Kim Dong-ju Said Japan is My Prey

At the Daegu baseball stadium, where the Korean national team is training, Kim Dong-ju (27, Doosan) was elaborately wrapping up his right ankle with a bandage.

It is his daily work before starting up his discipline. The injury on his right ankle, received two years ago, had been getting worse. It has been too painful for him, especially when the regular season went entered the second half. Another injury on his right shoulder topped it up, holding him down and forced him to not pitch properly.

“Actually, my body does not hold up well pitching in the game. But, what else could I do? All the players have walked out of the team, making an excuse of getting injured. I do not want to be like them.”

Since the third baseman, Kim Han-soo, was removed from the national team because his thigh injury worsened, the team has turned to Kim Dong-joo more so than in the past. He is also the “Japan Killer.” Japanese players become nervous when someone touches on Kim Dong-joo in their talks. There have been many dramatic games which has carved his name on their minds.

In the four countries friendly match, against Japan in 1997, Kim, as an amateur, broke the electric scoreboard into pieces, slamming a 160m-long homer at Osaka Dome.

He also slammed three consecutive homers at the preliminary match and also at the final match against Japan, in the Asia Baseball Championship Series, held in Taiwan, 1997. These homers were all hit off of Uehara Koji, the Japanese starter. Playing in seven games, he got 14 hits in 26 bats (0.530 Batting average) and nine homers in six consecutive games, getting on the summit to be the MVP. “Among many games against Japan, it was the best in my memory,” remarked Kim Dong-joo.

Korea bottled up Japan, 8-7, to get the victory in the final game of that championship. Uehara, who has grown into the ace pitcher of Yomiuri Giants now, got high possibility to show up on the Olympic preliminary match against Korea, to pay back his disgrace in 1997.

But, Kim Dong-joo has proved himself to be the “Natural Enemy of Japan,” slamming a homer in the Busan Asian Games 2002, in which the Korean national team defeated Japan, 9-0, and hitting a homerun to knock in two runs at the 2000 Sydney Olympic preliminary league against Japan.

“Since I put on the national team uniform in 1994, when I was a freshman at Korea University, I have never lost to Japan,” remarked Kim Dong-joo, confidently assuring the victory of the Olympic preliminary league match against Japan that is going to be held, in next month, at Sapporo, Japan.