Former baseball player Baek In-chun passed away late last week at the age of 82 in Cheonan, South Korea. Baek had a 20 year career in NPB under the name "Jinten Haku" and then played in the KBO's first three seasons. I'm not entirely sure but I believe that Baek was the first "native" Korean to play in Japan - I put quotes around "native" as he was actually born in China. There were other Koreans who played in NPB before him such as Masaichi Kaneda and Isao Harimoto, but I think they were all from the Korean communities in Japan (Kaneda was from Aichi prefecture while Harimoto was from Hiroshima).
As I mentioned, Baek was born in Wuxi in Jiangsu province in China on September 27, 1942. I'm not sure why the family was living there but they moved "back" to Korea following the country's liberation from the Japanese occupation at the end of the Pacific War. The family initially moved back to his father's home of Cholsan County in the northern part of the country, not far from the Chinese border. Before the Korean War broke out, however, the family moved south to Seoul and Baek grew up there, attending Kyungdong High School. He was a baseball star in high school, winning the Lee Young-min award in 1959, an award named for a pioneering Korean baseball player*. He homered in a game played in Japan at Meiji Jingu Stadium in 1960, becoming only the second high school player to hit one at Jingu in the postwar period.
*Who played for the the All Nippon team that took on the All American All Stars in 1934 under the name Eibin Ri - my thanks to Rob Fitts for confirming that Lee was Eibin Ri.
In addition to playing baseball, he was also a speed skater and won the 1500 meter event at the Winter Sports Games held in January, 1961 with a time of 2 minutes and 49.18 seconds.
After he graduated from high school, Yoshiro Shimaoka, the legendary coach of Meiji University's baseball team, approached him about studying abroad. It wasn't possible, however, due to Japan and South Korea not having established a diplomatic relationship following the war and Baek not having fulfilled his military obligation. Instead, he joined the Korea Agricultural Bank corporate league team as their catcher. He was selected for the South Korean team for the 1962 Asian Baseball Championship which was held in Taiwan in January of that year. He homered in the team's final game against the Philippines, helping Korea to a 5-1 victory and a second place finish in the tournament (tied with Taiwan). It was the only home run hit in the entire tournament and the first one hit by a foreigner at Taipei Municipal Baseball Stadium.
He stopped off in Tokyo while returning to Korea and created a bit of an international incident by signing a provisional contract with the Toei Flyers. The Korea Baseball Association was not happy, believing that it was better for the future of Korean baseball for their best players to stay in Korea. The South Korean government, ruled at the time by a military junta that had seized power in the May 16 coup in 1961, felt differently, perhaps due to their need for funds from Japan to help rebuild the economy, and ultimately Baek was allowed to join the Flyers.
I'm not entirely sure when and why he started playing under the name Jinten Haku but it appears to be when he joined Toei. He spent his first year and a half with the Flyers' farm team, not getting called up until a series of injuries sidelined several of the catchers on the ichi-gun squad. He made his first team debut on June 26, 1963, in the seventh inning of a game against Nankai. He reportedly felt like he was dreaming when he got behind the plate and caught his first pitch but instead of pinching himself, he kicked the home plate umpire's leg. When the umpire yelled "Ouch! What are you doing?", he felt that he had confirmed to himself that he wasn't dreaming.
He ultimately only got into 20 games in 1963 but he ended up replacing Junzo Ando as the team's starting catcher during the second half of 1964. The Flyers had him hit clean up and he was part of the core of the team's lineup, along with Isao Harimoto and Katsuo Ohsugi. By 1966, the Flyers had moved him to the outfield and he was an All Star for the first time in 1967.
He had a boneheaded play that season, though, as he hit what looked like a game winning three run home run against Kintetsu but was called out for passing the base runner in front of him. The game was instead tied and the Flyers ended up losing the game in extra innings.
Haku became embroiled in an unfortunate incident in 1970 when, enraged by a called strike three, he got into a fist fight with home plate umpire Motoya Tsuyuzaki, a former boxer. He not only was ejected from the game, but was criminally charged with assault and battery. Ultimately a settlement was made several days later but not before Haku went to Tsuyuzaki's home to apologize. He found that the umpire was not there, having left to go to the police station to swear out the complaint against Haku. The incident doesn't appear to have disrupted his season too much though as he played in 127 of the Flyers' 130 games that year, made the All Star team for the second time and led the league in doubles with 30.
Later that same year, Toei made a request at the South Korean Embassy in Japan that Haku be exempted from his mandatory military service. The Korean government refused and ordered Haku to return to Korea, which he did, leaving his wife and kids behind in Japan. He didn't return to them and the Flyers until the beginning of May, 1971. It turns out, however, that he didn't actually serve in the military - he instead helped out on the ranch his father had purchased and took care of his sick mother. The South Korean government had arranged the whole thing to counter criticism they were getting for allowing Haku to play baseball instead of being in the military and the delay in his return to Japan was to make it realistically look like he'd served. He ultimately never served his military obligation.
