Baseball5 to be a hit in Korea

President of KBSA Mr. LEE believes that the development of baseball5 will ultimately help the development of baseball and softball.

Korea Baseball Softball Association (KBSA) is going in a big way to promote and popularise  Baseball 5.

For starters, a dedicated Baseball5 division has been set up recently and one major plan on the cards is to hold a tournament this year.

Korea Sport and Olympic Council (KSOC) had recently selected 12 sports federations to host a sports festival which included sports like billiards and sepaktakraw.

KBSA immediately took the opportunity to present a plan for Baseball5 competition to KSOC and it has been approved.

The first condition of this competition is that elite athletes and general students form a team together.

KBSA has 17 provincial branches. And the Little Baseball Association, an affiliate of the KBSA, also has 17 provincial branches.

KBSA is looking at a U-12 tournament with 34 participating teams, each representing the 17 provincial association composing KBSA and the 17 provincial associations of Little Baseball Association.

Each team will be comprised of registered male baseball players and female of elementary school students.

Participating teams will be split into different groups and top eight teams will play for the finals.

However, the dates of competition have yet to be determined as they are continuing to monitor the COVID19 situation carefully.

Indications are that to run the competition in September or October after school vacation.

A few days ago, KBSA has been preparing to hold the first domestic competition in the second half of this year for the development of Baseball 5 in Korea.

However, Baseball5 is not well known in Korea yet, and there are many people who do not know how to play.

Thus, KBSA is making educational videos to publicise the Baseball5 in a more interesting way before the competition.

And to add to interest in educational videos, a video featuring Korea baseball legend YANG Jun-hyuk and players from the Korea national softball team was shot.

Jeong Seo-Young (Head coach of Goejeong middle school) who played an active role as the captain of the team Korea in WBSC Junior Women’s Softball World championship in 2017 teaches, Yang Jun-hyuk how to play the baseball5 game.

The video will be transmitted in two versions through the KBSA YouTube channel and Yang Jun-Hyuk’s YouTube channel in mid-July.

Report by Woo Jisuk

(Baseball 5 Division – KBSA)_