Led by a former light-hitting second baseman in the South Korean baseball league, the team representing the Los Angeles Dodgers won the “FTX MLB Home Run Derby X” here Saturday.
Jeong Keun-woo, he of 121 career home runs in 16 years in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), had 15 homers in the final against the Boston Red Sox at the exhibition home run derby at Paradise City in Incheon, just west of Seoul.
Major League Baseball organized the home run derby with a twist in South Korea to help expand its fan base. The New York Yankees and the Chicago Cubs were the two other iconic big league franchises represented at the derby, which had earlier visited London and will stop by Mexico City in October.
Jeong teamed up with former Dodgers first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, South Korean short track speed skater Kwak Yoon-gy and U.S. women’s baseball player Ashton Lansdell.
Hitters each swung at 25 pitches and could take up to 10 pitches. They got one point for every home run and also earned points by hitting targets — two of them set up 160 feet from home plate and another two beyond the outfield fence.
Jeong scored 20 points by himself for a 60-56 victory.
En route to the victory, Jeong first took down the Cubs and Lee Seung-yuop, the all-time KBO home run leader with 467 blasts. The Red Sox featured Park Yong-taik, who has the most hits in KBO history with 2,504.
“It’s great to beat both the home run king and the hit king,” Jeong said. “I had a lot of fun being out here with fans, and hopefully we will have more opportunities like this.”
Jeong said he was especially fired up to go up against Park in the final. Moments before the showdown, Park had told reporters he’d be “embarrassed” to face a lightweight like Jeong and he’d rather face Lee instead.
“That really motivated me,” Jeong said. “With the stadium so small (280 to 320 feet from home plate to center), I thought I just had to make solid contact to clear the wall.”
One other former KBO player, Kim Tae-kyun, represented the New York Yankees but lost to the Red Sox in the first round.
Source: Yonhap News Agency