Lotte coach Lee Jong-woon warmly grasped the hand of Samsung’s Kang Min-ho, who approached him and opened his palm to show him the sore spot.
Samsung’s Kang Min-ho is the only player in the league who would feel comfortable walking up to an opposing team’s manager and showing him his sore palm, and he is so friendly that whenever he plays against his hometown team, Lotte, he is busy swirling around the field to say hello.
It’s the first day of a three-game midweek series between the Lotte Giants and Samsung Lions in Ulsan. After arriving at the stadium, the visiting Samsung players got ready for practice. That’s when Kang Min-ho was spotted striding toward the Lotte dugout on first base.
He was drafted by the Lotte Giants in the third round of the 2004 KBO Draft and remained a fixture at Sajik Stadium for 14 years until 2017.
In the 2015 season, Kang Min-ho showed off his hot bat as the Lotte Giants’ second baseman. In 123 games, he batted .311 with 118 hits, 35 home runs, and 86 RBIs. It was his first 30-homer season as a professional. It was a career-high season for him personally, but also a disappointing one for his team as they failed to make it to fall ball.
After the 2017 season, Kang Min-ho became a free agent for the second time and left Lotte to join Samsung.스포츠토토
In 2015, the year of Kang’s career-high season, then-Lotte Giants manager Lee Jong-woon was fired in October after the team finished eighth out of 10 clubs with a record of 66 wins, 77 losses, and one tie for a winning percentage of 0.462.
Acting manager Lee Jong-woon, who took over for the remainder of the season after Sutton resigned due to health issues, has been working with the players to keep their fall baseball hopes alive.
On the first day of the three-game series, Kang Min-ho, who was out of the lineup due to lingering palm pain, visited his old mentor and stretched out his sore palm. Acting manager Lee Jong-woon stroked his protégé’s hand and shared a heartfelt moment.