The Pittsburgh Pirates claimed pitcher Chan-ho Park off waivers from the New York Yankees on Wednesday. Park (박찬호, Park Chan-ho), the first Korean to make the Major Leagues, will join the worst team in baseball and a team that hasn't had a winning season since 1992.
If Park pitches in a game he'll be the first Korean to play for Pittsburgh in the regular season. Prior to the 2008 season pitcher Byung-hyun Kim signed with Pittsburgh but didn't make the team out of training camp.
Two other Asians have played on the Pirates but haven't done too well. Infielder Aki Iwamura was acquired before the 2010 season but was, in spite of his past success, one of the worst players on one of the worst line-ups in Pittsburgh history, hitting .182 in 54 games before being demoted. The first Japanese, and Asian, player was pitcher Masumi Kuwata, well-known in Japan but signed by the Pirates well after his prime, who appeared in 19 games in 2007.
Hines Ward is the strongest connection between Pittsburgh and South Korea, where he's seen as a national hero and a role model for biracial Korean children. But the other signings have raised some awareness overseas of the city, a year after the troublesome G-20 summit and a generation after the steel left. After all, my Japanese fiancee and several acquaintances, for better or worse, know of Pittsburgh because of Kuwata's brief stay.
6 comments:
WHOOP WHOOP. Being the only foreigner from Pittsburgh that any of my Korean friends know, I was told this news by at least 5 different Koreans today.
lol.
When I tell Koreans where I'm from I always have to include 하인스 워드.
Brian and Kate, prepare for Korean tourists to NYC and elsewhere on the East Coast to be making their way to Pittsburgh to watch Mr Park play.
It won't solve any budgetary problems your city and county may have, but it could help a little. :)
A few weeks ago Cleveland was in town, and behind home plate there were flag-waving Koreans each time Choo Shin-su came up to bat.
I typed this post up in a few minutes after reading the morning paper, so I didn't bother to add this is an extremely minor move as far as the team (and most Pittsburghers) is concerned. A few days ago Pittsburgh traded most of its bullpen at the deadline, then lost a bunch of games by several touchdowns, and had to go out and buy a couple more relief pitchers.
Baseball season never really begins in a city where its team does nothing but lose, but for all intents and purposes it ended on July 31st: that's when Steelers training camp opened.
*crickets*
With a 4.07 ERA through 27 appearances with the Pirates he's been one of their more effective pitchers this summer. Given how bad their starting pitchers have been---they have five with 10 or more losses---I wish they'd let him start once or twice. It's not like they have any young pitchers worth developing.
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