Jeong-soo Kim (01)

Jeong-soo Kim (김정수)

• Bats Left, Throws Left
• Height 5' 10", Weight 176 lb.

• School Hanyang University
• High School Busan High School

• Born January 26, 1953 in Busan South Korea
• Died January 13, 2014

BR Register page

Biographical Information

Jeong-soo Kim played for the South Korean national team and in the Korea Baseball Organization.

He was on the South Korean team that won the 1977 Intercontinental Cup, South Korea's first championship in a global tournament. He was a first baseman. He also was with South Korea for the 1981 Intercontinental Cup. He was 29 years old by the time the KBO played its first season, in 1982. He hit .274/.381/.462 in the league's first campaign, going 15-for-22 in steals and smacking 11 homers in 277 at-bats for the Lotte Giants. He was among the KBO leaderboards in runs (51, 5th, between Jong-do Lee and Jun-hwan Kim), doubles (15, tied for 10th), home runs (tied for 7th), RBI (49, 7th) and walks (49, 2nd, 4 behind Hak-soo Jeung).

Once he hit 30, though, his production fell - to .224/.330/.364 in 1983 and .224/.339/.335 in 1984 (now with the Sammi Superstars), though he remained a starter at first and did finish 7th in the league with 44 walks. He split 1985 between Sammi and the Chungbo Pintos but his woes continued at .220/.322/.325. After batting .154/.266/.173 in 37 games for Chungbo in 1986, he ended his playing career. He had hit .234/.342/.365 in the KBO.

He later coached for Lotte (managing them briefly at the end of 1989), the Woori Heroes and Dong-Eui University. He coached for South Korea in the 2005 Asian Championship. He died of a heart attack.

Sources

• Statiz
• KBO
• Korean Wikipedia