21 Memos That Made Kim Seong-geun a 'Yasin'

21 Memos That Made Kim Seong-geun a 'Yasin'

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Even seniors over 70 will remember the 'Kim Jong-pil·Ohira Memo' vaguely. This is because it is a historical fact that has been around for a long time. After the May 16 military coup, Park Chung-hee, chairman of the National Reconstruction Supreme Council, hurried to hold talks between Korea and Japan. At that time, the talks were stagnant, repeatedly going bonkers. It took money to start economic development, but it was his plan to get the money from Japan in the name of a 'claim'. On November 12, 1961, Park stopped by Japan on his way to the U.S. and agreed to normalize diplomatic relations with Prime Minister Ikeda, but working-level talks did not make progress for a year.토토사이트

Finally, Park dispatched Kim Jong-pil, head of the Central Intelligence Agency, to negotiate with Japan. After going to Tokyo on Nov. 12, 1962, Kim exchanged notes between Ohira and his Japanese counterpart with the amount and conditions that they thought were the Maginot Line. This is the famous "Kim Jong-pil memo."

Kim Seong-geun's memo with 21 requirements

Secret memos often come and go in international negotiations, and unofficial memos sometimes appear when big contracts are exchanged between politicians and individuals. What kind of memos do you have in pro baseball. Until early 2000, coaches and famous players signed multi-year contracts and exchanged informal notes when deciding on options based on their performance.

The "Kim Sung-keun Memo" is the most famous in the 44-year history of professional baseball. The memo became the starting point and made him the "God of baseball." However, the "Kim Sung-geun Memo" is not well known. This was the scoop that I made only by myself, and only some baseball officials and readers saw the details of the memo as it was revealed only by "Remember, 1982 when pro baseball was launched" (published in December 2013).

Let's turn the clock back to the end of November 1986. At that time, Sports Seoul established the first professional baseball award system, including "Player of the Year, Coach of the Year, and Front" based on the performance of the year after the season. Kim Sung-geun, manager of the OB Bears (the predecessor of Doosan Bears), was chosen as the "Coach of the Year," beating over Kim Eung-yong, manager of the Haitai Tigers (KIA), who won the Korean Series title for the first time in three years.

I went to interview Kim Sung-geun, who was in final training in Changwon, and left late in the evening after finishing the article. When I arrived at the OB accommodation in Changwon, it was a little past midnight. I didn't tell the publicist in advance, so I was going to stay at a hotel where the player was staying. (At that time, it was customary to stay at the player's accommodation when I went on a business trip.) Because even if they trained in the early days of professional baseball, most teams were drinking separately after the evening, including coaches and players.

However, as I entered the hotel, I was surprised. Players were swinging in the hallway and playing video clips in the manager's room, trying to adjust individual batting positions. I was touched by the diligent movements of the team, and I thought, "As expected, I deserve to win the award by beating the coach of the winning team."

Then, time passed and I was covering Bonghwangdaegi High School Baseball held at Dongdaemun Stadium in Seoul on August 8, 1988. Professional baseball managers used to go to Dongdaemun Stadium to look for promising players on Mondays when they did not play games.

I was going to go back to the press room after interviewing the winning team coach of the first base dugout, but suddenly OB manager Kim Sung-geun said, "Kim Hyung, let me see." So we talked about it, and the conclusion was, "This is the last year of my contract, so please find another coach position for another team." As it turned out, Kim couldn't renew his contract with OB due to some kind of incident, so he asked each reporter half jokingly and half jokingly. (The incident made it difficult for him to transfer to another team.)

In the end, he said something that he regretted even to me, whom he had not been close to. In fact, it was impossible for a baseball reporter to arrange another destination for the manager. As for Kim, however, he made a request to reporters with "an urgent feeling of catching straws from a drowning man."

Was it because Kim was lucky? Back then, the Pacific Dolphins (sold to Hyundai Unicorns in March 1996) finished the 1988 season at the bottom of the list, the first year of their foundation. Manager Shin Dong-kwan, who trusted me a lot, met me and said, "I'm looking for a new coach to change the mood. Please recommend a good coach."

One side asked for a new club and the other side asked for a new coach, and the other side asked for a new coach. So, I was looking forward to the day when I introduced both of them to me and wrote a scoop story. One day, however, President Shin urgently contacted me to meet him. When I went to the team's office, President Shin showed me a memo and asked, "Do you have to listen to all of these, Kim?"

When I looked closely at the memo, "21 requirements" were written in Japanese. (Coach Kim, who is from a Korean background in Japan, sometimes spoke in Japanese during coaching staff meetings and made sure to take notes in Japanese.) I didn't know much about Japanese, but I remember that it was necessary to strengthen the team's power, including "new indoor practice range."

At that time, the Pacific Group was running an amateur women's basketball team (representative player Park Chan-sook), but the players' salaries were fixed and they only needed to give uniforms and balls to their gym facilities, so the team always won the championship without spending much money.

Even though he is a professional team, Shin decided that the 21 requirements were too much to ask, and asked for advice. If I had accepted the memo and said, "That's right. This is too much to ask," Kim Sung-keun would not have been able to become the coach of the Pacific. But I said, "This is all about making a weak team a strong team, right? "Please listen to it even if it costs money," said Kim Sung-geun, director of the 2nd Pacific Dolphins.