Shim Jeong-soo Slams 47th Homerun

Hyundai Shim Jeong-soo hit his first homerun of September.

Shim slammed a two-run homer at the top of 5th inning while his team was leading 3-1 in the first of the 2 successive games against Doosan at Jamshil Station on the 13th. It was a homerun after 13 days since his last homerun at Suwon against Doosan, 47th homerun by Shim. He is anticipated to hit 52 homers this season.

However, his homerun faded as Doosan turned over the game at the bottom of 9th inning while trailing 4-6. Ahn Gyeong-hyeon tied the game with a double with runners on 1st and 3rd base, and Doosan enjoyed victory with 3 consecutive walks that finished the game.

Meanwhile, Samsung Lee Seungyeob`s homerun pace seems to outrun that of Barry Bonds (San Fransico Giants) when he set a new homerun record with 73 homers in 2001.

Lee hit 2 homeruns in the game against Hanhwa on the 10th, a day before Chuseok, his 53rd homerun of the season. He failed to slam another the next day, but he hit 53 homeruns in 115 games this season, marking 0.46 per game. Bonds marked 0.45 per game in 2001.

Lee Seung-yeob is anticipated to hit 61 homeruns this season, and the calculation shows that he would as well be able to hit up to 75 homeruns if the domestic professional baseball league had 162 games as in Major League.

It is also almost certain for Lee to be ranked in the 1st place regarding absolute number of homeruns this season, although the number of games is smaller in Korea compared to USA and Japan.

It is almost impossible to reverse the rank as Park Chan-ho`s team mate Alex Rodriguez (Texas Rangers) hit only 42 homeruns in the Major League, Tuffy Rose (Kintetsu Buffaloes) of Japan 45. Rodriguez is anticipated to hit 47 homeruns this season, and Rose 47 only.

Jang Hwan-su zangpabo@donga.com