Samsung, Top of Korean Series After 21 Years

Samsung got its first victory in Korean series. Samsung overturned the game on LG by 10-9, dramatically, through three point home run by Lee Seung-yub, which made the scores level and in the late nine round Ma Hae-young scored the final home run in the 6th game of Korean Baseball series on 10th at Daegue. Therefore, Samsung got its first victory in Korean series since its inception, by 4 wins and 2 losses.

Is it great historical victory or just lucky that it could have the best players all the time?

Old criticism of Samsung coach Kim Eung-ryong (61) should be over now as result tells everything. It is not important anymore the reason why he sent Elbira and In Chang-yong, ‘one-two-punch’ on the ground together in the fourth game.

Even though it is ‘God of baseball’, who can hold victory cup, 10 times in 20 years of coach life? He has had 90.9% victory rate in Korean series, except only one time.

His achievement in 11 Korean series is 42 wins, 17 loses, 2 ties that makes a winning rate of 0.712. Who can criticize such his shining record?

But coach Kim is also human being. He wore Samsung uniform last year, before the start of season leaving Haiti where he had stayed for 18 years. He wanted to cut Samsung’s misfortune that was sitting just in front of their victory.

However, coach Kim suffered losing by reverse against Dusan, which was a weak team, by 2 wins and 4 losses last year. It was hard time for him in his baseball career and gave frustration to Samsung as well. It was natural that criticism arose against his leadership.

However he didn’t give up. As he said so, he couldn’t grasp star players of Samsung who have strong personality, however, he gave faith to them by mixing whip and carrot.

And he achieved “V10”, which can’t and will not be broken in the history of World Baseball.

Hwan-Soo Zang zangpabo@donga.com