He had what was probably his best season with the Flyers in 1972, reaching career highs in home runs and RBIs with totals of 19 and 80 respectively. His .315 average, best of his career to date, was third best in the league. He made the All Star team for the third time.
Toei sold the Flyers to the real estate company Nittaku Home in February of 1973. Haku had a poor season for the newly renamed Nittaku Home Flyers, hitting just .247, his lowest average since he'd become a regular. The team didn't play particularly well either - finishing fifth in the first half of the season and fourth in the second half - and Nittaku Home sold the team to Nippon-Ham in November of that year, after just nine months of ownership.
Haku bounced back somewhat in 1974, bringing his average up to .261, but the now Nippon-Ham Fighters were abysmal, finishing last in both halves of the season with an overall record of 49-75-6. At the end of the season, the new ownership decided that it was time to part ways with many of the key Toei players who were still with the team. Katsuo Ohsugi was dealt to the Yakult Swallows, Tsuyoshi Oshita was dispatched to the Hiroshima Toyo Carp and Haku was traded to the Taihieyo Club Lions in exchange for Masayoshi Higashida. (Isao Harimoto would be dispatched to the Yomiuri Giants a year later.)
Haku responded to the trade by winning the Pacific League batting crown with a .319 average. He became the first batter to win the crown with exactly the required number of plate appearances as he'd fought several injuries during the season including a sprained ankle and a fractured ring finger (caused when his left hand was hit by a pitch). Oddly enough, he didn't make the All Star team that year but he was named to the post-season Best 9 squad for the only time in his career.
After two seasons in Fukuoka, he was on the move again. The Lions traded him along with pitcher Shoji Yasuki to the Lotte Orions for Kazuo Hasegawa and Akira Kuramochi. His second year back in Kanto, 1978, did not go well. He clashed with manager Masaichi Kaneda and played in just 58 games, his fewest since 1963. He planned on retiring following the season but was convinced to stay on by Kazuhiro Yamauchi who replaced Kaneda as manager that off season. He ended up with one of his best seasons in 1979, hitting .340 which was by far the highest batting average of his career and, once again, good for third place in the league. He had 18 home runs and 71 RBIs and made the All Star team for the fourth and final time. He fell hard in 1980 (despite being reunited with Harimoto), hitting just .216 in 76 games. He was sent to the Kintetsu Buffaloes that offseason and ended up hitting .227 in 84 games in 1981.
He and Kintetsu parted ways after the season and Haku set his sights on returning to South Korea for the inaugural season of the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO), the first professional baseball league in South Korea. He was named player-manager of the MBC Blue Dragons and led the fledgling league in batting with an astounding .412 average. It is still the highest average in KBO history and is the only .400 season ever recorded in the league. MBC finished third for the season and Haku - or Baek as he was now using his Korean name again - was set to return as manager for 1983. A few weeks into the season, however, MBC let him go after he was arrested for adultery. His wife had filed a complaint against him for having an affair with another woman. Baek was out of baseball for a few months while the two of them divorced. He signed on with the Sammi Superstars as a player-coach late in the 1983 season but hit only .190 in 35 games. He played even less in 1984, getting into only 10 games with Sammi while hitting .281. He retired at the end of the season, bringing his 23 year playing career (1962-84) to a finish.
He ran a golf equipment business for several years after his playing days ended but he returned to the dugout to again manage the MBC Blue Dragons in 1989, leading the team to a sixth place, just barely (a half game) better than the last place Lotte Giants. That offseason, the team was bought by LG and renamed the Twins, making Baek both the first and last manager of the Blue Dragons. The team had quite a turnaround in 1990, finishing first and sweeping the Samsung Lions in the Korea Series. It would be the only championship of either his playing or managerial career. He was named the league's Manager Of The Year. The Twins dropped back to sixth place in 1991 and Baek was fired at the end of the season.
Five years later he was hired to manage the Samsung Lions. His time with the Lions was marked by his falling out with star shortstop Kang Ki-woong. Kang had suffered an ankle injury in May of 1995 after colliding with rookie first baseman Lee Seung-yeop and his performance had declined significantly. Baek felt that Kang had a poor attitude towards practice and ended up trading him to the Hyundai Unicorns after the 1996 season. Kang refused the trade and ultimately retired in early 1997 at age 33.
