“It still hurts to think about that time.”
After 29 years, the LG Twins have won the pennant. The celebration was short-lived. It was time to start preparing for next season. On the 25th, they removed 12 players from the disabled list. Released.
Seo Geon-chang, the hero of the ‘unprecedented’ 200-hit season, shocked everyone by being on the list. While Seo didn’t get the attention he deserved, pitcher Im Jung-woo was also no longer in an LG uniform, and he announced his retirement two days later on social media. “I think my time at LG was really special to me,” he said, “and I think it’s a great honor to have been an LG player during the long journey from the dark days to the first unified championship in 29 years.”
An unlucky pitcher. He left the field at the young age of 32. It was inevitable. I was sick. I couldn’t throw the ball properly.
It was the early winter of 2017 that changed Lim’s baseball life. In his second year as a rookie in 2012, he was transferred from the SK Wyverns (formerly the SSG Landers) to the LG Twins, where he flourished, and where he met manager Yang Sang-moon. Yang, a pitching specialist, chose Lim, who has one of the best curves in the league, to close out the 2016 season. In 2015, he pitched 109 innings in an all-around performance that saw him split time between the starting rotation and the bullpen. In the process, Yang confirmed Lim’s closing potential. Despite some bumps in the road, he recorded 28 saves and made a significant contribution to LG’s fall baseball campaign.
Little did he know that being so good at baseball would determine his fate.
His performance as LG’s closer earned him a spot on the 2017 World Baseball Classic (WBC) roster. But in February, during the national team’s camp in Okinawa, Japan, Lim grabbed his shoulder and disappeared. The 17 games he pitched in the second half of 2017 were the last of his first-team career. In 2018, 카지노사이트 he underwent shoulder surgery followed by elbow surgery. He tried to resume his career after clearing his military service, but the opportunity never came.
In the lead-up to the WBC camp, Yang gave interviews in which he continued to worry about Lim. “I’m not worried about Chow Chan, who was selected with me, but I’m worried about Lim Jung-woo,” and “I want to follow him to the side and watch him.” Why? Yang explained, “Jung-woo has a very soft body. The good thing is that he can throw the ball flexibly, but the bad thing is that it also means that his body takes a lot of strain.” “In the 2016 season, he was the closer for the first time and played a lot of innings. As a closer, you have to give it your all every time you pitch. So in Lim’s case, he had to focus on strengthening his shoulder and elbow in the offseason.”
But I couldn’t stop him from going to the national team.
The highest honor for an athlete. He wasn’t injured, and I couldn’t send him out on the off chance that he might get injured, but I couldn’t tell the national team staff, who are in charge of our best players, to do this or that. Yang said he prayed that Lim would finish the tournament safely. But his fears were realized.
“When I heard that Jung-woo was retiring, I remembered that time and it hurt a lot,” says Yang. “When I met him after he had elbow surgery and went to the army, he reassured me that he could throw the ball. But I felt sorry for him because he never made it to the first team and ended his career.”