By Kang Seung-woo
Former national team manager Kim In-sik is emerging as a favorite to lead the Korean squad at next year’s World Baseball Classic (WBC).
The Samsung Lions’ Ryu Jung-il said Wednesday that he and the other club managers have proposed to the head of the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) that a full-time appointment be made to head Team Korea at the quadrennial international baseball tournament.
“In a meeting, where all managers of the eight baseball clubs and KBO Commissioner Koo Bon-neung attended ahead of a media day on April 3, the Kia Tigers’ Sun Dong-yeol proposed that the national team be led by a full-time manager,” Ryu said.
“Rather than active managers at the helm of the national team, Kim, who had a solid career at the WBC, is the right man.”
Kim, who currently serves as technical chief of the KBO, previously managed the Hanwha Eagles and also led the Doosan Bears to championship titles in 1995 and 2001.
The third WBC, founded in 2006, is scheduled to take place in February 2013. The nation’s performances at the WBC, along with winning gold at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, have played a key role in a renaissance for local baseball.
In the maiden tournament, Korea, seen as an underdog on the international baseball circle reached the semifinals and fell to Japan in extra innings in the championship game in 2009. The 61-year-old Kim led the squad both times,.
Ahead of the second tournament, the baseball governing body had trouble finding someone to lead the national team because the active managers wanted to focus on the upcoming season.
As a result, Kim, with the Hanwha Eagles at the time, took the job and the KBO ruled that the manager of the league champions the previous year would assume the position for international tournaments. At the Guangzhou Asian Games in 2010, Cho Bum-hyun, then manager of the 2009 Korean Series-winning Tigers, led Team Korea.
According to Ryu, the commissioner said that he will stick with the current system for the upcoming competition.
Managers want to avoid taking the job because of the WBC schedule.
The previous competitions were held in March, just a month ahead of the regular season, forcing the manager to miss about two months of his team’s spring training.
“It is an honor to lead the national team, but managers also have to prepare for the season, so it poses a burden,” Ryu said.
Despite making the final in the second tournament, the Eagles finished 2009 at the bottom of the standings and Kim stepped down afterwards.
“Whoever takes the job, heading the national team at the WBC is onerous because the previous achievements were so impressive,” said Ryu, whose Lions are favored to win the KBO title for a second straight year.
However, some claim that active managers should be named because they can make quick decisions that international competitions often require, as they do in regular games. In addition, they are more capable of using players that they have seen in recent matches than Kim.