Takatsu on Korean Baseball

I came across a Takatsu interview on the Internet. Takatsu, as you probably know, was a Swallows relief pitcher who went to the States and then, after his stay in US, went to Korea making him the first Japanese pitcher to get saves in the Japanese, Major, and Korean leagues.

Baseball is, just like in Japan, the most popular sport in Korea. Takatsu thought Korean baseball was more powerful than the Japanese and the base running was more aggressive. In Korea runners would try to steal in an unthinkable situation from a Japanese perspective, such as when the number 4 batter is up and there was 2 outs. The pitchers held a very high standard and there were lots of top quality pitchers in Korea with good velocity, control, and breaking pitches. Further, he said that the Japanese could learn from Korea the way the batters would swing as hard as they could towards a pitch, or the aggressive style from the pitchers.

In contrast to Japan, lap top computers are used in the dugout. Every single piece of data you could imagine is stored in their computer in the dugout which means the dug outs have a huge access to all kinds of information at any time.

Many Korean coaches and managers have, at some point in their career, been to Japan for training, and there is a huge respect towards Japanese baseball in Korea. Yomiuri Giants games were televised in Korea, so Koreans in general knew quite a lot about Japanese baseball. Takatus's manager, Kim, had also spent some time in Japan and also spoke some Japanese. Further, Takatsu said there is more hierarchy in Korea than Japan, putting the gap between players and managers was greater in Korea than in Japan. That is, the whole senpai/kouhai mentality was stronger in Korea than in Japan.

Takatsu lived in Seoul, which is a big city like Tokyo, so he did not have any problems with the food as there are a wide range of Japanese and Korean foods. The fans in Korea are passionate, but the cheering in Korea was done right above the dugout and not the bleachers like in Japan.

Source: MLB Yahoo! Japan [in Japanese]