Last week the Orioles signed former Doosan Bears outfielder Hyun-Soo Kim to a two year contract. I haven't seen too many of his cards showing up on Ebay yet, at least not legitimate ones, so I thought I'd do a quick survey of what's available for him.
The Trading Card Database lists 39 cards for him, although a great number of those are parallels.
Kim has played for the South Korean National Team at least four times that I've been able to find - the 2008 Olympics (Gold Medal winners), the 2009 WBC (runner ups), the 2013 WBC and the 2015 Premier 12 (Gold Medal winners). The only cards of him from any of these tournaments are from the 2009 WBC. Topps did two cards of him in their batch of WBC related sets (one of which had 11 parallels and the other had nine) and he had two cards in Konami's Baseball Heroes WBC set (one of which was for making the all tournament team).
 |
| 2009 Topps Chrome #W87 |
 |
| 2009 Bowman Chrome #BCW53 |
 |
| 2009 Konami Baseball Heroes WBC #W09R141 |
The remaining 15 cards listed are from various KBO issues. He appears in the
2010 KBO "Game set" and a couple Doosan Bears team sets issued between 2012-2014 (that I know absolutely nothing about). He has appeared regularly in the KBO sets that have been issued in the last two years, including autograph, memorabila and "gold coin" cards.
I showcased a couple of the cards I had for him in a Card Of The Week a few months back commemorating his being named MVP of the Premier 12. Here's the only other KBO card I have of him - from the
Baseball Best Player set I got a couple weeks ago:
 |
| 2015 Baseball's Best Players #PA01-DO002 |
Being local to Baltimore, I am also hoping to hear his cheer song at Camden Yards next season:
5 comments:
Is that actually him on that top card? The person pictured doesn't look like the same guy that's on the others and in fact looks much older as well.
You know I was wondering the same thing. I assume that it's him but it sure looks like it could be someone else. Funny thing - the back of the card lists him as a pitcher even though the bio on the back accurately describes his performance in both the 2008 Olympics and 2009 WBC. Maybe the card was initially going to be for someone else?
That card is of the manager Kim In-Sik (김인식). He wore #81. They must gave mislabeled it.
Ahh, that explains it. Thanks!
I'm going back over this error at the moment and can't help but think what a major blunder this was. I don't expect the card manufacrturer to really care about foreigner players but it would be nice to have thge correct image for a Korean star player, not his manager who is 41 years his elder.
Post a Comment