South Korea Baseball team
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The South Korea national baseball team is the national baseball team of the Republic of Korea (South Korea). It has participated in the Summer Olympic Games in 1984, 1988, 1996 and 2000. At the 2008 Summer Olympics, it won the gold medal in a final victory against Cuba. They are currently ranked third in the world, behind Cuba and the U.S.A..
Until the 1998 Baseball World Cup, the team was made up exclusively of amateur players. At the 2000 Summer Olympics, the team was composed of players from the Korean Baseball Organization and Korean players from Major League Baseball and Nippon Professional Baseball.
Uniforms
 | ||
 |  |  |
 | ||
 | ||
| Home | ||
| ||
|  | |
| ||
| ||
| Away | ||
Baseball at the 2008 Summer Olympics
After losing 4-3 to Japan at the 2007 Asian Baseball Championships, the Koreans finished with a 2-1 record and were forced to seek entrance to the 2008 Olympics via the Final Olympic Qualifying Tournament to be held March 7th-14th, 2008 in Taichung, Chinese Taipei.
The Korean Roster, for the qualifying, is mainly comprised of professional players from the Korea Baseball Organization and is not subjected to the scheduling conflicts that troubled the teams from Australia, Canada, and Mexico.[2]
Going into the tournament rated by the experts as an outsider, or a dark horse at most, South Korea surprised everybody by finishing the group stage in first place with a perfect 7-0 record. The team began its run with come from behind win against heavily favored United States, scoring the winning run in the bottom of the 9th inning with a sacrifice fly. Disappointment soon followed the next game, however, as China (undeniably the weakest team in the tournament) stymied Korea for most of the game before the game was suspended because of rain in the 6th inning with a 0-0 score. Korea bounced back the following day with a tightly contested 1-0 victory over Canada, with Ryu Hyun-Jin recording a complete game shutout. After dispatching their rivals Japan 5-3 in the next game, Korea finished off China in the continuation of the aforementioned suspended game by winning 1-0 in the extra innings. Korea then clinched their place in the final four by dispatching Chinese Taipei 9-8, followed by another surprise victory over heavily favored Cubans, 7-4 (which guaranteed them finishing first place in the group round). The team finished their Round Robin Tournament in style, hammering the Netherlands 10-0 and beating them on mercy rule.
In the Semifinal match, the team was once again matched up against their arch-rivals Japan. The first half of the game was very tight as Japan was leading 2-1 by just 1 point going into the 7th inning. Korea soon tied the ballgame at 2 apiece in the bottom half, then took the lead in the 8th thanks in large part to Lee Seung-Yeop's clutch 2-run home run. Korea added 2 more runs that inning. Korea eventually ended with a 6-2 victory. In the finals they overcame the perennial favorites Cuba for the second time in the tournament, surviving a bases-loaded 9th inning situation with a double play to win the game 3-2, allowing Korea to obtain their gold medal for Baseball. Korea also earned 12 other gold medals during the Olympics making them the second highest gold medalist country after China in Asia.
Baseball at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Team squads#South Korea
South Korea
Manager: 74 - Kim Kyung-Moon (김경문) (Doosan Bears).
Coaches: 76 - Cho Kye-Hyun (조계현) (Samsung Lions), 77 - Kim Gwang-Soo (김광수) (Doosan Bears), 88 - Kim Ki-Tae (김기태) (Yomiuri Giants).
Im Tae-Hoon had been originally named, but was replaced with Yoon Suk-Min.