Japanese Baseball Cards: Park Byung-ho

Wednesday, May 13, 2026

Park Byung-ho

I had somehow missed the fact that longtime KBO star (and one time Minnesota Twin) Park Byung-ho had retired at the end of last season. It was only when I saw an article about his retirement game a few weeks ago that I realized it had happened. I thought I'd do my final retirement post for this off season about him (which takes the bad taste of finishing up with Sho Nakata out of my mouth).

Park was originally drafted by the LG Twins in 2005 but he didn't blossom as a star until he was traded to the then-Nexen Heroes in 2011. He was the MVP of the league in 2012 and 2013 and led the league in home runs and RBIs for four straight years from 2012 to 2015. He became the first player in KBO history to hit 50 home runs in consecutive seasons when he hit 52 in 2014 and 53 in 2015.

He left Korea for America before the 2016 season and signed a four year deal with the Twins. He struggled at the plate in Minneapolis in his first season, hitting below .200 before being banished to Triple-A for the remainder of the season. After spending all of 2017 in Rochester, New York, he asked for and received his release from the team to return to Korea.

He returned to Nexen for 2018 and it was like he never left, hitting 43 home runs and knocking in 112 runs. The Heroes were sold to Kiwoom in 2019 and he responded by again leading the league in home runs.

He left the Heroes as a free agent after 2021 and joined the KT Wiz. He led the league in home runs one last time in 2022 but his numbers started to decline after that. He was traded to the Samsung Lions in the middle of the 2024 season and played for them until announcing his retirement last November. He was activated by the Heroes for his retirement game so his career record indicates that he finished his playing days with Kiwoom.

I was kind of surprised he hadn't played for the Korean National Team more often. He only played in three major tournaments - the 2015 and 2019 Premier 12s and the 2023 World Baseball Classic. He hit two home runs with 15 RBIs in the 2015 Premier 12 with one of those home runs coming against Team USA in the gold medal game.

I thought I'd share all the cards I have of him. These aren't all his cards - I haven't gotten much in the way of KBO cards since 2021 and TCDB lists 557(!) total cards for him although I'm sure a good many of those are parallels - but I do have 14 of him. Here they are in roughly the order they were published: