Big Hitter, Choi Hee-Seob

A training exercise is completed. Only one thing is to hit a home run.

Choi Hee-Seob (24, Chicago Cubs) is the first Korean hitter of the big league for fulltime Major Leaguer. Interviewer met him before left the countries by Korean Air at 8:20 p.m. on January 21. Choi Hee-Seob seemed to lose weight.

However, his weight is 115㎏ increased by 5㎏ over the average weight of 110㎏. He had the winter training in Daihan baseball camp located in Namhe Gyeongnam from 24th day of last month.

His goal is to win a Rookie of the Year for National League. He didn’t have time to rest even through he came back after three years & eight months because of his goal.

He built up his physical strength through various training programs such as mountain training and weight training conducted by Cubs. Gu Myeong-Guen, director of Namhe Camp said, “I’ve never seen a hard trainee like him. It was hard to train him because Mr. Choi led the training.”

He advanced his departure plan. Choi Hee-Seob determined the departure saying “I will join the spring camp as soon as possible’, after receiving a medical examination in a hospital of Mokdong.

He moved to the camp of Cubs in Mesa of Arizona as soon as he arrived in US. The team training hasn’t been yet started, but he will start from an individual training. In here, he will re-contract for annual salary. It is forecasted that his annual salary will be determined at USD 350,000 as a lower limit of Major league is USD 300,000. Lee Chi-Hun of agent explained that the annual salary of new players didn’t have a big increase rate.

Besides, Sports Illustrated (SI) selected Choi Hee-Seob as the second place in a section of the first base man in an evaluation of promising player by position at that day.

SI evaluated, “Choi Hee-Sebo is the best player of Cubs. He will play as a starting player in an opening game.”

Hwan-Soo Zang zangpabo@donga.com