“Don’t think about taking off your uniform.”
Kang Min-ho (39-Samsung Lions) hit a three-run home run in the top of the seventh inning of a 2-2 tie against Doosan in Jamsil on April 14. Doosan skipped Gu Jae-rook in favor of Kang Min-ho, and he proved them wrong.
It was Kang’s 327th career home run. He already holds the record for most home runs by a catcher. With one more, he’ll tie Shim Jung-soo for 10th place on the KBO’s all-time home run list. Two more would move him into ninth place, and three would put him in sole possession of eighth.
“I’ve been playing for a long time from a young age, so I think I’m getting more and more top 10s. I’ve done well, but I’m thinking more about how healthy I am,” he smiles.
Kang Min-ho isn’t the only player who exemplifies ‘veteran power’.
Choi Hyung-woo (41) of the KIA Tigers. Choi is batting .288 with 17 home runs and 80 RBIs in 82 games this season. He was the oldest player to win MVP honors at the All-Star Game on June 6, and has been on a tear since hitting a grand slam in the first game of the second half. Kang Min-ho said, “What (Choi) is doing is so good that I’m impressed as a junior. Last year, when he said he was having a hard time, I was sitting in the catcher’s box and said, ‘Don’t think about taking off your uniform. We seniors need you to stay on the field a little longer,'” he said. I often say things like this for the juniors. Some people call it greed, 안전놀이터 but I don’t think it’s greed. The longer we’re here, the longer the younger guys can wear the uniform. If you’re not competitive, you have to take it off, but if you’re competitive, I don’t think you have to decide when to retire. In that sense, (Choi) is doing a great job for me.”
Kang Min-ho is batting .299 with eight home runs and 41 RBIs in 87 games this season, helping to power the team’s center field. In his nine games in July, his batting average has increased by a whopping 5 percent.
He also has four home runs.
“I was too bad in the first half,” Kang said. In the second half, I think what didn’t work in the first half is coming out little by little,” he said. “I’m not just a professional baseball player wearing a uniform anymore, I’m in a position where I have to survive. If my performance drops, I have to take off my clothes, so I’m working hard every day. I prepared myself thinking that even if I didn’t do well in the first half, if I did what I could, the turning point would definitely come. In the second half, when the players were a little tired, I felt good as a senior to make a hit that helped the team win.”
Samsung, is in second place games behind the first-place KIA Tigers
Samsung, led by Kang Min-ho’s blistering bat, is in second place with 48 wins and 40 losses through 15 games, 4.5 games behind the first-place KIA Tigers (52 wins and 35 losses). The team will begin a three-game series against Kia in Gwangju on the 16th to try to reduce the deficit. Samsung recently made some rebounding moves, releasing David McKinnon and bringing in Ruben Cardenas as its new foreign bat. “The manager said that the real battle for the top spot will be in the summer, and now that we’ve done so well without a foreign hitter, I think we’ll have a great synergy with the new foreign hitter,” Kang said.
Kang Min-ho is especially eager for Samsung to do well this year. He hasn’t played in the Korean Series since joining the team in 2004. For him, reaching the Korean Series is one of his biggest goals as an active player. “The team goal is to do what we can without worrying about winning, but personally, I want to go to the Korean Series. It’s not too far away, so I want to smell it,” he says.
