The crisis of Amaya Baseball raised the identity of Korean baseball.
It is a common cause that many experts talk about immediately after the WBC 3rd consecutive round 1 disaster. As mentioned in <1> [MK Focus]>, the 2023 WBC tournament was in poor condition in the process of preparing for the failed tournament, the mound strategy and detailed tactics that were defeated, and the pitchers who appeared in the evaluation match were in the final round. It was a sluggishness caused by a combination of the absence of power analysis that failed to predict the appearance.
However, the more fundamental cause is that the lifeline of the so-called ‘golden generation’, which was born from the bronze medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, bloomed splendidly with the 2006 WBC semifinals and the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and bore fruit as the 2009 WBC runner-up, called the current crisis. The failure to develop a new generation of players to replace them is the general view of experts looking at the three consecutive WBC first round elimination.
In fact, there were only three young pitchers who played an active role in the 2023 WBC tournament, including Lee Jung-hoo (24), Kang Baek-ho (24), and Kim Ha-seong (27), and the pitchers mainly in their 20s were Park Se-woong (27) and Won Tae-in (22). ), etc. were sluggish. Even within the KBO league, it is true that the competitiveness of the current young generation is very low compared to foreign players or veterans, except for some.
Regarding this, many experts and officials cite the aluminum bat banned since 2005, the weekend league system introduced in 2009 and now completely settled, and the high school baseball student athlete regular high school priority system as the cause of the lack of basic skills in Amaya Baseball. .
Professor Lim Ho-gyun, a legend who has been active since the first years of both business and professional baseball, said, “The problem of the decline in baseball quality that has been seen in professional baseball for several years is fundamentally a problem that started with Ambaseball. Amaya Baseball’s coaching staff have the ability and passion, but the infrastructure problem has not improved.”
Professor Lim said, “Especially as the weekend league system was held, the concentration on a specific pitcher was remarkable. Good pitchers from each team are intensively put in, but unfortunately, there is a high risk that such players will go to the pros and suffer injuries within a few years.” pointed out that
In addition, Professor Lim said, “The importance of entering the university and joining the pros is still the same, but the opportunities are limited. The basic skills learned in the amateur course become a considerable foundation before entering the pros. However, he said, “It is an environment where basic skills cannot be emphasized.”
When asked about the cause of the current crisis, a manager from the Seoul area of Amaya-gu also sent a long message. Coach A said, “It’s not just baseball, maybe the entire sports world is in crisis. The fact that the birth of the so-called young people who should be responsible for Korean sports has been much slower than in the past is due to the influence of the Korea Sports Association and government policies, which are very far from reality,” he said in a strong tone.
Why is it? Director A said, “Many leaders agree with the need for guarantees of student athletes’ right to study or education.” Is it not necessary to give He pointed out that ordinary students can devote a lot of time to their future, but student athletes cannot even make that choice on their own.”
At the same time, coach A said, “Student athletes these days basically lack training time, so it has become an essential environment to fill this with private education such as academies.” Even in baseball, which is a sport, private education is prioritized and knowledge acquisition through YouTube is much more valuable.”
As they pointed out, it is not a problem that is raised only in Ama Baseball. Perhaps, it is argued that the guarantee of uniform student-athletes’ right to class in the entire sports world is not correct in the reality of Korean education,스포츠토토 where the basic intensity is much higher than that of foreign countries. Foreign countries have a much larger sports population, but Korea’s school-aged population is rapidly declining, and their academic burden is much higher than that of other countries.
In sum, it is pointed out that the physical time and environment to develop the basic knowledge and basic skills that student athletes must have when they become professional athletes in the future are not being created. Also, when asked about the crisis of Korean baseball, many people mentioned the problem of Korean amateur baseball, where the ‘aluminum bat’ has disappeared. This is also a problem that has been pointed out by many in the amateur baseball world since being eliminated in the first round of the 2013 WBC. Part 3 focuses on this issue.