Book doubles excitement for baseball fans

A spring training game played by the Samsung Lions and the LG Twins of the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) at the newly built Daegu Samsung Lions Park, March 22. The KBO kicked off its new baseball season on Friday. / Yonhap

A cover for “Pro Yagu Scouting Report 2016”

By Baek Byung-yeul

Ever since the professional baseball league was established in 1982, baseball has been loved here, becoming one of the most popular team sports in Korea.

Starting with six teams, the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), the country’s top professional baseball league, has made fans laugh and cry with a slew of memorable games through the years. With the Suwon-based KT Wiz joining the league as its 10th team last season, the KBO reached its best attendance mark, garnering more than 7.36 million fans.

Even though Park Byung-ho and Kim Hyun-soo left for Major League Baseball (MLB), the new baseball season embarked on its six-month-long season on Friday, and on the occasion of the start of its 35th season, the annual baseball guidebook “Pro Yagu (baseball in Korean) Scouting Report 2016” has been published.

Among many baseball guidebooks in Korea, the “Pro Yagu Scouting Report” has emerged as a hallmark guidebook for fans since its first edition in 2010, because it contains not only the players’ profiles but alsodevotes many pages to analyses that help newbie fans find interesting points to look for this season.

Written by prominent baseball writers — cartoonist Choi Hoon, an avid baseball fan who has been drawing baseball cartoons weekly since 2004; SBS TV’s baseball reporter Lee Sung-hoon; the Kyunghyang Shinmun’s baseball reporter Lee Yong-gyun; Ilgan Sports newspaper’s baseball reporter Choi Min-kyoo and Yoo Hyo-sang, an operator of the online baseball information site Yaguchingu — the book tells why the new baseball season will be interesting, with informed insight into the KBO.

At first glimpse, the most noticeable features are the cartoons of each team by cartoonist Choi. Following Choi’s preview, the guidebook analyzes reasons why the Doosan Bears hoisted the Korean Series title last season, predicts which team will be able to play in the postseason, tells of changes in the new season and notes possible milestones that could happen this season.

One of the most interesting points of the guidebook is “why we should pay more attention to fly ball pitchers.”

Due to the “juiced-up ball” controversy, the KBO has decided to use one ball for all games — the Skyline AAK-100, made by Skyline Leports — beginning this season.

Noting that the Skyline ball had the lowest bounciness among official balls used last season, the guidebook anticipates that fly ball pitchers, a type of pitcher who produces an above-average number of fly balls, will become more influential this season.

Another interesting point is that the guidebook includes worst-case scenarios for each team, which doubles the excitement for readers of this year’s book and gives an added dimension for fans to watch for this season.