Korean Little League Baseball National Team
This August, the Korean national team became the champions of the 68th Little League World Series. The team which was composed of all 12-year-old amateur players won all 11 games they participated including Japan and the U.S. and surprised many baseball and sports experts.
At the beginning stages of the tournament, the Korean ball club was not expecting or even aiming to win at all, but Jae-yeong Hwang, the captain of the team expressed that, "We were simply having fun playing baseball and the victories just followed". This was the first time team Korea won the Little League World Series in 29 years. The last time was in 1985.
Although many are excited by the fact that Korean amateur baseball has taken over the world yet again, many sports experts both in and outside Korea have expressed that a great deal more attention from fans is necessary for Little League, high school and other forms of amateur baseball. 12-year-old Jae-yeong Hwang, the captain of the Korean Little League ball club expressed that after being crowned world champions, he felt for the first time Korean baseball fans started to acknowledge the league's existence.
Ever since its inception in 1982, Korean pro-baseball has become the most popular sport in the nation. Korean professional baseball players have even started receive world-wide recognition after winning the gold medal for baseball in the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, bronze and silver medals for the 2006 and 2009 World Baseball Classic and star players such as Chan Ho Park, Shin Soo Choo, and Hyun Jin Ryu establish themselves in the Major Leagues.
However, over the decades, Korean amateur baseball started to become ignored while all the fans' attention was drawn towards the professional realm and the Major Leagues. In fact, since 2006, there have not been any "crazy" rookie players who have just come out of high school. The last rookie player that overturned the entire professional league was probably Hyun Jin Ryu (Dongsan High School, L.A. Dodgers). There are 13 major high school baseball tournaments hosted every year, but hardly any fans go to check out these games or even know they exist. The situation for Little League baseball is even worse in Korea.
A KBO (Korean Baseball Organization) expressed that he believed that the Korean nationals winning the Little League World Series would spark Korean baseball fans to show more attention to amateur leagues and tournaments. The Incheon SK Wyverns, one of Korea's most prestigious pro-teams has promised to provide many Little League teams with better quality baseball equipment.
