A retired Korean baseball legend is returning to the mound for the first game of the Major League Baseball regular season — and the first ever held in South Korea.
Former pitcher Chan Ho Park, the first Korean-born athlete to play in MLB, is scheduled to throw the ceremonial first pitch at the season opener in Seoul on Wednesday between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres. Park made his debut with the Dodgers in 1994 and played with the Padres from 2005 to 2006.
“I think that it’s sort of a culmination for him,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, a former teammate of Park’s, told The Athletic about Park’s first pitch. “He was a pioneer as a Korean-born player to come to the States and to be a star player.”
Park will kick off a two-game “Seoul Series” between the teams at the Gocheok SkyDome, marking not only the first games of the regular season but also the first regular season games ever played in Korea.
Park’s debut as a reliever against the Atlanta Braves forged a new path for other Korean baseball stars, including former MLB players Byung-Hyun Kim and Hyun Jin Ryu and current Padres shortstop Ha-Seong Kim. During his 17 years in the league, Park, known as “The Korean Express,” also spent time with the New York Mets, the Philadelphia Phillies, the New York Yankees and the Pittsburgh Pirates.
His career in the U.S. concluded with the Pirates on Oct. 1, 2010, with a win against the Florida Marlins that helped him clinch the MLB record for most wins by an Asian pitcher.
“I became a messenger to the people for a lot of positive,” Park told The Athletic, reflecting on the pressure he experienced representing Korea. “And they were cheering me up, but I had to pitch well to cheer them up, the whole country.”
Today, Park, who retired from playing baseball in 2012 with the Hanwha Eagles in South Korea, is still involved in the game as a baseball operations adviser with the Padres.
While Park’s appearance is highly anticipated, Korean fans have also been awaiting the return of Kim, a former favorite in the country’s Korean Baseball Organization League, who in November became the first Asian-born infielder to win MLB’s Gold Glove Award. Two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani will also make his debut with the Dodgers during the series after he clinched the largest contract in North American sports history and signed for $700 million over 10 years.
