Utility Player Having All-Star Year

The Korean professional baseball all-star game was played on July 22 at Jamsil Stadium. With an hour remaining before the home run derby, the LG indoor batting cage behind the West all-star team dugout was clamorous.

Hyundai’s Lee Taek-keun, 26, who participated in the derby, was practicing his swing by smashing balls against the net. It was quite contrasting with other players who only took light swings.

Maybe the intense practice paid off since he hit four home runs in the first round and beat Samsung’s slugger Yang Jun-hyuk in the final to win the contest.

Lee said frankly that he had been preparing for the home run derby since a few weeks before the all-star game. It shows how eager he was to play in his first all-star game, designated by the managers after playing four years in the professional league. At the same time, it also shows his symbolic status.

At the start of this season, Lee popped out of the blue swinging a red-hot bat.

Most fans’ reactions were, “Who is this Lee Taek-keun?” while experts predicted that he would be a temporary phenomenon.

Nevertheless, despite an extreme slump in May, Lee finished the first half of this season leading the league with a .336 batting average, second in hits and slugging percentage with 85 and .522 respectively, and fourth in RBIs with 46.

He is known as a workaholic among his teammates. After graduating from Kyoung-nam Commercial High School and Korea University, he signed with Hyundai in 2003 as a catcher and spent the next three years warming the bench, finally starting full-time for the first time this season. No wonder his teammates call him that.

He started off as catcher, then infielder, and finally outfielder, and that is why people call him a multi-position player or an all-around player. However, being called such is painful to him.

Although his batting skill was recognized early, he lacked sufficient defensive skills to obtain a starting spot. Until last year, he would sometimes tell his team, “If it continues like this, I will enlist in the army.” However, after six months of arduous position change training, he is now responsible for Hyundai’s outfield and has performed fabulously so far this season, but for him, there is no room to be caught off guard. As well as he is doing, he wants to leave an even deeper impression on the people about his very existence. That is the reason he prepared twice or thrice more than other players for the all-star game.

Lee said, “Nothing changes just because it’s after the all-star break. I will focus on the games as I always do.”

Sung-Kyu Kim kimsk@donga.com