Kiwoom Heroes' rookie manager Son Hyuk is an optimist by nature. Even with his Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) club mired in a four-game losing skid heading into Sunday's action, Son is maintaining his "glass half-full" mindset. "In the past two, three seasons, we had mediocre starts and then picked things up in the summer," Son noted before facing the LG Twins at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul. "As long as we stay afloat, I think we'll be just fine." The Heroes won f

LG Twins' manager Ryu Joong-il got out of bed Sunday morning with his back hurting a little more than usual. He had just managed a double header against the Kiwoom Heroes for more than six hours on Saturday, and he spent the majority of that time standing in and pacing around the dugout at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul. This was the first double header of the young Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) season. That the Twins won both games eased Ryu's pain. "This was our first double header in qu

South Korea's national golf championship has been canceled for the first time in its history due to the novel coronavirus outbreak. The Korea Golf Association (KGA) said Friday the 63rd Kolon Korea Open will not take place this year because of the recent virus situation in the country. South Korea has reported an uptick in daily virus cases in recent days following cluster infections in a nightlife district in Seoul. This is the first time that the organizers decided not to hold the presti

The scheduled return of South Korean Olympic athletes to the national training center has been postponed indefinitely in light of a recent spike in new coronavirus cases. The Korean Sport & Olympic Committee said Thursday that the first batch of athletes and coaches who had been set to report back to the Jincheon National Training Center next week will have to wait. They had cleared out of the training center in March, after the 2020 Tokyo Olympics was postponed by one year due to the cor

Kiwoom Heroes' catcher Park Dong-won is a manager's dream. He does not care about his playing time. He does not care about his personal stats. As long as his Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) club keeps on winning, Park is a happy man. And the Heroes have done quite a bit of winning lately. They defeated the Samsung Lions 3-2 at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul on Tuesday for their fourth straight victory and climbed to first place in the young 2020 season at 6-1. Park delivered a game-tying solo h

Two of the biggest names in women's golf will go head-to-head in a skins match in South Korea this month. World No. 1 Ko Jin-young and world No. 3 Park Sung-hyun will meet in the "Hyundai Card Super Match" on May 24 at Sky 72 Golf & Resort, adjacent to Incheon International Airport, just west of Seoul. Hyundai Card, the title sponsor of the event, said Wednesday it will be the first "Super Match" event in nine years. Hyundai Card launched the exhibition series with te

The South Korean baseball league announced rules on running "special" suspended games and subsequent double headers on Tuesday. The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) will bring these suspended games into play this season, which opened last Tuesday after more than a month of delay due to the coronavirus pandemic. In the past, a game that had to be stopped because of inclement weather before the completion of the fifth inning was wiped clean, and the teams had to play a new game from

The 2008 Olympic judo silver medalist Wang Ki-chun has been banned for life over sexual assault allegations. The Korea Judo Association (KJA) reached the decision unanimously following its disciplinary committee meeting in Seoul on Tuesday. Wang was arrested on May 2 on charges of sexually assaulting a minor. The KJA said, while Wang's allegations haven't been confirmed, the 31-year-old is found to have engaged in inappropriate relations with a minor and greatly damaged the integrity and soci

The opening match of the 2020 South Korean football season last week drew millions of viewers around the world on its social media platforms, the league office said Tuesday. The Korea Professional Football League (K League) said the K League 1 showdown between Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors and Suwon Samsung Bluewings on Friday evening was viewed by 3.4 million fans on Twitter and 234,000 more on YouTube. The league streamed the match, a 1-0 victory for Jeonbuk, live on those two social media account

When Dan Straily left the United States for South Korea to continue his pitching career in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) in 2020, he thought he was through getting much exposure in his home country. He was only focused on getting back to Major League Baseball (MLB) someday, so his son can watch him pitch in the bigs. But life can throw you a curve at the most unexpected times. No one could have predicted the coronavirus pandemic would have ground sports leagues around the world to a ha

After more five months of inaction caused by the coronavirus pandemic, golf will finally return to South Korea this week. The Korea Ladies Professional Golf Association (KLPGA) will hold its first major of the season, the KLPGA Championship, starting Thursday at Lakewood Country Club in Yangju, just north of Seoul in Gyeonggi Province. It's the first KLPGA tournament to take place on South Korean soil this season. The 2020 season began with the Hyosung Championship in Vietnam last December. I

The scheduled return of South Korean Olympic athletes to the national training center has been pushed back by a week in light of a recent spike in new coronavirus cases. The Korean Sport & Olympic Committee (KSOC) said Monday that the first batch of athletes and coaches who had been set to reenter the Jincheon National Training Center this week will do so next week. They had cleared out of the training center in March, after the 2020 Tokyo Olympics got postponed by one year due to the cor

After coming home from a hectic day at work, Patty Noakes likes to wind down by watching baseball on ESPN. But it is not just any baseball she is watching on the US cable station these days. ESPN will be carrying six Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) games per week this season, while Major League Baseball (MLB) remains grounded due to the coronavirus pandemic. For fans like Noakes, who grew up in Cincinnati during the "Big Red Machine" era of the early 1970s, KBO is the only basebal

JEONJU -- It's been a long time coming, but professional football is finally here in South Korea. Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors hosted Suwon Samsung Bluewings before some 42,000 empty seats at Jeonju World Cup Stadium in Jeonju, 240 kilometers south of Seoul, to kick off the 2020 K League 1 season. The season was slated to begin on Feb. 29 but was pushed back indefinitely five days prior to its start due to the coronavirus outbreak. Then with the number of new cases steadily falling last month, the

ROME (AFP) -- The fate of the Serie A championship remained in limbo on Thursday after state scientists met with football bosses in a desperate effort to save the coronavirus-interrupted season threatened by a new wave of positive tests among players. The Italian Football Federation (FIGC) huddled with the government's technical scientific committee to discuss details of the medical protocol for a potential return to group training. The talks came with pressure mounting from sports-deprived f