Ki-woong Kang

Ki-woong Kang (강기웅)

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5’ 9”, Weight 158 lb.

• School Yeungnam University
• High School Daegu High School

• Born February 25, 1964 in Daegu South Korea

BR register page

Biographical Information

Ki-woong Kang was a two-time Olympian who played for eight seasons in the Korea Baseball Organization.

Kang debuted for the South Korean national team in the 1983 Intercontinental Cup and won Gold in 1983 Asian Championship. In the 1984 Amateur World Series, he hit .325/.386/.550 with 6 doubles in 10 games as South Korea’s main DH (In-ho Baek was the starter at 2B). He led South Korea in both average and slugging. He remained with Korea for the 1984 Olympics, 1985 Asian Championship (tied for 2nd), 1985 Intercontinental Cup (Silver Medal), 1986 Amateur World Series and 1987 Asian Championship (Bronze). In the 1988 Baseball World Cup, he again was at DH, batting .370/.393/.556 with four steals in four tries. He led South Korea in OPS. He tied for fifth in the event in steals, trailing Tom Goodwin, Julio Medina, Kenji Tomashino and Chan-yup Rok. Among those he tied were Antonio Pacheco, Kuo-Chong Lo, Kenjiro Nomura and Billy Masse. He also was in the 1988 Olympics.

Ki-woong began his professional career with the Samsung Lions in 1989. He was an immediate hit, at .322/.351/.388. He was second in the KBO in average (trailing Won-bu Ko), fourth insteals (26) and fifth in hits (113). He won the Gold Glove as the top all-around second baseman in the league. His average fell but his slugging rose in 1990, with a line of .271/.330/.443 in 1990 and top-10 finishes in both home runs (15, 5th), steals (24, 3rd) and RBI (58, 9th). He won his second Gold Glove.

In 1991, Kang was back over .300 with a .303/.365/.469 line. He remained steady at .304/.353/.484 with 16 circuit clouts in 1992. In ’93, he hit .325/.366/.501 with 16 home runs. He was second in average (behind Joon-hyuk Yang), fourth in slugging, fourth in OPS, 8th in OBP, 6th in runs (60) and in the top 10 with 20 stolen bases. He won his third and last Gold Glove.

Kang struggled in 1994 (.244/.325/.334), 1995 (.271/.327/.345) and 1996 (4 for 24, 3 2B) then retired. He had a career line of .292/.344/.429 with 111 steals in 153 tries over 672 games.

Sources

• Defunct IBAF site
• Korean Wikipedia entry
• Statiz.co.kr