Um, Jung-Wook, 156Km Bullet Pitch

Recently, the Korean Peninsular and Japanese Islands have been lifted by the “men on the bullets.”

In Korea, a nameless 5th year pitcher of SK Um, Jung-Wook (21) became a newsmaker by recording the unofficial Korean record by throwing a 156km pitch at a match against Kia in Munhak Stadium. Although Park, Chan-Ho of the Texas Rangers recorded 156km at the Chonma College Baseball Championship as a member of the Hanyang University team in 1993, the existing pro record is 155km by Sun, Dong-Yeol and Park, Dong-Hui.

In Japan, a relief pitcher Yamaguchi Gazuo (27) of Orix Bluewave, which is the team Gu, Dae-Sung plays for, recorded 158km at the match against the Daie Hawks on July 29th. It was a tie record that was created by Irabu Hideki, who plays for the Texas now, in 10 years ago.

Since many record-breaking fastballs are recorded in Korea and Japan, people’s interest about ball speed is higher than ever.

▽Who are the fastball pitchers?

Um, Jung-Wook caught our eyes in Korea. At that Kia game, it was almost impossible to find his pitch slower than 150km. Few days earlier, he recorded 159km at the second league game against the Sangmoo. The Doosan’s left hand pitcher Lee, Hye-Chon is also a second to none fastball pitcher. He recorded 154km twice at the match against the Hanhwa on June 12th. Considering that he was a left handy, the batters might feel his pitch faster than Um, Jung-Wook.

Other that them, Jin, Pil-Joong of Doosan, Lee, Sang-Hoon of LG, and Noh, Jang-Jin of Samsung have the ability to throw 150km, and including Lee, Seung-Ho of SK, all of them are closers. In America, the closer of the San Francisco Giants Rob Nen threw the record setting 102mile (164km) at the World Series in 1997 as a member of the Florida Marlins.

▽How much faster than before?

Although he already past away, the left hand pitcher of the Gyungnam High School Jang, Tae-Young, who was called ‘the man who throws the Sun,’ was invincible. However, he honestly appraised that the ball speed was not faster than 140km. The professional baseball league was formed later, and the first pitcher who threw faster than 150km was not Choi, Dong-Won but Sun, Dong-Yeol. However, pitchers who cannot throw faster than 150km are not even considered as fastball pitchers in these days.

▽Can we trust the record?

The answer is ‘well…’ The ball speed is not a KBO official record. There can be different result for a same pitch depend on the type of speed gun, shooting angle, and whether or not a batter swings

However, the ball speed is, without a doubt, one of the most important information for scouters to select rookies, and each ball club strays attention to measure pitchers’ ball speed.

▽Does fastball do all?

The answer for this also is ‘well…’ Sun, Dong-Yeol confessed that he did not find any reason to throw over 150km while he played for the HaiTai. It means that it was not difficult to manage batters even without fastballs. The typical control pitcher Chang, Ho-Yun had ability to throw over 140km, but he said he did not do that.

If we compare it to golf, fastball is the flying distance of drive, but control is putting. Although long drive golfers like John Dally showed up with the best flying distance, we hardly heard that he won. However, just like you need long drive in order to be a world-class golfer, fastball is the similar thing.

Hwan-Soo Zang zangpabo@donga.com