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| 2022-03-14 13:44:42
(LEAD) baseball player-retirement tour
(LEAD) KBO clubs to organize farewell tour for retiring slugger Lee Dae-ho
(ATTN: ADDS details in paras 4, 12, 14-15)
SEOUL, March 14 (Yonhap) -- The South Korean baseball league announced Monday its 10 clubs will jointly organize a farewell tour for the retiring star Lee Dae-ho this season.
The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) said it wanted to celebrate Lee's accomplishments over the past two decades in the top league and in international competitions for South Korea.
Lee, who will turn 40 in June, will become the second player to be so celebrated in his final season. In 2017, Lee Seung-yuop, the KBO's career home run king with 467, went on a farewell tour around the league in his last season with the Samsung Lions.
The 2022 regular season starts on April 2. The KBO said it will announce the details of the tour later. It will likely involve teams presenting Lee with gifts during his final visit to their cities and will culminate in a formal ceremony during Lee's final regular season home series in Busan.
Lee Dae-ho has spent his entire KBO career with his hometown club, Lotte Giants in Busan, some 450 kilometers southeast of Seoul. He made his debut in 2001 but didn't become an everyday player until 2004.
Lee enjoyed his first 20-homer season that year and then captured the first of his two Triple Crowns in 2006 as the KBO leader in home runs, RBIs and batting average.
Lee then put together one of the greatest offensive seasons in KBO history in 2010, when he led the league in seven major categories -- batting average, home runs, RBIs, runs, hits, on-base percentage and slugging percentage -- en route to capturing his first and only MVP award. Lee also homered in nine straight games that year, which stands as the KBO record to this day.
Lee played in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball from 2012 to 2015 -- the first two with the Orix Buffaloes and the latter two with the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks. Lee won back-to-back Japan Series titles in 2014 and 2015, and became the first Korean player to win the Japan Series MVP award in 2015.
Lee then took his talent to the majors, signing with the Seattle Mariners and spending the 2016 season as a new fan favorite. Lee batted .253 with 14 home runs and 49 RBIs in 104 games there before rejoining the Giants.
Lee has remained productive well into his 30s. He played all 144 games in 2020 while putting up 20 homers and 110 RBIs. Last year, Lee had 19 homers and 81 RBIs in 114 games.
Lee is tied for third all time in with 351 home runs and fifth with 1,324 RBIs.
He helped South Korea to the gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and also played for the gold medal-winning national team at the 2010 Asian Games and the 2015 Premier12.
The KBO's decision will put an end to a minor bit of controversy over whether Lee deserved a retirement tour. Fans from other clubs had taken to social media or baseball message boards to voice their disapproval of having a farewell event for Lee, though many of his contemporaries, including his childhood friend and former major league All-Star Choo Shin-soo, have said Lee deserves a proper sendoff.
Also on Monday, the KBO announced Jamsil Baseball Stadium in Seoul will host the All-Star Game on July 16. It will be the first All-Star Game since 2019, with the league forced to cancel it in each of the past two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The KBO added this year's midseason festivities will also be a celebration of the league's 40th anniversary.
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