Korea's top professional baseball league will push to open a baseball museum at a ballpark in Seoul, officials said Friday.
The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) has picked the basement at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul as a candidate site for the first baseball museum in the nation's capital, according to the officials.
"If we'd be able to use some vacant land in Seoul or Seongnam (south of Seoul), we could build our museum like the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, but it won't be so easy," said Lee Sang-il, secretary general of the KBO. "If we use the basement at Jamsil, we could model ourselves after the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum at Tokyo Dome."
The baseball museum in the Japanese capital is located inside the domed ballpark, home of the Yomiuri Giants and one of the landmarks in the city.
Officials said the KBO had initially offered to purchase some unused property in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province owned by the city to build a baseball museum and ballpark for amateur players, but the proposal was rejected.
The western metropolis of Incheon, the birthplace of baseball in South Korea, is also apparently interested in housing a baseball museum, but it has yet to make any concrete proposal.
The basement at Jamsil, which stretches for 1,983㎡, would be used to display baseball memorabilia and also provide interactive features for fans to enjoy. Jamsil Stadium is managed by the Seoul Metropolitan Government.
South Korea does have a baseball hall of fame, but it is located on the southern resort island of Jeju. KBO officials want to build a museum on the mainland to ensure better access for fans. In addition, Jeju doesn't have a pro baseball franchise.
At a photo exhibition commemorating the 30th anniversary of the start of pro baseball here late last month, You Young-koo, commissioner of the KBO, sought cooperation from Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon for the museum proposal. Oh said he would positively consider the idea.
The KBO secretary general noted that the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown has an interactive hall where visitors can practice hitting and throwing, and said, "We could have a much better interactive corner if we use our well-developed technology."
Several pieces of baseball memorabilia, including about 5,000 game-used bats, gloves and jerseys, and 4,000 books on the sport, are being stored in the basement of the KBO headquarters in southern Seoul.
Lee said if the plans for the museum are finalized, the league would have a better chance of retrieving pieces of baseball history in the possessions of retired baseball players and officials.
"So far, we haven't been that successful whenever we asked baseball people to lend us their items for display," Lee said. "But once we have concrete plans for a museum in place, I expect them to be more cooperative." (Yonhap)