Favorite Korean athletes
Annyeong Haseyo everyone! This is your host Mr. S and this is Hwa-ting sports, the one and only English sports podcast out there! Yes technically there are others but they are defunct or focus on only one sport (comedic angry voice) but that’s not the point! (Regular) We focus on dives into the myriad sports of Korea as well as special episodes covering the big leagues as the need arises, sprinkled with comedic irreverent takes throughout. And with that, say it with me, hana-deul-set HWAI-TING!
Stop me if you’ve heard this one; a local boy or girl plays sports well, dominates the regional competition, then leaves for greener pastures. You forget about the player for a time, then the player shows up on TV suddenly. Now everyone won’t shut up about the player! So you know what time it is! Time to talk about Korean athletes that we haven’t already spent oodles of time on and why we like them.
We’ll start with baseball. My current favorite Korean player is Lee Jung Ho of the San Francisco Giants. He’s Korean but he was born in Japan to Lee Jong-Beom, who’s one of the Kia Tigers retired players. He started with Nexen in 2017 and won rookie of the year. His dad was nicknamed Son of the Wind so he got the nickname 바람의 손자 or Grandson of the wind. Seems like the family business continues. Anyway he joined the Giants in 2023 but after his season with Kiwoon ended with a broken ankle. He started for the Giants in 2024 but his season ended in May when he separated his shoulder. This season we get to see what he can really do and some of the fans love him so much they started a cheering section where they wear spikey flame wigs. I want to get one of their hats. It's so hilarious! *Joke sting*. Also, I liked Socrates because his theme song was fun and my landlord had it as his theme song. That way, I always knew he was at home.
So now I’ll check Reddit and see who they say they like. Hmm, one poster said Jung Jin Ho because he makes the Harry Potter style glasses work stylishy. OK… that’s as good a criteria as any. Another poster since deleted says quote I like Lee Yo Sang because he hooked me up with roids and I dominated my local league unquote. (Pause for 3 second) Bruhhhh these Reddit folk be wilding! I bet his next post was in r/medicalhelp asking how his balls shrunk to peanuts. *Joke sting* Yeah… I don’t think I’ll be looking for answers from them anymore. Facebook groups are all gated so that’s no help. I’ll have to ask a few of my baseball watching friends to see who they say. Mr. J says Park Chan Ho of the Tigers and Shi Hwan of the Eagles. A few friends mentioned Ryu Hyun Jin, especially those that remember his Dodgers days. Ain’t many fans of Choo Shin Soo these days.
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As far as football goes, I can’t say I have a defined favorite Korean player. I’m usually watching the foreign player because they’re the ones with the ball most of the time. My wife’s favorite player was the Dragon’s goalie from 2016 to 2019, forgot his name but he had huge thighs so she called him Thunder Thighs *joke sting*. Whatta nickname huh? If you’re the famous Jeonnam goalkeeper, *laugh* just know your nickname in the foreign community has got to be more hilarious than your Korean nickname! Hooo… anyway, my students frequently talk about Lee Kang in and Son Heum Min a lot. Son we’ve talked about a lot because his family can’t stay out of trouble, so we’ll talk about Lee Kang In for a change. Lee Kang In was born in Incheon, started his youth career there and then joined Valencia FC academy in 2011, and worked his way up to the main team, then went to Mallorca in 2021. After 2 years there he signed with Paris St. Germain, where he has won the continental treble. Whether or not he’ll stay is up in the air because he’s not getting much playing time due to two other amazing wingers from France and Georgia on the team. Please Lee! Come home and play for the Dragons! Valdivia can’t do it all by himself! *joke sting*
Let’s see what Reddit has to say. Hmm….feel like I’m gonna regret this. Click here and… OK, one poster says Ji So Yeon is their favorite player because they like her handles and aggressive jawline. PAUSE! PAUSE! Bruhhhh these redditors have no chill! *joke sting* OK, let me see if anyone I know has a more appropriate reason, but I can’t deny So Yeon is a great player. One of my friends told me Park Ji Seong was his favorite. We talked about him before, he was the player whose dad fed him frog meat. He played for Manchester United for years so maybe it worked? Now look, if you got kids, I’m not saying you should go to your closest pond with a slingshot and start picking off Kermets. All, all I’m saying is you should check Coupang to see if they have it. They got horse meat and kangaroo, so why not frog? *joke sting*
