Look Out for the All-Stars at Sajik Stadium

The Korean baseball league’s All-Star game, the so-called "Battle of the Stars," will raise its curtain with its magnificence on July 17, 6:20 p.m. at Busan Sajik Stadium.

The All-Star festival, which is being in held Busan for the first time in nine years (last time in 1995), will be the battle between the East (Doosan, Samsung, SK, Lotte) and the West (Hyundai, Kia, LG, Hanhwa) and consisting of 40 All-Stars, of which 20 members were chosen by the fans and the remaining nominated by the coaches.

The East team leads the West in the all-time series with 16 wins and 11 losses, but the West is attempting to clinch its third consecutive victory.

The biggest common interest will be the winner of the Most Valuable Player, called "Mr. All-Star." In browsing through the previous winners of the award, most were concentrated on the big sluggers with strong impressions rather than pitchers. Kim Si-jin in 1985 and Jung Myung-won in 1994 were the only two pitchers to win the award. The Lotte team shows a strong bond with the All-Star game as they have produced seven "Mr. All-Stars" and with this year`s ceremony being held in their hometown.

Lee Jong-bum, who has a lifetime batting average of 0.344 in the All-Star games, is seeking his second consecutive “Mr. All-Star” title win in league history after only Park Jung-tae in 1999. Yang Joon-hyuk of Samsung, who made an upswing in his batting in the opening half-season, dreams of "The star of stars" for the first time lead with his particular "Hurrah" batting stance. Yang stands on top of the batting average ranking for the East team as he has a lifetime All-Star game batting average of 0.447, which is close to 50 percent. The prize money is 10 million won.

Hanhwa`s everlasting veteran, Song Jin-woo, starts for the West team as he is tied with Head Coach Sun Dong-ryul for the most All-Star appearances with 10.

Various events and interesting scenes will draw the fans’ attention. Broomba (Hyundai), Yang Joon-hyuk (Doosan) and Kim Dong-joo (Doosan) among others will participate in the home run competition as they square off to be the league`s biggest slugger. The invitation match of the coaching staff, including Kim Eung-ryong against the celebrities, would be worth watching as the staff members comes off as players and referees.

The memoriable “Eternal Busan Seagull” Choi Dong-won, who captured four single-handed victories in the 1984 Korean Series, will toss the first ball. This is the first time in which an ex-pro player will throw the first pitch in the All-Star game.

The match will be aired on KBS 1TV and will be played at 2 p.m. on July 18 in case the game is cancelled due to rain delay.

Jong-Seok Kim kjs0123@donga.com