Pretty neat story in the Korean league from yesterday as Cho Jin-ho won his first professional game in nearly five years when he scattered four hits over six innings, not allowing a run and picking up the win for Samsung.
Cho was signed out of high school by the Boston Red Sox and actually made 11 starts for Boston during 1998-99, compiling a 2-6 record and a 6.52 ERA over 58 professional innings. He spent three years in the Red Sox system before returning to Korea to play for SK.
In 2003 he went 4-5 for SK, winning most recently on August 23, 2003. However, after something of a scandal, Cho, at age 29, was then forced to complete his military service. Upon finishing he developed ligament troubles in his elbow and had to have surgery, causing him to miss another nine months.
He signed a 50 million (about $50,000) won contract this season, but did not make the team. Following a couple months in the Korean minor leagues Cho was finally handed the ball by Samsung manager Seon Dong-yul in a start versus Hanwha. He came through and is a likely bet to remain in the rotation for the immediate future.
Just for kicks I did a quick check through Cho’s game log with the Red Sox. He didn’t have many highlights, but on 6/19/99 he did go six innings, giving up four runs, five hits, and striking out six in picking up a win against the Texas Rangers.
This was back in the day when Texas rolled with Palmero, Juan Gone, and I-Rod in the middle of its order, so it wasn’t a cheapie. Nomar batted cleanup for the sox that day and Tim Wakefield pitched two innings for the save.
8 responses so far ↓
1 simon // May 5, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Wow, neat story. Athletes from countries with mandatory military service can get their prime years taken away eh. Anyang Halla of the Asia League Ice Hockey is finally getting its sniper back after military service. Do soccer players usually somehow manage to avoid military service? (I know there was a scandal a little while back).
2 Shinsano // May 5, 2008 at 4:33 pm
As I understand it the baseball players don’t have to serve if their team wins a gold medal in international competition. I’m pretty sure that’s the case for soccer too, and I think the 2002 Korean soccer team was let off for their run during the Japan/Korea world cup.
I’m not sure, but I think they cound the WBC in that as well.
The scandal you’re thinking of was mostly soccer players, but also involved a couple baseball players if I’m remembering correctly.
3 Brian // May 5, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Do you have a link to the Korean minor league site? Just curious to know who/where the teams are.
4 Shinsano // May 5, 2008 at 9:44 pm
There’s no specific site for 2-gun, but there’s a page on the KBO site that lists the teams and schedule.
http://www.koreabaseball.com/schedule/schedule3.asp
I heard the public can’t even go to the games. The teams are all the same, except in a couple cases….Sangmu and Kyungchal.
5 Dan // May 6, 2008 at 8:55 am
Jee-ho has an article about him over at the Joongang.
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2889408
i still say the Joongang covers sports the best these days compared to the Korea Times and Herald. (maybe i’m just biased since he wrote an article about me too….but nonetheless, the Times sports coverage was horrible there for awhile and has slowly improved…but not like it used to be when Thomas St. John was there.)
6 Shinsano // May 6, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Yeah, Jee-ho does a great job. In fact, I’m going to be the subject of an article by him next week.
Not that “great” and “me being the subject of an article by him” are related.
Anyway, there’s not really any comparison between his coverage and the other English lang baseball coverage.
7 Dan // May 6, 2008 at 1:23 pm
nice..nothing like 2 great sites/people being featured in the joongang. LOL. j/k
yeah…i wish the other newspapers would step it up a bit…but i guess most of their readers could care less if Doosan beat up on Lotte etc….
8 Brian // May 12, 2008 at 1:39 am
Ah, thanks for answering the question. I forgot I asked it, so I forgot to say thanks.
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