The Lions finished in sixth place in Baek's first season at the helm in 1996. They rose to fourth place the following season and made the playoffs. They defeated the third place Ssangbangwool Raiders in the first round of the playoffs but lost to the second place LG Twins in the second round.* By that time, however, Baek was no longer with the team. He had suffered a stroke during the season and was forced to step down as manager. Cho Chang-soo finished out the season as interim manager.
*Baseball-Reference incorrectly has Ssangbangwool winning the first round of the playoffs and then falling to LG in the second round. I got the correct outcome from Korean Wikipedia.
He was a hitting coach for Yonsei University in 1998 and filled the same roll for the Hanwha Eagles in 1999. He also was a baseball commentator for the SBS network in 1999 and 2000. At the end of the 1999 season, Samsung dismissed manager Seo Jeong-hwan, who had taken the team over from Cho the previous year and Baek's name was mentioned as a possible replacement. His exclusive contract with SBS, however, prevented this from happening.
He started 2002 as a hitting coach for the SK Wyverns but in mid-June, he was named manager of the Lotte Giants. Lotte was still reeling from the abrupt death of manager Kim Myung-sung the previous July from a heart attack. Woo Yong-deuk took over the team and led them to a 27-22-1 record during the remainder of the 2001 season but he was dismissed three months into the following year when the team was just 17-1-42. Acting manager Kim Yong-hee lost the two games he led the team before Baek took over.
To say it didn't go well would be an understatement. The team had a worse record under Baek, going 18-53 in the remaining 71 games that season. Things did not improve in 2003, with the Giants going 23-66-3 in 92 games before Baek was dismissed in early August.
The 2001-07 seasons are referred to as the "dark age" in Lotte Giants history. Baek's contribution to this was not just in the team's record. In 2002, he ordered the then-20 year old Lee Dae-ho to lose weight. The outdated training methods he made Lee do injured his knee cartilage, resulting in him being exiled to the farm team. Baek also decided to make a power hitter out of leadoff hitter Kim Joo-chan which resulted in Kim's batting average dropping from .313 in 2001 to .220 in 2002. Finally, he tried to convert star pitcher Son Min-han to a catcher and, when Son refused, attempted to trade him before being overruled by Lotte's front office.
It probably comes as no surprise that Baek neither managed or coached again after the debacle with Lotte. He was again a baseball commentator and had a three year contract with SBS when the network got the rights to broadcast the Yomiuri Giants' home games in Korea in 2008. In later years he suffered both health issues related to his stroke and financial hardships.
Haku/Baek did not have a lot of baseball cards. Engel lists 17 cards for him while TCDB lists 16. There is, of course, some overlap between the two lists and I believe the real count is about 25. His earliest card is from the 1964 Marukami JCM 14g menko set. He also appears in the 1967 Kabaya-Leaf set. Curiously, his only Calbee cards appear to be from the "monster" 1975/76/77 set - he had a total of eight cards in that set although two of them are multi-player cards. Additionally, he appeared in the 1977 NST, 1979 TCMA and 1981 Takara Buffaloes sets as well as some oddball sets including a very rare "Taiheiyo Club Lions Diecut Standups" set from 1975. His only known KBO card is from the 1996 Pro Baseball Stickers when he managed Samsung although I would not be surprised to discover he had an earlier card - unfortunately the cards for the KBO before the mid-90's are not well cataloged. He also appeared in a handful of BBM's OB sets in the 2000's and 2010's.
Here are all the cards I have of him:
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| 1964 Marukami JCM 14g menko |
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| 1967 Kabaya-Leaf #408 |
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| 1975 JCM 58 menko |
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| 1975/76/77 Calbee #270 |
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| 1975/76/77 Calbee #349 |
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| 1975/76/77 Calbee #392 |
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| 1977 NST #254 |
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| 1979 TCMA #2 |
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| 2008 BBM Lotte 40th Anniversary #31 |
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| 2010 BBM Lions 60th Anniversary #78 |
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| 2017 BBM Time Travel 1975 #24 |
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| 2017 BBM Time Travel 1975 "Titleholder" #PT3 |
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| 2019 BBM Time Travel 1979 #58 |
It's kind of odd that his 1977 NST card shows him with the Lions as he was with the Orions when that set was released. It is very rare for an NPB card to show an active player on a team that he was no longer with.
I separated out the two multi-player cards from the 1975/76/77 Calbee set that he appears on. The first is the Lions team card:
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| 1975/76/77 Calbee #455 |
Haku is on the bottom row, the second player from the right - #6 (right next to Matty Alou - #2).
The other card was for the Pacific League statistical leaders from 1975:
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| 1975/76/77 Calbee #404 |
Haku's batting crown gives him a prime position on the left of the top row (#6). I think that it uses the same photo as the Lions team card but not as tightly cropped and tilted just a tad.
