[Anchor].
A group bullying and assault in the second team of the baseball team SSG is shocking.
The ‘history of violence’ in baseball is still repeating itself.
Reporter Hong Seok-jun reports.
[Reporter]
On the 6th of this month, at the SSG 2nd Army training center in Ganghwa, Incheon, a senior infielder, A, gathered his juniors and gave them a so-called ‘kick in the nuts’.
The reason was that rookie infielder B was being ‘cocky’.
It didn’t end there.
C, a senior pitcher who also received a headbutt, took the blame and hit B in the butt and thigh with his bat, escalating into an assault.
The assault then escalated to a third round as another senior rallied the juniors.
The day after the incident, a second-team conditioning coach checked on B, a rookie, and discovered the assault and informed the club, and SSG immediately responded by filing a voluntary report with the KBO Clean Baseball Center.
“The club is very apologetic, and we have separated the players involved and excluded them from official training and games.”
SSG head coach Kim Won-hyung said, “We feel responsible for our mismanagement,” adding, “In this day and age, such things shouldn’t happen.”
The KBO is strictly investigating the situation and will hold a punishment committee next week to decide on discipline.
This isn’t SSG’s first incident of assault within its secondary squad.
In 2020, under its predecessor SK, senior players assaulted junior players to discipline them for returning to the dormitory late and going out without permission, a controversial incident that the club failed to report to the KBO in a timely manner.
The second-team squad is in the blind spot because it does not receive much attention. Measures are needed to break the vicious cycle of violence.