“I don’t call my father often.”
Kiwoom and KIA set up a spring camp in Arizona, USA. Kiwoom will stay at Salt River Fields at Talking Stick in Scottsdale until early next month. On the other hand, KIA set up a spring camp at Kino Sports Complex in Tucson and is currently moving to Kin Stadium in Okinawa, Japan.
Scottsdale and Tucson are approximately two hours by car. The people of the two clubs could have met if they wanted to, if the rest days overlapped. However, at least KIA Jang Jeong-seok and Kiwoom Jang Jae-young do not seem to have met. If you listen to the story of the two people who met in person at the spring camp of the two teams in the middle of this month, it is.
When I brought up the story of Jang Jae-young with a smile to General Manager Jang Jeong-seok, who was watching the KIA’s Tucson camp, General Manager Jang also laughed and said, “I don’t get a single call (to myself).” It’s a joke, but it seemed close to the truth. It was because Jang Jae-young, whom I first met at Kiwoom Scottsdale Camp, also said, “I don’t call my father often.”
Could the rich have cut off the relationship? Of course not. The reporter may have contacted or met after being evacuated from Arizona. What is certain is that both the father and the son are doing their best in their respective positions, and they will wish each other success even if they do not speak kindly.
In particular, Jang Jae-young burns his passion for baseball to the extent that he does not have time to contact his father. Jang Jae-young doubled as a pitcher for the Australian professional baseball Geelong Korea, and as he showed competitiveness as a starting pitcher again, expectations for his third season of his professional debut are high.
In mid-February, he received a 1-hour one-point lesson from ‘Korean Express’ Park Chan-ho and became a hot topic. Park Chan-ho reminded Jae-young Jang of the basics of pitching, such as pitching rather than speed and centering around the lower body. After filming the video himself with his cell phone, we looked at it together and exchanged feedback.
Jang Jae-young was quite serious about ‘Park Chan-ho School’. At the time of the interview with Scottsdale, he said, “When throwing with a windup, there was a movement in his head while trying to throw a little harder, and I try to minimize it. He was advised that it was important to keep his head fixed, and to find a form that suited his command.”
Before and after lessons with Park Chan-ho, Jang Jae-young has definitely changed. Ko Hyeong-wook, the head of Kiwoom, whom I met at the scene, was also pleased and said, “Jae-young has matured.” Jang Jae-young further burned his desire to become a good pitcher while working as a pitcher.
Jang Jae-young said, “Lee Ji-young and Kim Jae-hyun (catcher) seniors catch the big part. My commands are not as cool as (Ahn) Woo-jin hyung, and I am a pitcher who competes with pitches, but I was stressed about putting them into the corner too much. He just needs to do a corner walk when he throws lightly from an advantageous ball count, and throws into the middle to induce a foul when he tries to hit aggressively. In fact, he said, rather than mentality, it was a difference in confidence.”
He confessed that he had lost his confidence during that time. Jang Jae-young said, “He can’t play baseball, but neither confidence nor mentality can be good. When he got on the mound, it was natural for him to worry about whether he could throw a strike. Since he made two consecutive quality starts in Australia, he gained confidence and thought, ‘I can throw a strike without fail’. And he is consciously hitting the ball.” 토토사이트
General manager Ko Hyeong-wook also hopes that Jae-young Jang will regain his confidence through a two-time pitching career. He doesn’t really want to double as a pitcher. (Of course, I have no intention of stopping him if he is serious about pitching and batting). As Jang Jae-young practiced batting again, he felt the value of baseball. He has no intention of typing again anyway.
Jang Jae-young said, “It was a time to rediscover what kind of mindset batters have at bat. He became an opportunity to shake off the compulsion to put it well outside. He said, ‘You can think of it simply. He saw the mitt and came up with the idea, ‘You can throw it in the middle’. He put his mind down trying to be perfect. He trained as a fielder and a pitcher for a day, so he got eggs on his side and buttocks and skin on his fingers peeled off. Sleeping well is important to him, and he didn’t eat breakfast well, but he ended up eating it. He changed his mind about baseball.”
In other words, for Jang Jae-young, this winter is a time when his thoughts on baseball change. It is time for him to experience and feel anew and make his own baseball again. Is this so, will there be time to call his father. When I told him that his son worked out really hard and greeted people around him well, the father laughed silently. Although his uniform is different, his father’s sincere desire for his son’s well-being is palpable.