Korean pitcher Koo Dae-sung said Wednesday he will pitch for an Australian club in an annual regional baseball tournament to be held in his native country this fall.
In a phone interview, Koo, who is currently pitching for the Sydney Blue Sox in the Australian Baseball League (ABL), said he will be "a special guest" for the league champion Perth Heat during the Nov. 8-12 Asia Series tournament in Busan, some 450 kilometers southeast of Seoul.
The Asia Series brings together league champions from South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, China and Australia. The Heat won the ABL championship in the 2011-12 season that ended in February this year.
Sources said the Heat had first told the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), the host of the Asia Series, that they wanted to include the left-handed reliever for the tournament to help promote baseball Down Under. The KBO accepted the idea, sources said.
Koo, 43, joined the Blue Sox for the 2010-11 season, and was named the league's Reliever of the Year after recording 12 saves and a 1.00 earned run average (ERA). Opponents hit only .144 against him. He had eight saves with a 3.38 ERA in the 2011-12 season.
Koo made his professional debut with the Hanwha Eagles of the KBO in 1993, and won the league MVP award after recording 18 wins and 24 saves with a league-leading 1.88 ERA.
He played for the New York Mets in Major League Baseball (MLB) in 2005 and the Orix BlueWave in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) from 2001 to 2004. Koo is the first South Korean to play in the KBO, MLB and NPB.
In 2010, he retired from the Eagles with 67 wins, 214 saves and 1,221 strikeouts in 1,128 2/3 innings in his KBO career.
Koo denied rumors that he would represent Australia at the World Baseball Classic (WBC) in March next year. A local paper here reported earlier Wednesday that Koo had accepted an offer from Australian officials to represent his adopted home.
"I think the fact that I will play in the Asia Series was blown out of proportion," he said. "I haven't yet received any offer from the Australian Baseball Federation about the WBC participation, and so I really don't have anything to say about that at this moment."
Koo said, however, that he would "carefully consider" any such offer from Australia.
Koo helped Korea reach the semifinals at the inaugural WBC in 2006, pitching eight innings out of the bullpen in five games with a 1.13 ERA.
Jon Deeble, manager of the Australian national team, said his country needs Koo's experience and pedigree, and officials are trying to find out whether the South Korean would need a residency visa or full citizenship to play for Australia.
Deeble also said no formal offer has been made, but he'd be willing to discuss including Koo on the country's provisional 60-man roster with the Blue Sox if he meets all requirements.
At the WBC, players can represent the country of their parents' birth. The U.S.-born catcher Mike Piazza played for Italy, his parents' native country, at the 2006 WBC, and came back as Italy's hitting coach at the 2009 tournament. (Yonhap)