Fans take in a Korea Baseball Organization regular-season game between the Lotte Giants and the Doosan Bears at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul on July 4, 2024. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, Jul. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — Baseball is often called a numbers game, and the first half of the 2024 Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) season, which ended Thursday, was largely defined by some important numbers.
Two major career records fell, while a rising star opened a new, exclusive club. Teams across the league enjoyed massive success at the box office, which has the KBO on pace to break its single-season attendance record.
SSG Landers slugger Choi Jeong reached the top of the KBO career home run leaderboard on April 24, when he belted his 468th homer against the Lotte Giants.
Choi moved past former Samsung Lions star and current Doosan Bears manager Lee Seung-yuop. Still going strong at age 37, Choi has 21 homers this year for his ninth consecutive 20-homer campaign. He needs exactly 21 more to become the first KBO player with 500 home runs.
On June 20, Son Ah-seop, designated hitter and occasional outfielder for the NC Dinos, became the all-time hit king with his 2,505th career hit, a single against the Doosan Bears.
The 36-year-old moved ahead of former LG Twins All-Star Park Yong-taik, who finished his career with 2,504 hits in 2,237 games. Son’s record-breaking hit came in his 2,044th game.
Just as Choi has been a consistent force in the home run department, Son has been as steady as they get in producing hits. After the first half of this season, Son sits five hits away from his 15th consecutive season with 100 hits — a streak accomplished by only three other players in KBO history.
He has 2,511 hits now. With no signs of slowing down, Son is poised to become the first KBO player to reach 3,000 hits in a few years.
In between these two milestones, Kia Tigers third baseman Kim Do-yeong entered the record books. On April 25, the 25-year-old became the first KBO player ever with at least 10 home runs and 10 steals in a single month. He already had 11 steals when he homered off Kiwoom Heroes reliever Kim Seon-gi for his 10th dinger of April.
Two months later, on June 23, Kim joined the 20-20 club by hitting his 20th homer of the season off Hanwha Eagles ace Ryu Hyun-jin. At 20 years, eight months and 21 days old, Kim became the second-youngest player in KBO history to put up a 20-20 campaign.
Kim’s teammate on the mound, veteran starter Yang Hyeon-jong, became just the second KBO pitcher with 2,000 strikeouts on June 6. Only former Eagles pitcher Song Jin-woo, who finished his career with 2,048 Ks, has more than Yang.
And Yang, 36, needs 33 more to become the new all-time leader, and that moment should come sometime in the second half of the season.
In this file photo from June 20, 2024, Son Ah-seop of the NC Dinos hoists the plaque commemorating his 2,505th career hit, a new Korea Baseball Organization record, during a regular-season game against the Doosan Bears at Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
Yang’s Tigers finished the first half in first place, with a record of 48-33-2 (wins-losses-ties). They have given their passionate fans in the southwestern city of Gwangju plenty to cheer about, and those fans have responded in kind by showing up to games in droves.
The Tigers have drawn 692,744 fans so far this season at Gwangju-Kia Champions Field, only 24,281 shy of the total from all last season. After averaging just over 10,000 fans per game last year, the Tigers have been drawing over 17,700 fans at their 20,500-seat stadium.
All nine remaining clubs have enjoyed a year-on-year increase in their home attendance. The Eagles have been driving the leaguewide surge, with 30 sellouts in their 12,000-seat stadium, Hanwha Life Eagles Park in the central city of Daejeon. The Eagles have averaged 11,171 fans per home game, compared to 7,764 fans last year.
The KBO enjoyed its 100th sellout on June 14 after 340 games, or about 47 percent of the 720-game schedule, and finished the first half of the season with 116 sellouts, already a single-season record by three.
A tight race in the standings has been credited with driving up interest across many fan bases.
The Tigers hold a 3.5-game lead over the defending champions LG Twins at the top. The top-four teams, with the Doosan Bears and the Samsung Lions in third and fourth, are separated by five games.
The bottom half of the standings is also very crowded. The SSG Landers and the NC Dinos are in a virtual tie for fifth. The same can be said about the KT Wiz and the Lotte Giants in seventh and eighth. The Hanwha Eagles are a half game back of the Giants in ninth. The Kiwoom Heroes are in last place, but only five games out of the fifth and final postseason spot. They were also the hottest team in the final stretch of the first half, winning six straight games before losing to the Twins on Thursday.
(Yonhap)
