“They ask me, ‘How can I get better at stealing bases?”
Kamitonda Stadium in Wakayama, Japan, where the KT Wiz are in the midst of their final training session. The voice of a ‘legend’ whose appearance in a KT uniform is still a little unfamiliar was raspy.
Coach Lee Jong-beom, the ‘Son of the Wind’. After helping the LG Twins win the pennant last year, he left the field for a while. This year, he spent time helping his son Lee Jung-hoo (San Francisco) adjust to the American scene. But baseball is what he does best. He traveled all the way from rural Japan to coach the Hattae Tigers and Gwangju Il-Go senior Lee Kang-chul.
Lee was hired to work on KT’s infield and outfield defense, which had been pointed out as weaknesses. But during the final camp, Lee changed his mind. He was given the task of being the general manager of the beasts, managing the entire team. This means that the team believes in Lee’s abilities and is satisfied with his coaching after watching him for about 10 days of final training.
So what are his thoughts on his new role as a KT coach, and why did he decide to wear the KT uniform?
“I got a call from the coach out of the blue,” he told us at the finishing camp in Japan. It was probably four days before we left for KT’s final training camp. He said, ‘We want to hire you as a coach,’ and I asked him to give me three days. We had a family meeting. I was actually a little worried. Not because it was KT, but because in the past, everything was in my favor, but now I have a son in the major leagues and my wife has to go to the U.S.,” he said, 토토사이트 explaining that his role as a father is not over and he wondered if he should return to the field.
“But I’m a baseball guy,” he continued, ”and that’s all I ever did. I’m happiest when I’m in uniform. Even though I was away from my family, my wife said that she was relieved that I had a stable job, so I was able to make the decision. I didn’t know Jung-hoo when he was playing, but when he had to rest due to injury, it was boring and frustrating because I couldn’t do anything for him. I thought it would be better to be away from my son a little bit,” he said behind the scenes.
On his role at KT, Lee said, “I know the manager’s personality, and I’ve been following baseball through commentary and coaching, so it’s not hard to adapt. KT is a strong team. Within the framework that the manager has created, my role is to improve the players’ capabilities. However, I noticed that KT’s outfield defense was poor. I emphasize the basics and have them practice a lot, focusing on stopping runners from advancing,” he said.
One of the things many people expect from this coach is base running.
He is the strongest ‘Dae-do’ in history with 84 stolen bases in the 1994 season. KT has a slow team color. There are no fast players. Even the fastest player, Shim Woo-joon, left for the Hanwha Eagles. “Like LG’s Shin Min-jae, we need one or two players to lead off and steal bases. KT doesn’t have anyone who can do that. We need to teach them how to run the bases according to the opponent’s form, habits, and how to react to the situation. Stolen bases are not something you can suddenly increase. Even if you make them understand it in their head, if they don’t believe in it, they won’t play. Fear takes over. It’s important to take the fear out of the players when it comes to running the bases,” he emphasized.
“I had a player ask me, ‘How do I get better at stealing bases?’ This seems to be a problem with rookies these days,” he said. What he meant.
“There are certain fundamentals that you have to have in order to be good at baseball. You can’t make it in the pros without working on those fundamentals. But if you look at today’s players, they come to the pros without realizing what they should have learned in elementary, middle, and high school. You have to teach them all over again,” he explains. “Hitters only talk about ‘launch angle’. They think that if you have a high launch angle, you’re going to hit a home run. You should be talking about launch angle when you have the basic ability to make contact, but if you’re not making contact and you’re focusing on launch angle, you’re never going to hit a home run. Same thing with stolen bases. It’s not always about running fast, it’s about the positioning before you start,” he emphasized.