In the professional baseball KIA Tigers, which had been reeling from former coach Kim Jong-kook’s unexpected dropout, a highly anticipated order came from inside from the new head coach Lee Bum-ho at the beginning of the season.스포츠토토
The kind of magic that “flowering crime is here” was a hope to the head of the new team in the hope that misfortune would no longer hit the team.
It was a language play that properly mixed director Lee Bum-ho’s nickname “Flower Bum-ho” during his active career, just in time for spring when all hope springs up.
Just as the order is made in reality, coach Lee Bum-ho, the first head coach born in the 1980s in the KBO League, met expectations and gave the KIA Tigers the right to play in the Korean Series for the first time in seven years.
Lee also won the title of the first head coach to lead KIA to the top of the regular league as a former Tigers player.
Including its predecessor, Haitai, the Tigers ranked first in the regular league for the seventh time since the launch of the single league in 1989, following 1991, 1993, 1996-1997, 2009 and 2017.
In the 1990s, former coach Kim Eung-yong, former coach Cho Bum-hyun in 2009, and former coach Kim Ki-tae in 2017 celebrated the combined victory that included the regular league and the Korean Series.
As is well known, former coach Kim Eung-yong did not play as a player in the KBO League, and former coaches Cho Bum-hyun and Kim Ki-tae, who were former professional players, also did not wear tiger uniforms when they were active.
Coach Lee Bum-ho, who played for KIA from 2011 to 2019, became the first Tigers player-turned-manager to pop the champagne to win the Korean Series.
The Tigers are the most winning club with an undefeated myth of winning all 11 Korean Series challenges until 2017.
Coach Lee Bum-ho’s fate, who made his professional debut in the Hanwha Eagles uniform in 2000 and jumped as an eagle for 10 years until 2009, changed to a tiger in the winter of 2011.
Manager Lee Bum-ho, who signed a contract with the Japanese professional baseball Softbank Hawks in late 2009 on the condition of receiving up to 500 million yen in a two-plus-year period, weighed returning to Korea after the team classified him as out of power in just a year.
In January 2011, Softbank made a condition that Hanwha pay an annual salary of 100 million yen in 2011 in negotiations with Hanwha, Lee Bum-ho’s original team. However, Hanwha declared the breakdown of negotiations as it failed to reach an agreement in negotiations with Softbank despite then-coach Han Dae-hwa’s earnest request.
After hearing the news that Softbank released Lee Bum-ho without conditions less than 15 days later, KIA moved quickly and brought Lee Bum-ho for a total of 1.2 billion won a year.
Manager Lee Bum-ho, who became a member of the Tigers, steadily hit home runs as he did in the Hanwha days, establishing himself as a main gun at once and enjoying the excitement of winning the Korean Series for the first time since his debut in 2017.
The KIA club, which closely watched Lee Bum-ho’s personality and potential as a leader, fostered Lee as a sign of the team comparable to franchise stars.
After retirement, Lee built his leadership career by going through key positions such as scouting, general coach for the second division, and batting coach for the first division.
Kia, which terminated its contract with former coach Kim Jong-guk in January this year on charges of involvement in the irregularities, took the baton to Lee Bum-ho, its batting coach at the time, who had predicted his successor as an insider and raised him as a manager.
When the eldest brother, coach Lee Bum-ho, who was well-connected, was promoted to coach, players who were younger than two years old, including Choi Hyung-woo, welcomed him even more.
During the manager’s interview, Lee was highly praised for presenting data from years of active hitting by KIA batters since June and emphasizing the importance of team performance in April-May at the beginning of the season.
After sitting as the head coach, he made all-out efforts to increase his early winning rate.
KIA beat the NC Dinos, who had 21 wins and 10 losses in the regular season between March and April, when a biting battle took place in a chaotic atmosphere due to the introduction of the automatic pitching determination system (ABS).
Kia has maintained its lead by garnering 24 wins, two draws and 23 losses and a 50% win rate from May to June when two starting pitchers were outnumbered. It was due in large part to win more than 10 games between March and April.
From July to August, when the starting lineup was reorganized with a new foreign pitcher and the bullpen stabilized, KIA finally confirmed its direct advance to the Korean Series on September 17 after building wins again and adding more than 10 wins with 29 wins and 16 losses.
Despite various unexpected physical challenges including injury, coach Lee Bum-ho minimized electricity leakage by utilizing thick layers of power at the mound and fielders. This is possible because he has thoroughly understood situations of players.
The eldest brother’s leadership was friendly but stinging. Lee relentlessly replaced key players such as Park Chan-ho, Na Sung-bum and Socrates Brito when they played defense or baserunning that had abandoned the basics. Dissatisfaction faded because the punishment was fair and the message was clear.
The most iconic scene is the moment he replaced Yang Hyun-jong, a beam pitcher who left only one out count for the winning pitcher requirement, in a game against the Samsung Lions on July 17.
When the team was at the first and second bases with two outs, Lee opened the bullpen to win the game, hugging Yang, who had been making expressions of bewilderment and anger in the dugout, and consoling him. Conflict was a rare leadership that disappeared for a moment, while misunderstanding was a snow meltdown.
Manager Lee Bum-ho happily played baseball under former Hanwha coach Kim In-sik and former Hanwha coach Kim Ki-tae, who are famous for their casual communication with players.
Coach Lee Bum-ho’s baseball, which added the colors of the two masters, blossomed splendidly.