The LG Twins, one of the most popular teams in Korean professional baseball, finally ended their turbulent history after 29 years.
LG defeated the KT Wiz 6-2 in the fifth game of the 2023 Korean Series at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul on Wednesday to lift the championship trophy with a series record of 4-1.
It was the first time in 29 years since 1994 that LG won the combined regular season and Korean Series title.
As the foreign player system was introduced in 1998 and the free agent (FA) system in 1999, LG popped the championship champagne for the first time since the implementation of the two systems, which now form the backbone of professional baseball.
While there were no foreign players in the 1994 championship, this year, Casey Kelly, the “Jamsil Jesus,” and Austin Dean, who ended the LG foreign batting streak, will share a spot in the championship photo.
It was a tumultuous time. It wasn’t that they were spending less money than the other teams, or that they weren’t spending it well, but the Korean Series had shunned the Twins for nearly 30 years.
The universe evenly distributed this year’s championship among the United States, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. The new narrative of Korean solving was written equally in all four countries.
Bruce Bochy, who led the Texas Rangers of Major League Baseball to their first World Series title in 62 years, is the 29th manager of Texas.
Akinobu Okada of the Hanshin Tigers of Nippon Professional Baseball won the Nippon Series as a player in 1985 and as the club’s 35th manager in 2023.
Unlike the long-standing Texas and Hanshin franchises, LG hasn’t changed managers since 1994, when the eighth manager, Lee Kwang-hwan, won the franchise’s second Korean Series title.
There were many reasons for this, but in the end, if LG didn’t win the championship, the coaches had to hand over the baton. The twin coaching positions were naturally labeled as the ‘poisoned chalice’.
In the 1990s, when LG was expanding its presence as a prestigious club, this was seen as ‘unusual’, but in the 2000s and beyond, when the dark ages were in full swing, it was seen as a source of misery that erased the team’s colors and strengths.
Twelve managers have led LG since 1996, when former coach Lee Kwang-hwan resigned.
Lee Kwang-eun, Lee Soon-chul, and Park Jong-hoon left the team during their contracts.
Kim Sung-geun, who led the team to the Korean Series in 2002, was ousted for not being in line with the club’s direction.
Kim Ki-tae, who led LG to the postseason in 2013 after hovering at the bottom of the league for 10 consecutive years from 2003-2012, stepped down from his post in early 2014 to take responsibility for the poor performance.
The rest of the coaches honored their contracts but were not rehired. It’s easy to calculate how often LG’s longevity has changed, as the current head coach, Yeom Kyung-yup, is in his 20s.
LG’s elevation to a championship contender coincided with the arrival of Cha Myung-seok in 2019.
A former LG pitcher and pitching coach who has been associated with the Twins for more than 25 years, Cha has been able to get to know the players, the club, and the coaching staff, and has slowly started to find the “pride of Seoul. The trifecta of player scouting, development, and first-team performance began to click.
Since 2019, 카지노사이트 LG has reached the postseason for five consecutive years and has become a regular in fall baseball.
Despite coming within striking distance of winning the Korean Series, the Twins took small steps backwards.
LG lost in the semifinals in three consecutive years from 2019-2021. It was said that their lack of experience in big games prevented them from performing at their best.
Even in 2022, when they made the playoffs for the first time in six years, they fell short of qualifying for the Korean Series. Former manager Ryu Ji-hyun, who was expected to be re-signed, eventually handed the baton to Yeom Kyung-yup.
This year, they got off to a bad start as well, but they’ve been in first place since June 27, when they became a full team and were the first to cross the finish line.
With his gumption in management baseball, Yeom has filled in the gaps in the batting order.
With new faces in Baek Seung-hyun, Yoo Young-chan, Kim Jin-sung, and Ham Deok-ju, the “beehive bullpen” that relied on Jung Woo-young and Ko Woo-seok became a force in the Korean Series.
The speedy Shin Min-jae leapt to the top of LG’s lineup as the starting second baseman, while Austin, who hails from the Lone Star State, ranked third in home runs (23) and third in RBIs (95), capping off a storied career for LG’s foreign-born hitters.
Thanks to Yeom’s thorough preparations and the players’ explosion of potential, LG reached the Korean Series for the first time in 21 years, after finishing fourth in the regular season in 2002, and unlike that time, when the team struggled with physical exhaustion, this time, with the physical advantage of a direct Korean Series team and the confidence of first place, they finally won the championship.
After a decade of darkness, a decade of physical strength has brought LG back to the center of Korean professional baseball. 온라인카지노