And now let’s look at basketball. Problem is, basketball’s not too popular here. It used to be more popular in the old days but not so much these days, what with the NBA on cable plans and all that now. And most of the foreigners like me tend to follow the foreign players, because in some circumstances a player or two may come from our hometown or college and something like that. Nonetheless I actually have a few Korean players I wanna aim the spotlight on. Let’s start with Coach Yun at JungAng University. Why Coach Yun and not a player? Because he is a player on the college 3 on 3 league called the Alpak Tour. He joined the league to better connect with his players and show them the moves he learned in a real game environment. The fans got into it too, calling him a KBL legend and praise like that. He won the MVP in the KBL back in 2011 so it makes sense. Imagine if you were playing basketball at your JC and suddenly Carmello Anthony became your head coach. A coach that cares for his players, instead of hitting their legs with flagpoles, looking at YOU Coach Son, should get all the accolades in my book.
Heo Ung and Heo Hoon come up a lot in online discussions, though some of it is because Ung is always in court and not just the basketball one. Lee Gwan Hee of Samsung and DB won entertainer of the year so he’s got some fans who saw him on Single’s Inferno.
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Golf is also popular here. Older fans remember Pak Se Ri because of how dominant she was in the 90s. Some say she gave the people hope during the IMF days. These days there are a few names to watch out for in women’s golf like rookie Kim Shi Hyeon that I’ve seen talked about on Naver sports. Amy Yang is defending her LPGA title this week but I don’t know how popular she is. I don’t know much about golf since I don’t really consider it a sport. *booo sound* You hit a ball into a hole with a stick and you take turns! How sporting is that!
Speaking of sports I don’t consider actually sports, there’s E-sports. And you know who it is. It’s Faker, the famous League of Legends player. Because he and his team won gold in the Asian games, he doesn’t have to do military training, well at least not the main conscription. There was a lot of controversy about that decision in the press but the rules are the rules. Anyway he comes up a lot with college kids who play games. 미르다요 is popular in Battlegrounds these days. I’m sure there were some Starcraft celebrities as well.
Before I forget, I should mention everyone’s favorite volleyball player Kim Yeon-Koung who led the women’s team to the Olympics and won best player of the year by FIVB. She wasn’t a favorite of mine but I recall the huge crowds at Heunguk Pink Spiders games whenever I saw her. Now she’s retired and the league has held meetings with marketing experts to figure out what to do. It’s like the NBA trying to figure out what to do when Jordan retired but Kobe wasn’t quite that popular.
Here’s an unexpected sport for ya- Kabbadi the Indian tag game. Yes Korea plays Kabbadi and the Panta Pirates had Lee Jang Kun on their team last year. He led the Korean team to silver in the 2018 Asian games and is the 3rd highest paid player in the India league. Nowadays he appears on TV shows. Who says you have to play in the regular leagues to be a star?
Worst Persons
There’s that music again, which means more people have pissed me off. Who’s this week’s winners for failure? The Nap award goes to… Sungwi Girls high school for letting their girls basketball team whither away. Their team used to be great, producing WKBL star Park Chan-sook to ‘super guard’ Park Ji-hyun who’s now playing in Spain. It’s so weird to see such a great program collapse. The school has signed 0 players this season, and last season they could only field 5. Some prospective players are out with injuries. Hell the team doesn’t even have a coach as the last one retired and the new one can’t start until players are found. It’s a sad situation, not helped by the fact that players in Korea often follow the coach to new places. It’s time the school boosters and alumni devote some energy and money. Maybe create a scholarship plan? Bring in some foreign players who need minutes? Look, if they’re not ready to give up, they need to show up with some crazy new ideas to save their team.
