Seeing Again 31st Baseball's Spring: D-3

First of all, a thousand and one honorable apologies from Mr. Matt and I for neglecting this blog these past few months. We can say we were busy with our professional pursuits but judging by all the basketball and hockey we watched and talked about, I'm afraid to admit it was just neglect.

I'm just going to write a few general notes that's news at the beginning of the 2012 KBO season.

Korean pro baseball's 31st season starts this Saturday (April 7, 2012) with the following games (TV info in brackets): Hanhwa Eagles at Lotte Giants in Busan (KBS 2TV), Kia Tigers at SK Wyverns in Incheon (SBS TV), LG Twins at Samsung Lions in Daegu (XTM TV), and Nexen Heroes at Doosan Bears (SBS ESPN, Kygong-in Broadcasting TV). All games start at 2pm local time.

All teams will play a two game weekend series before settling into the familiar Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday series and Friday, Saturday, Sunday series routine from Tuesday, April 10. Weekday start times will be at 6:30pm, Saturday games at 5pm, and Sunday games at 2pm.

Spring training games wrapped up last Sunday and the following was the standings in order: SK, Nexen, Hanhwa, LG, Kia, Doosan, Samsung, and then Lotte.

KBO held a "media day" at the New Thousand Years Hall at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul. The media day was named "Let's Play Ball with Fans!!" They talked to the press and things like that.

The following are quotes from the involved:

Samsung Manager Ryu Joong-il ~ "Our goal for this season is unchanged: to win."

SK Manager Lee Man-su ~ "Samsung win? Yeah right, we're going to win."

LG Manager Kim Ki-tae ~ "LG's going to show a good form again."

Hanhwa Manager Han Dae-hwa ~ "Our goal is playoffs and we'll try to win."

Lotte Manager Yang Seung-ho ~ "We're surely going to give Lotte fans a present this year."

Kia Manager Sun Dong-yul ~ "We're going to show our fans good form and good games."

Doosan Manager Kim Jin-wook ~ "The fans are number one and our goal this season is number one."

Nexen Manager Kim Shi-jin ~ "Our dream this season is to really make the playoffs."

Samsung's Lee Seung-yup ~ "Blah blah but our strongest strength is our teamwork."

Hanhwa's Park Chan-ho ~ "My first time pitching in Korea, my goal is to win 10 games."

LG Twins' Lee Byung-kyu ~ "We're playing with the other 7 teams this season."

Nexen's Kim Byung-hyun ~ "I'm going to show Nexen rather than talk about it."

Lotte's Hong Seung-heun ~ "Dae-ho is gone but the rest of the team plays together."

SK's Jeong Geun-woo ~ "I'm going to try hard so I get lots of money this winter."

Headlines from Naver Sports Baseball:

Kia's Lee Jong-bum's retiring and he's honored and happy and blah blah.

Lee Jong-bum's wife Jeong Jeong-min talks about the retirement. She's not a Gwangju person and they sent a thousand letters to each other.

Gwangju #1 School (광주일고) has the most graduates in the KBO this season (37 diplomas).

Lim Chan-gyu will pitch LG's home opener on the 10th (after the opening weekend series). He's going to reduce his walk count.

Kim Byung-hyun's goal is not 10 wins, it's pitching "normally."

Opening day starters are not decided yet.

Hanhwa's stadium has been being "remodeled" since last December and it's still not finished yet.

Kim Hyun-soo's batting average goal is in the .330's.

More soon.