It was a busy day for Korean franchise No. 8, aka Centennial, aka Our Heroes, as it made quite possibly it’s first step in the right direction — revealing a sharp logo and uniform in a lavish 11 a.m. ceremony Thursday.
On a personal note I’ve been considering which KBO team hat I’d like to buy this year. This Hero hat is pretty sharp.
Unfortunately the slick new threads can’t cover the rather unsightly off-the-field happenings that continue to plague the new team. Thursday’s event came on the heels of more severe penny pinching by the new owners over the past week, and today the team made a questionable trade of one of the team’s most popular remnants in the afternoon.
I understand teams have to tighten their belts sometimes. Trimming the fat, usually in the form of overpaid veteran players is par for the course in any baseball league. Our Heroes situation is a little strange, because when spring training started, it had no one to pay its checks. So several players showed up to camp with no contract.
We’re several weeks into spring training now. But the team is now just getting to dealing with this. It’s a very screwed up situation and it’s getting more screwy up by the minute. How mind blowing is it to consider these guys are getting salary cuts for the upcoming season?
From an article in the Korea Times:
Catcher Kim Dong-soo, who earned 300 million won ($300,000) last year, was offered 60 million won, and outfielder Jeon Joon-ho was tendered at 70 million won, 72 percent less than last year’s 250 million.
Centennial also proposed that pitcher Jeong Min-tae, a former 20-game winner, and outfielder Song Ji-man earn 80 million won and 200 million won, respectively. Jeong made 310 million won last year, while Song received 600 million.
How can I buy this team’s hat?!
But there’s a catch here. An ugly, ugly catch. Just one week before Our Heroes started bludeonging its payroll, the league passed a nifty new rule enabling teams (Our Heroes) to trim as much fat from its roster as it wants. From the JoongAng Daily:
Previously, teams weren’t allowed to cut more than 40 percent of the salary for a player who earned at least 200 million won ($211,260) the previous season without that player’s consent. The cap was 30 percent for those who earned between 100 million won and 200 million won.
Ah, now Our Heroes are making me feel dirty again.
The salary slashing has prompted the players association to threaten legal action against the league.
“It’s a serious problem that this measure had to apply first to the new club,” Na (secretary general of the player’s association) said. “The association demands that Centennial general manager, Park Noh-jun, step down and take responsibility for calling for the new pay cut rule.”
Yonhap reported Monday that Park asked the league to eliminate the lid on pay cuts. Park (the guy on the right in the top photo) refuted the report. “It’s simply inaccurate because I attended the meeting only as an observer and had no say whatsoever,” Park was quoted as saying by Yonhap.
Heroes! Heroes! Heroes! Our Heroes!
And who would be the newest Hero? Well, if you’re a regular reader of this blog you’ll be delighted to know it’s none other than the catcher who doesn’t like the fact that his team expects him to hit– Hong Sung-heon.
Marvelous. In return Doosan gets veteran Lee Sung-yong, who makes 350 million won. Surprised? Didn’t think so. I think it’s safe to say that at least for today, Lee is the happiest player in the KBO.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Simon Currie // Feb 28, 2008 at 5:10 pm
The union culture is more strongly entrenched in Korea than in Japan (or are the Koreans just protest happy?) so I’d expect the players association to react harshly to the new salary cut measures introduced by the league (without the consent of the players association, I assume).
NPBPA even went on strike for selected weekends when there was threat of contraction (though this was a more severe situation with 17% job loss throughout NPB).
What can we realistically expect the KBOPA to do in reaction to this?
The new unis look decent though, colour scheme reminds me of the Rakuten Eagles with the crimson (which in turn comes from his allegiance to Harvard where the team owner Mikitani went on an exchange program).
2 JS // Feb 28, 2008 at 11:41 pm
Korea is protest happy, but I don’t we’ll see much action on this one. First of all, the league has made it clear it’s pulling the strings with the musical chairs ownership, and it’s also shown it’s willing to do anything to get that eighth team on the field…even if it means changing a rule to allow the new team to save the few bucks it would have saved over the winter.
I think the players assoc. will stomp their feet and bitch a little, but then the league will appoligize and that will be that. The league will have eight teams and everyone will pretend nothing happened.
3 Shinsano // Feb 29, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Nice comments. I think the KBOPA might step up the heat a little, but I think deep down everyone knows they need to make allowances for the odd situation. Unfortunately, the KBO is 100% responsible, so there isn’t much to be done…unless the PA staged a full on walkout. But I don’t think they will.
By the way, Dan at the My KBO forum just posted the 2008 KBO schedule.
http://kbo.ipbfree.com/index.php?showtopic=105
4 Dan // Feb 29, 2008 at 1:09 pm
i hope the player’s association steps up and gets the KBO to end this “let’s change rules when it will benefit us” charade.
as for the uniforms….i personally think they are pretty bad. what is the logo supposed to be of? i have no idea. also…why do the two O’s in WOORI look like an M?
wish they would have gone with something basic….with just HEROES written in script or something.
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