Hyeong-seok Kim

Hyeong-seok Kim (김형석)

• Bats Left, Throws Left
• Height 6' 0", Weight 213 lb.

• School Chung-Ang University
• High School Shinil High School

• Born August 18, 1962 in Seoul South Korea

BR register page

Biographical Information

Hyeong-seok Kim played in the Korea Baseball Organization, once leading the league in hits.

Kim was the main first baseman for the South Korean national team in the 1984 Amateur World Series but hit only .171/.186/.244 in 12 games. He also played for South Korea in the 1984 Olympics. The OB Bears took him in the first round of the 1985 KBO draft. He hit .302/.364/.502 as a rookie in 1985 but lost KBO Rookie of the Year honors to speedster Soon-chul Lee, who led the league in steals. Kim did tie for third in the league with five triples.

The Seoul native produced at a .286/.331/.401 clip in 1986, making the league leaders in RBI (47), 9th in hits (104) and again tied for third in three-baggers (5, behind Sang-hoon Kim and Kang-don Lee). He hit .316/.367/.432 in 1987 and tied Jae-bak Kim for 7th in triples (5 yet again) and finished 9th in average. The first baseman hit .219/.256/.246 in 36 games in 1988, the only season in his first nine in which he did not make a league leaderboard.

During 1989, Kim bounced back - .286/.350/.418. He was second in hits (121, 16 behind Kang-don Lee), 7th in doubles (22) and tied for 10th in RBI (57). At age 27/28 in 1990, he batted .280/.341/.420 and was 5th in hits and 8th with 61 RBI. He hit .288/.355/.436 in 1991 and was on the league leaderboard in hits (136, behind Jong-hun Jang and Kyung-sik Shin), triples (9, behind Jeong-hun Lee and Hyo-jo Jang) and RBI (71, 9th, between Min-ho Kim and Dae-hwa Han).

The veteran kept on rolling in 1992, hitting .281/.357/.466 and finishing tied for 10th in hits (with Kang-don Lee and Jong-hun Jang), tying Kang-don Lee for 5th with 27 doubles and tying for 6th with 5 triples. In 1993, his batting line was .306/.366/.433. He led with 147 hits (14 ahead of runner-up Jong-beom Lee), 4th in average, tied for 5th in doubles (23), 3rd in total bases (208) and 6th in slugging (between Dong-soo Kim and Jong-beom Lee).

Kim hit .262/.333/.341 in 1994 but did become the KBO's 7th player to reach 1,000 hits. He also broke In-sik Kim's KBO consecutive games played record of 606; he appeared in every game from 9/24/89 until his streak ended later on in 1994. Tae-won Choi would break Kim's record in 1999; as of 2013, Kim was still second to Choi (who would go over 1,000 games).

In 1995, he hit .270/.318/.418. He tied Yong-bin Seo for third with 29 doubles and tied for 8th in RBI (68). He won the Gold Glove as the league's best DH (the Gold Glove in Korea covering offense as well as defense), his only time winning a Gold Glove even though he had better seasons other years. The Bears won the 1995 Korean Series, the lone Korean Series title for Kim. He smacked 14 homers and batted .244/.303/.396 in 1996 and became the 6th KBO player to 600 career RBI. In 1997, he hit .234/.308/.386 and was the 4th player to 2,000 total bases. Moving to the Samsung Lions in 1998, he ended his career by going 2 for 27 with a walk.

Kim had hit .276/.336/.413 in 1,416 KBO games, with 221 doubles, 119 homers, 548 runs and 656 RBI. He stole 45 bases in 90 tries.

Sources

• KBO page
• Korean Wikipedia
• Taiwan Baseball Wiki