Runner-up for the Nap award goes to Gwangju FC for being fined 10 million won because they had 2.3 billion won in losses. The bookkeeper was out on parental leave too, it seems.
The Radon award goes to… the KBL for canceling the preseason commissioner’s cup! According to reports in Jumpball magazine, the cup was canceled and replaced with exhibition games because the season’s starting earlier this year and they felt the team’s fans were having trouble going to places like Gunsan and Tongyeong. This pisses me off for two reasons. One, cities without teams but with proper gyms get to show off that they can support the game. It could be used as a jumping point for a city to get a new franchise or take on a moving one. Two, this is South Korea. It’s not that hard to cross the country. There are buses, trains, hell you can cycle between cities if you have the legs for it. I guess there are 3 problems I’m having with this. The last problem is cities that don’t have a team get to attract fans with the cup that normally wouldn’t go to a game. So now the new plan is one and one exhibition games. Which is better than nothing but they should have been playing those anyway, just to get the players into game shape and used to the coach’s systems. Something more competitive, like a cup with money in it, would be more interesting to watch. Which we can’t because it’s on TVing. *joke sting*
And now the Plutonium Award goes to…streaming network Disney Plus for locking down the FC Barcelona Korea games. According to reports in the Joongang Daily, the streaming giant is looking to expand and diversify its options. Which of course leads me to the big problem. CoupangPlay is putting its international offerings under a sports pass for man won a month, TVing has KBO and KBL and who knows what else at this point, all for 7 thousand something a month. We’ll have to wait and see how long until KOVO winds up on Apple + or Tubi or whatever. Cable TV is 17 thousand a month, plus whatever the cable box costs. Either way, I’m paying for things I’m not going to watch. So look, I’ll just have to stick with highlights, which is usually what I watch anyway because I don’t have time for live sports except on weekends. But for those on a budget that want to watch their favorites, well your budget will have to shrink even more as the free options get gobbled up. I hereby direc you to episode 16 of the podcast if you don’t want to sink your budget into 5 or whatever streaming options out there.
Game of the week
First up is the WKBL 3on3 tournament in Starfield mall in Goyang this weekend. So after your overpriced shopping trip and eating overpriced sushi, take a look at some quality women’s basketball. Champions BNK will represent Korea in this round of the tournament.
In baseball we’ve got Samsung vs Lotte in Sajik. Both teams are sitting pretty up in the standings and the games could get good and intense. Can Lotte move up in the standings or will Samsung hold them back?
And finally we’ve got Korea vs Japan handball in Cheongju. Naver sports is broadcasting so if you can’t make it, at least this event is free to watch.
Ending
Thank you for tuning in today. We hope you learned something about Korean sports, like I certainly did. Pass this pod on to anyone interested in Korean sports and especially rookies because our show has hints and tips to make their lives easier. Those hapless souls…(2 second pause). If you wish to read along or contact the show, visit our website at hwatingsportspodcast dot com and everything you need is right there. Give our podcast 5 stars if you have time. Music notes like the opening song thanks to DumiAFava. Cover art thanks to James! A shoutout to our listeners in Wädenswil Switzerland! Ain’t no way I said that right! Next episode will be coverage of a Hanwha Eagles game from their new stadium, assuming I can get tickets somehow. Last weekend I came close but it rained. Until next time, Korean sports fans!
(AI voice or other) Guests of the Hwai-ting sports podcast drink at Siobahn’s apartment overlooking the Han river in western Namyangju! Only a 15 minute walk from the subway station but trust me it’s 30 minutes, he has no sense of time! You will be exclaimed by his rigorously chosen selection of a bottle of ice wine he spent 30 bucks on but his girlfriend said was too sweet, the 3 bottles of discount Jameson, the 4 cans of IPA he bought at a beer festival but he’s now too scared to drink, and the bottle of jinro soju he brought home from a restaurant by mistake! That’s Siobahn’s apartment, Namyangju’s most exclusive expat lounge!
Notes
https://m.sports.naver.com/basketball/article/144/0001047480