Law of Jungle Also Exists in Pro Baseball

The Korean pro baseball this year features, among others, the law of the jungle, which is also applied to the food chain among teams.

Doosan Bears now taking the second place in the Dream League is the representing case. Doosan is trailing Hyundai Unicorns by two games as of Saturday, but they were almost perfect in beating ¡°weak¡± teams.

Doosan won a 6-5 come-from-behind victory over SK Wyverns for 11th winning streak against the latter and is now recording 7-1 against Hanwha Eagles. SK is now recording the lowest winning rate.

Korea Baseball Organization sources said that Ahn Yong-tae of SK had complained of his team¡¯s poor performance against Doosan when he met KBO secretary general Lee Sang-Kook, one of his juniors at college. SK has yet to win a game against Doosan.

In comparison, Doosan was not so good with teams whose percentage of victories is lower than its. Doosan recorded four wins against seven losses against Samsung, 5 wins and seven losses against LG and six wins and six losses against Lotte.

Without SK and Hanwha, Doosan would win by shave 50 percent of the matches.

Hyundai also have good games like Lotte (eight wins, one loss), Haitai and Hanwha (nine wins, two losses, each), thus enjoying the solid leadership in the Dream League.

However, Hyundai is inferior to Doosan who are the runners-up in the Dream League with a record of four wins against six losses and is at par with Samsung (six wins, one draw, five losses), and Magic League leader LG (seven wins, seven losses).

In contrast, LG Twins has a stable record, except for that against Haitai (three wins, one draw and seven losses) which is at the bottom of the Dream League.

SK is recording 0.263, but is notorious for the uncertainty. It made good contests with Hyundai with four wins against eight losses, and LG with four wins against five losses.

SK was also strong against defending champions Hanwha with six wins against eight losses for a total 14 wins against 21 losses against these three teams, reaching its earlier goal of recording 0.4.

Meanwhile, Lotte broke the traditional relationship of ¡°natural enemy¡± with Samsung and Doosan by recording seven wins against five (Samsung) and seven wins against four losses (Doosan).

LG is leading its Seoul rival Doosan 7-5.

Hwansoo Zang zangpabo@donga.com