SEOUL-- Disgraced former major leaguer Kang Jung-ho, whose once-promising career was derailed by off-field problems, will not be able to return to the South Korean league after all.
The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) announced Friday it will not authorize the contract Kang signed with his former club, Kiwoom Heroes, in March.
The KBO cited its commissioner's rights to void contracts signed by players who the league feels may hinder development of the league and undermine the league's protection of rights of its members.
Kang's most recent season came in 2019 with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He'd signed with them before the 2015 season, following nine years with the Heroes franchise. Because Kang wasn't yet a free agent and he went through the posting process to sign with the Pirates, Kang was placed on the "voluntarily retired" list in 2015 and the Heroes retained rights to the player.
Kang had to be removed from that list in order to play in the KBO again. The KBO noted that there are no legal grounds to reject Kang's request to be reinstated, but it decided to keep him out of the league by not approving the contract.
On March 18, the Heroes had announced they had signed Kang to a one-year deal at a league minimum 30 million won (US$23,680), extending a lifeline to a player who had abandoned a comeback bid two years ago.
Kang finished third in the National League Rookie of the Year voting in 2015 and had a career-high 21 home runs in 2016. But his major league career went into a tailspin in December 2016, when he rammed his car into a guardrail in Seoul while driving under the influence of alcohol, and later fled the scene. It turned out to be his third drunk driving case.
Kang missed the entire 2017 season because he failed to obtain his U.S. work permit and later received a suspended jail term. Then he appeared in only three games at the end of the 2018 season.
The Pirates gave him a second chance with a new one-year deal for 2019 but released the underperforming player in August that year.
"We decided that if the deal between Kang Jung-ho and the Heroes were approved, it would have an adverse effect on the development of the KBO," the league office said in a statement. "We looked into this matter from several different angles."
The league pointed out that Kang, prior to that suspended sentence for his third DUI case, had been fined for previous incidents in 2009 and 2011. That Kang fled the scene after that 2016 crash only compounded problems, the KBO added.
"A sports organization is built on the spirit of fair play, and it has to put ethical and moral values above all else," the KBO's statement read. "We felt we had a responsibility as an organization that can have an influence on society."
The KBO added that it wanted to raise awareness about the pitfalls of drunk driving and that it also hoped to send a message that it will take a zero tolerance stance against impaired driving.
The Heroes' general manager, Ko Hyung-wook, said the KBO's decision caught him by surprise.
"We didn't see this coming," Ko said. "We'll need time to have some internal dicussions."
Kang sought to rejoin the Heroes in 2020 and held a press conference in June that year to apologize for his past misdeeds. Kang still faced heavy criticism, with angry KBO fans accusing him of only apologizing just so that he could play again. Kang abandoned that comeback attempt.
The Heroes then came out of blue to announce their signing of Kang, an erstwhile slugger who'd drunk and driven his way out of baseball. Even if Kang had been released from the voluntarily retired list, he wouldn't have been eligible until next year because of an earlier KBO suspension. The KBO had handed down a one-year ban on Kang in May 2020 over his off-field issues, with the ban starting from the day Kang is formally registered as a KBO player.
The Heroes said they wanted to give Kang, 35, one final opportunity to finish out his career on the field, an explanation that did not sit well with baseball fans.
The team has also denied persistent speculation that former club owner and CEO Lee Chang-suk, recently released from prison following an embezzlement conviction, had any say on the decision to bring back Kang.
Lee still has a substantial financial stake in the Heroes and is said to be wielding significant influence over the team's decision-making process, however indirectly.
Source: Yonhap News Agency