Afraid of Children Resembling Them

LG’s pitcher Suh Seung-hwa has been ejected from games three consecutive times in the two months since the opening of the pro baseball season, setting a brand-new record in Korean baseball. He seems to deserve the teasing remarks that have been cast his way, calling him an “extraordinarily naughty child on baseball ground.” The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) has invoked aggravated disciplinary penalties against him, fining him two million won and suspending him for three games.

But the LG baseball team regards it differently. He is usually very taciturn and has mistakenly pitched dead balls as he aimed to pitch closer to the batter’s body when his body condition was unable to fully control the ball. They also assert that he didn’t intentionally trip up Doosan’s first baseman Yoon Jae-gook on June 2.

Suh Seung-hwa is an obscure pitcher who managed to record his first victory this year compared to a total of 10 career losses since his debut back in 2002. However, all the famous naughty children of baseball so far have been baseball stars. Taking this incident as momentum, let us look over famous mischievous baseball players from inside and outside of the country.

--Domestic baseball teams

Lotte’s mercenary, Hose, who is nicknamed an “imported sea gull,” is our top-rated naughty player. In a playoff match against the Samsung Lions back in 1999, he flung his bat towards a spectator who threw garbage at him. He also punched Samsung pitcher Bae Young-soo in the nose and broke it back in 2001, and made a double contract in 2002, stirring harsh criticism from baseball fans.

Is it occurring because of cultural differences? After the introduction of the mercenary system in 1998, more foreign players have been ejected from games than domestic players. In 2002, LG’s Man Janie refused to hand over his ball to pitching coach Yang Sang-moon (currently Lotte’s head coach), who visited the mound to change the pitcher. Last year, Hyundai’s Franklin was dissatisfied with the decision of umpires and ran around the field to express his outrage. Among head coaches, Samsung’s Kim Eung-ryong and former LG head coach Kim Sung-kuen are the top-two famous figures. When Kim Eung-ryong played against Hyundai back in 1996’s Korea Series as the head coach of Haitai, he violently broke a chair in the dugout to demonstrate against a bad call from the umpires. There are not many senior umpires who have not been taken up by Kim’s strong hands in exasperation. Former head coach Kim Sung-kuen was famous for dragging out quarrels between umpires. In a match between Hyundai held in Suwon in 1998, when Kim worked for Ssang Bang Wool, he constantly bothered the umpires over the problem of the height of the mound for more than half an hour.

--Overseas

In 1998 as a pitcher of Yomiuri Giants in the Japanese baseball league, Calves, who once played for Samsung in 2001 as a pitcher, suddenly threw a ball at an umpire after being ejected. He also stirred up bean ball conflicts whenever he went up the mound due to his fatal pitching style, which always just nearly missed batters’ bodies.

In the U.S., John Rocker is regarded as a representative naughty baseball player who resigned at a relatively early stage though he was regarded as a promising pitcher with his fastball clocked around 160 kilometers per hour. He stirred up criticism because he made racial remarks in an interview with Sports Illustrated back in 1999.

Carl Everett of Montreal, who used to be a colleague of Park Chan-ho of the Texas Rangers, is a habitual nuisance player who takes on not only the umpires, but also his head coach. He even mistakenly let his bat slip out of his hands when he was practicing his swing, injuring a four-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl.

In spite of his genteel facial appearance, New York Yankee Kevin Brown, who crossed over the 100 million dollars salary level for the first time in the U.S., always showed his bare hips while changing whenever female reporters entered the locker room.

Kim Byung-hyun of Boston also put his name on the list of naughty boys due to his finger gestures, violence against reporters, and interruption of conversations with his colleagues because of his introverted characteristics. Park Chan-ho also kicked Anaheim pitcher Tim Belcher back in 2001 when he played for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

On the other hand, there was John McEnroe in tennis who always smacks down his racket when he got dissatisfied with the referee’s decision, Dennis Rodman in basketball who kicked cameramen and head-butted referees, Eric Cantona in soccer who kicked spectators, John Daly in golf who threw his putter into the nearest pond and walked off to his abode, and Mike Tyson in boxing who turned himself from “Nuclear fist” to “Nuclear teeth.”

Hwan Soo Zang zangpabo@donga.com