Park Kyung-soo's retirement ceremony, which was a painful finger, why is it held against KIA, not his home LG

Jun 01, 2025

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Why is it a match against KIA, not LG.

KT Wiz's 'Forever Captain'Park Kyung-soo will hold a retirement ceremony. Park Kyung-soo will officially take off his affectionate uniform in a home game against the KIA Tigers at Suwon KT Wiz Park.

In fact, he actually took a leadership class as a playing coach last season, and announced his retirement after the season. Since he has already been active as a QC coach for No. 69 for several months, he won't be too emotional about his retirement. Still, a player who leaves the ground with a proper retirement ceremony is considered one of the best, so it is a very honorable stage.

But here's one thing I'm curious about. Why is the retirement ceremony held when the opponent is the KIA Tigers, not the LG Twins.

One-club man players are free to schedule against any team at home games. However, it is common for players who have changed teams to schedule retirement ceremonies when playing against their old team. For example, in the case of Shin Bon-ki, who KT recently held a retirement ceremony, the retirement ceremony was held in time for the game against Lotte because he has memories of his life as a Lotte Giants player who played longer than KT. Most players do that.

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As everyone knows, Park Kyung-soo is KT's eternal captain, but his image is stronger with LG's painful fingers. He graduated from Seongnam High School in 2003 and received the first nomination for LG. The club left the legendary Yoo Ji-hyun's number 6 to Park Kyung-soo along with a down payment of 430 million won. That's how much I had high expectations.

However, he played for 10 seasons at LG and never showed a remarkable performance. I had to hear the sound of a prospect for many years. He never hit a double-digit home run, and most of the seasons were hard to call full-time.

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However, KT's founding was a turning point in Park Kyung-soo's baseball life. At that time, KT, which focused on investing in small and medium-sized FA players, brought in Park Kyung-soo, and Park Kyung-soo hit 22 home runs in the first year of his transfer to Suwon and began to make his name known as a 'big shot shortstop'. Since then, he has finished his career beautifully by running for a long time as a second baseman with long balls, defense, and leadership. In the 2021 season, he also enjoyed the emotion of winning the unified championship.

Was it because there was pain in LG. There were rumors that Park Kyung-soo did not want a retirement ceremony against LG. But this is completely groundless. A KT official said, `In fact, it was the best scenario for both players and clubs to retire against LG. However, this season's game against LG was not scheduled for the weekend. Players and clubs also agreed that they would like to have a retirement ceremony on the weekend when many fans come. After setting the schedule like that, it came to a conclusion that it was a match against KIA on June 1st."

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However, recently, baseball is so popular that games during the week are often sold out. On top of that, if it was Park Kyung-soo's retirement ceremony, not only KT fans but also LG fans were more likely to visit the stadium. However, Park wanted to invite many family members, acquaintances, friends of Seongnam High School, and juniors. So I said I hope it's the weekend, and I wanted to play the evening game at 5 o'clock on the weekend. The opposing team is said to have conveyed its intention to the club that it does not matter to any club.

KT held a grand retirement ceremony for Park Kyung-soo. In addition, Park Kyung-soo's uniform number 6 and Kyungsoo-daero, the stadium's address, will be combined to call the main gate of the first base 'Gyeongsu-daero 6-gil'.

This article was translated by Naver AI translator.