South Korean professional baseball has its roots in the “Sangmyeong Habok” (上命下服). The current KBO (Korea Baseball Organization) league was founded in 1982 after the military government forced private companies to start a baseball team. It was different from the Major League Baseball and Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), which were created by combining teams and leagues that already existed out of necessity.
Backed by the power of the Blue House,메이저놀이터 the KBO governors and the league’s secretariat boasted enormous power in the early days of professional baseball. The first KBO commissioner, Seo Jong-cheol, was a powerful man who served former presidents Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo as an army general. Lee Woong-hee, who served as the third and fourth governors, also came from the power elite, having served as presidential spokesman and minister of culture and public affairs in the Fifth Republic. With the president’s closest confidant, the Blue House, coming down as a parachute governor, the chaebol chairmen had no choice but to follow suit.
‘Civilian’ governors also make top-down decisions
The “real” governors often met with Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee and other owners, ate meals, went to saunas and golf courses, and made decisions about the future of Korean baseball. It was up to the governors, secretary general, and owners to create the rules and systems that formed the backbone of the league. Contracts and disciplinary rules were also decided without the players’ consent. There were many times when ‘reforms’ were made that were completely different from the demands of baseball fans. Fans and players were always put on the back burner as the real owners of professional baseball.
Over the years, authoritarian governments and parachute governors have stepped down, and ‘democratic’ governors who are commentators have been appointed, but the unique ‘top-down’ decision-making behavior of professional baseball remains the same. The KBO’s recent announcement of the “KBO League-Team Korea Level Up Project” is a good example. On July 20, the KBO revealed a bag of trump cards, saying, “As the national baseball team’s power and performance in recent international tournaments have fallen short of the expectations of baseball fans, we have been preparing a long-term project to raise the level of league play and national team power and expand the base at the same time.”
The detailed plan is divided into four parts: improving national team management and the game system, developing prospects and leaders, and expanding baseball. Of these, the full-time national team manager system has been tried in the past, and holding various international exchange games is nothing new, as Heo has pledged several times since taking office. The programs to expand baseball’s baseball base, such as participation in the low-level player education league, dispatching players to the Australian League, leadership development programs, expanding t-ball classes, and prospect camps, are also issues that are hardly controversial.
The problem is the KBO’s proposed game reforms. The KBO has announced that it will introduce pitch clocks, extra innings, increased base sizes, and limited defensive shifts to first team games in the next one to two years. These are all rules that are currently in place in Major League Baseball, and here’s how they work.
Pitch clock – This rule requires pitchers to pitch within 15 seconds of receiving the ball with no runners on base and 20 seconds with runners in scoring position. If a pitch is not pitched within the time limit, it is an automatic ball. The batter also has an 8-second timer.
“We were only informed after it was all decided”
The problem is that the players who are most affected were not consulted in the process. “We formed a task force and established a strategic direction through in-depth discussions with nine external figures from the KBO league field, media, overseas baseball experts, amateur baseball leaders, and academics,” the KBO said. When asked who the “field” was, the KBO official replied, “The managers who are former players. “During the 2023 WBC (World Baseball Classic), we held one-on-one meetings with the players to get a wide range of opinions on the league’s problems,” he said, “but we did not discuss specific system improvements such as pitch clocks.” A representative from the Korean Baseball Players Association (KPA) said, “There was no discussion with us at all. We were only informed by a senior KBO official that ‘this is what they’re going to do’ after everything was decided.”
This was not the case in the U.S. Major League Baseball (MLB), where the system was reformed before Korea. In the U.S., players are consulted from the very beginning when making rules and improving the system. The MLB Competition Committee is composed of 11 members, including six team officials, four members of the players’ union, and one umpire. In September of last year, all four players’ union members voted against the introduction of pitch clocks and the 2023 implementation of defensive shift restrictions. At the time, Tony Clark, the players’ union’s general secretary, said in a statement, “The player leaders who participated in these negotiations provided specific and actionable feedback on the rule changes proposed by the Commissioner’s Office. We are disappointed that the Major League Baseball office did not attempt to meaningfully address the concerns raised by the players.”
In the US, players are partners
The players’ union and the MLB office are continuing to communicate during the season to identify problems and improvements to the new system. Most recently, the players’ union has communicated a proposal to “eliminate pitch clocks in the postseason,” which is reportedly under serious consideration by the commissioner’s office.
In Major League Baseball, players are equal “partners” in the decision-making process. Hence the name CBA, or Collective Bargaining Agreement. The idea is that the rules are set through consultation between the members. In Korea, on the other hand, the equivalent of a CBA is called the Baseball Rules. It has a stronger nuance of centralized, top-down ‘regulation’ than agreement. In fact, it is called a ‘protocol’ because it is decided by the secretariat and the clubs themselves, excluding the players.
There is no shortage of concern and frustration among players who have been ‘informed’ of the introduction of pitch clocks. “Even in the United States, where pitch clocks have been relatively successful, there is still some controversy,” said one agency representative, “especially among pitchers who are directly affected.” In the U.S., a rash of pitcher injuries and surgeries early this season has prompted a number of pitchers to withdraw from the