Backup baseball player delivers importance of being earnest

Former LG Twins’ infielder Hwangmok Chi-seung slides in safely during his Korea Baseball Organization League game against the Nexen Heroes at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul, in this 2017 file photo. / Yonhap

Cover for Hwangmok Chi-seung’s “I believe in earnest”

By Baek Byung-yeul

In the world of professional sports, winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.

Moreover, fans rarely consider a player who has spent most of his career as a backup.

However, when it comes to former LG Twins’ infielder Hwangmok Chi-seung, it’s a different story.

Spending his entire career as a backup infielder in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) League, Hwang hit only 46 hits with no home run at 185 at-bats in four seasons from 2014 to 2017.

Fans had expected he would still be a buffer for the Twins this upcoming baseball season, but Hwangmok abruptly brought the curtain down on his career after the 2017 season, deciding to take over the work of his father-in-law in Japan.

After finishing his baseball life, Hwangmok recently published the book, “I believe in earnest,” describing how earnest he was to become a professional baseball player.

Hwangmok has been a player baseball fans adored for his hustle on the play. Compared to poor batting skill, he had a solid defense. With his nifty footwork, he always pumped oxygen into his team covering second base and short stop positions.

Looking back on his baseball career, Hwang wrote he is happy to leave at least one memorable scene to baseball fans.

Though he was a lesser known player in the KBO League, Hwangmok saw his name in the headlines once for making a game-tying acrobatic slide last July.

While his team was playing against the Nexen Heroes on July 26, Hwangmok was substituted as a pinch runner on second base when his team was losing 3-2 in the bottom of the ninth inning with two outs.

When Lee Hyeong-jong hit a single to right field, Hwangmok dashed to home plate but the Heroes’ Lee Jung-hoo’s throw from right field was faster than Hwangmok as the ball arrived at home plate several feet ahead of the runner. When the catcher Park Dong-won tried to tag him out at home, Hwangmok made a quick dodge by twisting his body at the same time and touched the plate. The umpire called an out after the play, but the Twins appealed for a video review and it was ruled out that he evaded the tag and slipped his left hand to the plate.

The marvelous sliding led the game to an extra inning and the Twins could grab a 4-3 win on a walk-off bases-loaded walk. Not surprisingly, Hwangmok was named MVP of the game.

“It’s a good thing to present the memorable play to fans,” Hwang wrote. “On the baseball news section that night, articles titled ‘Desperate sliding that paved the way for the come-from-behind win’ or ‘Heroic sliding in baseball sliding’ were featured. It was a big relief for me.”

Prior to becoming a professional baseball, Hwangmok was considered to have great potential like all other rookie players entering the professional league. Born in 1985, the Jeju native began playing baseball when he was a fifth-grade elementary school student.

As a senior at Jeju Jeil Middle School, he made his name known after leading the Korean national youth team to the crown in the Asia region tournament after going undefeated in six games. But the seemingly promising baseball career faced a serious crisis as his ligaments were torn when he was a sophomore university baseball player.

Nonetheless, he never gave up baseball. He kept trying to extend his baseball career -- he entered a Japanese amateur team and knocked and played in an independent baseball team in Korea.

Finally, he could join the Twins and displayed his skill in front of avid baseball fans for four years.

Wrapping up his baseball life, Hwangmok wrote he is satisfied with his baseball life.

“Besides that slide, I had always tried my damnedest every moment for my team. So I don’t want to leave with regrets. Though I faced numerous crises in my baseball life, I was happy to play for the LG Twins,” he wrote.

Hwangmok continued that he had to quit baseball to take over his father-in-law’s work. Living in Japan, his father-in-law is a wooden craft artist but recently his health started deteriorating. Hwangmok said he would like to be a protagonist in the next chapter of his life writing “it is only me who can change my own life.”