Club sends first two players to pro draft after 11 years of nurturing young talent
The Choi Dong-won Youth Baseball Club, which has carried on the baseball spirit of the late Choi Dong-won — a hero of Korean baseball — has been named the recipient of the seventh Baeksong Holdings Choi Dong-won Indomitable Hero Award.
The Choi Dong-won Memorial Foundation announced Wednesday that it had selected the club as this year's honoree. The award ceremony will be held at 2 p.m. on Nov. 11, with a prize of 10 million won ($7,550).
The Indomitable Hero Award is presented to organizations that honor Choi's fighting spirit and dedication by continuing exemplary activities despite difficult circumstances.
The club was founded in 2015 as the "Choi Dong-won Free Baseball School for Children," with the aim of giving children the chance to learn baseball regardless of their financial background and nurturing the next Choi Dong-won.
This year, for the first time since its founding, the club produced two players drafted by professional baseball teams. Choi Su-hong of Gyeongnam High School, a third-cohort alumnus of the baseball school, was selected by the Hanwha Eagles in the fourth round, while Kim Min-seo of Busan High School, a second-cohort alumnus, was picked by the Kiwoom Heroes in the 11th round.
The club launched with 42 players and currently operates with about 30. Players train every weekend at the Asia Community School grounds in Munhyeon-dong, Nam-gu, Busan. The club has faced financial difficulties along the way — budget constraints had limited free operations to six months a year, but this year it began offering year-round free instruction after receiving support from the Busan city government.
Kang Jin-su, secretary-general of the Choi Dong-won Memorial Foundation, thanked "the players and parents who have kept the youth baseball school going for 11 years with passion and dedication for the sport, even in modest circumstances."
Kim Yong-cheol, a former Lotte Giants player who helped found the club and later managed an independent league team, also offered his congratulations, saying he was grateful that the club had achieved the goal he had envisioned when it was first established.
yjc@heraldcorp.com
