Cold, unbodied and no more humiliation and excuses → Camp blitz decision in January
Sep 03, 2025
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KBO officially announced the 2026 World Baseball Classic (WBC) national team camp schedule on the 2nd. The national baseball team, which will participate in the WBC finals in March next year, will hold the first camp in Saipan from January 9 to 21. After the first camp, players will join their club's camp, reconvene in mid-February, and train in Okinawa, Japan from February 15 to 28. The second camp is expected to be a stage to boost the sense of final practice just before the March tournament. The WBC national team will play its first match against the Czech Republic at Tokyo Dome in Japan on March 5. After the second camp in Okinawa, they will move to Tokyo, Japan, for the final inspection and practice before preparing for the first game.
It is a quite unusual decision for the baseball team to gather for training from such an early date. In the meantime, when convening international competitions, including WBC, the period of group training was limited. In the event of a tournament held after the end of the season, the convocation date is only a few days. Like the WBC, the competition held in March, just before the opening of the regular season, was held in the form of individual training and team training before being called up in the middle.
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It was the most common schedule, but there was a lesson I felt deeply in the last competition. It was very difficult to make the body so that 100% of the actual games could be done nearly a month earlier than the opening, and that part determined the performance of the tournament.
For the 2023 WBC national team, I had a hard time building my body. There were many difficulties in gathering in Tucson to start group training. All of them gathered in a state of exercise, but some players did not improve their condition due to lack of skills to boost their sense of practice, and Tucson's weather at the time was so cold and windy that it was called an "unexpected". At that time, the coaching staff of the national team also worried that "the worst condition for pitchers to build their bodies"
Concerns have become a reality. Since the start of the main tournament, the national team, especially the pitchers, has had a hard time recovering their ball power. One of the most decisive factors that failed to overcome rival teams such as Australia, which had the best sense of practice right after the end of the domestic league, and Japan, which played as the best member, was the sense of play that did not survive in the beginning.
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Ryu Ji-hyun, the head coach of the national team, recently met with the coaches of 10 KBO League clubs one by one at the ballpark and had time to cooperate with the national team and check the physical conditions of key players. This is also a different part from before. Since it is a national team, it is not an atmosphere that they must call out unconditionally and respond unconditionally, but the concept is that they consult and consult with each other.
In particular, it is meaningful that group training begins in early January, when players usually conduct individual training before the first camp of their team begins. This means that KBO will create an environment where you can focus more and build your body and support training. The mindset of the players and the teamwork of the national team will also be an opportunity to strengthen more firmly.
Meanwhile, KBO submitted 50 Federation Interest List members to the WBC Organizing Committee, World Baseball Classic Inc., on the 1st. The list of interest can be replaced later with a kind of preliminary list provided to organizers to go through the process of confirming the qualifications for each player in advance. The list is not disclosed in accordance with the organizing committee guidelines. KBO will submit 35 Professional Roster members to the WBCCI on December 3, and then finalize 30 Final Roster members by February 3 next year, the deadline for submitting the final list.
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
