Jang Jung-seok (51) and Kim Jong-guk (51), who the KIA Tigers ambitiously prepared for in the winter of 2021, have come to an end in two years due to the disgraceful resignation. The betrayal of the trusted one-club man left a scar that cannot be easily erased.
“Regardless of the prosecution’s investigation results, Kia decided to terminate the contract with manager Kim Jong-kook, judging that the contract was an act of “damage to his dignity.” “We will appoint a successor as soon as possible,” the team officially announced on Monday.
“We apologize to our fans. We have caused concern and concern to KIA fans, all baseball fans who love the KBO League, and all the people who make up the KBO League. We feel a great responsibility for this incident and will make every effort to improve the process of selecting coaches and coaching staff and to educate team members on compliance so as not to repeat our mistakes again. We will also take follow-up measures to ensure that the team’s management will be normalized quickly in the future,” the official apology was sent under the name of the club.
All of this happened a day before the team left the spring camp. It was on the 25th that KIA team found out about manager Kim’s investigation into the prosecution. Kim didn’t tell the club separately, so he learned it through an external report. At a meeting with manager Kim on the 27th, the club finally confirmed that he was being investigated by the prosecution recently. On the 28th, the club decided that manager Kim could not normally perform his duties as the head coach during the investigation and suspended his duties.
However, the news hit a day later that the suspension could not handle. On the morning of the 29th, it was reported that the prosecution even requested an arrest warrant for Kim on charges of breach of trust. A breach of trust is an act in which a person who handles the affairs of another person receives an illegal request for his/her duties and takes property or property gains.
Moreover, it was revealed that it was related to former general manager Jang, who was dismissed in March last year due to “the scandal over Park Dong-won (34, LG Twins)’s demand for money behind the scenes,” which made KIA club think again. The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office’s Major Crimes Investigation Department (Chief Prosecutor Lee Il-kyu) seems to have detected circumstantial evidence that some of the money he unfairly pocketed went to head coach Kim while investigating allegations of former general manager Jang’s demand for money behind the scenes. Eventually, a friend of the same age born in 1973 appeared at the Seoul Central District Court at 10:30 a.m. on the 30th and stood side by side in the photo line, starting with the interrogation of a suspect (review of the warrant) before arrest at the hearing of a senior judge in charge of warrant Yoo Chang-hoon.
Jang and Kim have yet to be arrested or their charges have yet to be finalized. However, Kia’s team suffered a severe setback in terms of its credibility as it became involved in unfavorable matters.
“My attachment and pride to the team is a little higher (than others).”
This is what Kim left in a telephone interview with Star News when he took over as the head coach of KIA in the winter of 2021. In fact, the club left behind its unverified abilities when appointing Jang and Kim, and at least they had no doubt about their affection for the club, as both of them were players who played in KIA.
Jang, who was an outfielder when he was an active player, played for Kia from 2002 to 2004. Not to mention the 28-year-old Tigers One Club Man. After graduating from Seorim Elementary School in Gwangju, Mudeung Middle School, Gwangju Jeil High School and Korea University, Jang joined the Haitai Tigers (currently Kia Tigers) in 1996 as the first player and stayed at only one team for 28 years until this year. He played 1,359 games with a batting average of 0.247 (1,086 hits in 4391 at-bats) with 66 homers, 429 RBIs, 604 runs scored and 254 steals, and posted an OPS (on-base plus slugging) of 0.668 and the national flag as a defensive second baseman. Even after his retirement, he continued to serve as a coach for the Tigers and shared three times (1996, 1997, 2009) as a player, and won a total of four Korean Series titles as a coach (2017).
Their history has been attractive to the KIA club, which has been skeptical about external personnel through two years with former coach Matt Williams. When appointing former general manager Jang in the winter of 2021, the KIA club said, “Jang understands the club atmosphere better than anyone else based on his three years of experience as a player in KIA, and he expects to play a central role in harmony and communication between the front office and the team,” adding, “In particular, he has excellent data-based player management and management capabilities.” “As a one-club man who has only played for the Tigers since his professional debut, I highly appreciated that he knows KIA better than anyone else and that he has excellent control over the team based on his quiet and strong leadership.”
The result of faith returned to an unprecedented situation not only in the history of professional baseball but also in the KIA club, where the general manager and the manager received arrest warrants from the prosecution side by side. Last year, former general manager Jang was suspected of asking for back money in the process of negotiating an extension contract with Park Dong-won, who was a member of KIA in 2022. Park Dong-won recorded the conversation with Jang himself and delivered it to the Korea Professional Baseball Players Association, and the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), which judged that the issue was serious, asked the prosecution to conduct an investigation directly after a full investigation into 10 clubs.
The Kia Tigers found out related details on March 28 last year and convened a disciplinary committee meeting on March 29. Jang expressed his intention to resign voluntarily to the team and delivered his position in writing. After hearing both sides’ positions, Kia held a disciplinary committee meeting and decided to dismiss Jang, who caused a stir by his acts that damaged his dignity.
This was not the end. In November last year, prosecutors raided two or three places, including the residence of former general manager Jang, who was suspected of having been in breach of trust, and Kim’s name was revealed in the process. It is known to be separate from the suspicion of bribery of an independent baseball team that was entangled a few weeks ago. A, who recently retired from an independent baseball team based in Gyeonggi Province, reported fraud charges against an independent baseball team executive B, who played for him, through the website of the KBO Clean Baseball Center last month. It was A’s claim that executive B demanded tens of millions of won from A’s parents, using Kim’s friendship as bait to join KIA’s nurturing player, and that executive B delivered his parents’ money to Kim.
At that time, KIA team also trusted Kim and responded strongly. The team also saw that the case was not credible because B, an independent baseball team executive, was also selling the names of other high-ranking KIA officials. A KBO official also told Star News, “A claimed that his parents’ money was delivered to Kim Jong-kook, but he only heard from B, but there was no circumstantial evidence. I checked with the KIA team and received a ‘no’ answer. Then, A reported this to the police, and an investigation is underway. We will take measures if any harmful behavior is found according to the results of the police investigation.”
According to the baseball community, the scandal involving Kim is reportedly related to a club sponsor. Rumors have it that Kim’s continued participation in club events but failed to make public the fact that he would undergo prosecutorial investigation, which further shocked the team and its members. In an interview with senior coach Jin Gap-yong on his departure from the country, the team also had a chance to guess the moment when the team was in chaos. Kia has set up its spring camps this year in two places: Canberra, Australia (first round) and Okinawa, Japan (second round). The upcoming spring camp will involve 66 players, including 19 coaching staff and 47 players (22 pitchers, 4 catchers, 12 infielders, and 9 outfielders).
“I found out about it through the media yesterday (on Friday) before leaving the Australian spring camp,” Jin said in an interview before departing for the Australian spring camp. “I am not ready because such a situation suddenly hit me,” he said. 헤라카지노주소“The players must have been very surprised. I will tell the players not to be swayed and to do what we have been doing.”
It is difficult for Kia to select between recruitment from outside and promotion from inside the company, as it has been seeking fast to find a successor. Kia has used both internal and external personnel management since its victory in the Korean Series in 2017. With only two months to go before the opening of the season, it is not easy to recruit a foreign coach. To expedite the process, the team may consider internal promotion or personnel from a club who is familiar with Kia. However, Kia is hesitant once again in that the manager who caused major disappointment was a one-club man from the club and personnel promoted from within. Now, the scars left by the Jang Jung-seok and Kim Jong-guk administration, which made both former club officials and one-club men distrust each other, will likely remain deeper than expected.
