By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
Numbers suggest that Park Chan-ho's Major League Baseball (MLB) career is all but over at the age of 34. Stalked by advanced age, diminishing results, and a platonic relationship with the strike zone, Park is clearly no longer the pitcher that had thousands of South Koreans calling in sick on his game days.
Now close from being gone from the game, Park seems desperate for one last taste of euphoria, and a gold at next year's Beijing Olympics just might do the trick.
Park met with Doosan Bears manager Kim Kyung-moon, the national team skipper, Wednesday at a sushi restaurant in southern Seoul, where he lobbied for a spot on the South Korean roster for the Olympic qualifiers in December.
``He basically told me, `put me in and I will do my best,''' Kim told reporters, adding that he virtually gave approval to the National League All-Star pitcher on the spot.
``It's great that a player of Chan-ho's caliber can be so willing to represent his country and call me first. How can I not pick a player like that?'' said Kim.
Perhaps it would be considered blasphemy to leave Park off the national team roster, as many sports fans believe that South Korea's biggest baseball icon ever has earned the chance to end his career on a high note.
However, its totally a different matter whether Park could be counted on in pressure situations at this point, and Kim would be hard-pressed to defend his choice of spending a roster spot for a crumbling former big leaguer when pitching depth is expected to be the team's weak spot.
Unlike Park, the country's other foreign-based stars have shown reluctance toward national team duties. Florida Marlins pitcher Kim Byung-hyun, who played for three different teams this season, is more focused on his impending free agency.
Seo Jae-weong, now with the triple A affiliate of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, also turned down the call from the national team, unwilling to risk extra work in the off-season when his MLB hopes are hanging by a thread.
Byung-hyun and Seo are both members of the South Korean team that won the gold in the 1998 Bangkok Asian Games, which granted them exemption from the country's mandatory military service, so the motives are not as strong as it was then.
Park, another 1998 alumni, is left with nothing to lose when the world has already seen that his talent has abandoned his experience.
Park just pitched one game for the New York Mets and gave up seven runs in four innings, before being released and ending the season with a minor league affiliate of the Houston Astros.
If Park fails to land with a big league club next season, which seems likely, the 0-1 with a 15.75 ERA with the Mets will be his last MLB stat.