[한국계高 고시엔 우승 ‘기적’]
2-1 victory after a close overtime match in the final… Cheers line hugging each other with tears in their eyes
Director from a banker background: “I didn’t know it would come this far”… Kyoto City in a festive mood, even publishing an extra edition
In the bottom of the 10th inning, with two outs and the bases loaded, the game could have been overturned with one hit. Kyoto International High School’s closing pitcher, Nishimura Ichiki, struck out the last batter with a swing and a miss to get the last out. The Kyoto International High School students, who were cheering with a heat hotter than the 34-degree heat wave, cheered, shed tears, and hugged each other. One Korean resident in Japan jumped up from his seat and shouted, “Hurrah!”
On the 23rd, at the 106th Japan National High School Baseball Championship (Koshien) held at the Hanshin Koshien Stadium in Nishinomiya City, Japan, Kyoto International High School, a Korean school in Japan, won the long-awaited championship. In the final on that day, Kyoto International High School defeated Kanto Daiichi High School, the East Tokyo representative, 2-1 in the 10th inning of extra innings.
After the game, the Korean school song was played on the field. To the lyrics, “Across the East Sea, the land of Yamato is the sacred dream place of our ancestors,” the players sang the school song on the field, and current students, graduates, parents, Korean residents in Japan, and even students from other schools in Kyoto who cheered them on, all sang it loudly. This scene was broadcast live nationwide on NHK and marked the finale of this year’s Koshien. In Japan, Kyoto International High School, which won the championship, was evaluated as a miracle rather than an upset.
● 160-student super-mini school beats 2,500-student school
“I always told the players that I wanted to play baseball with them for a little longer, but I never thought it would come to this. I’m grateful to the guys for giving me a chance to have a wonderful summer vacation.”
When asked about his feelings about winning, coach Noritsugu Komaki, a former banker who led the team to victory, gave the glory to the players. Coach Komaki is a former banker who graduated from Kansai University as a baseball player and worked at a local bank. He met Kyoto International High School while teaching baseball on weekends through a high school classmate from Kyoto Korean Middle School. He quit the bank at the age of 24 and started as a coach, becoming the coach in 2008. Most of the players are Japanese now, but he learned the importance of communication while teaching players from Korea, which has a different culture.
Kyoto International High School traces its roots back to Kyoto Chosun Middle School, which was established in 1947 by Koreans in Japan who voluntarily raised money to provide national education. It was later reorganized into Kyoto Korean Middle and High School with the approval of the Korean government. Although the school was proud of providing national education, the situation was not good. There was a small influx of new Korean immigrants, and there were almost no corporate employees or diplomats, so the school had difficulty filling its quota.
The school, facing the threat of extinction, underwent a change. In 2003, it was recognized by the Japanese government as an official middle and high school with academic qualifications recognized in both Korea and Japan. Boys who like baseball and girls who like K-pop come to this school. Although it is a regular Japanese school, it maintains its identity as a Korean school by teaching Korean language, Korean history, and Korean culture. 65% of the students are Japanese, and the rest are Koreans or Japanese nationals living in Japan or Korean students studying abroad.
There are only 160 students in the entire school and 61 members of the baseball team. The final opponent on this day, Kanto Daiichi High School, which represents East Tokyo, has 2,500 students and 92 members of the baseball team. The length of the Kyoto International High School field is only 70m. It is a poor environment that is slightly more than half of a regular baseball field of about 125m.
Because of the narrow field, the players focused on infield defense training instead of practicing hitting the ball far. This became the decisive driving force behind this year’s Koshien victory. In the six games from the main tournament to the finals, they only gave up three or more points in the first round (3-7), showing a ‘short-sighted defense’.
● Kyoto City Festival Opens, Local Newspapers Publish Extra Editions
The Kyoto International High School baseball club was founded in 1999. It started with 12 players who had never properly learned baseball. That spring, they realized the high wall when they lost 0-34 in the first round of the regional preliminaries. Kim An-il, a Korean resident in Japan and the president of the baseball club support group, said, “At first, there were kids who would run to third base after hitting,” and “When I said I would step down as president after seeing the Koshien championship, people around me asked, ‘Can you live to be 100?’ It was like a dream come true.”
In a survey by the Japanese portal site Yahoo after advancing to the quarterfinals, asking “Which school do you think will win?”, Kyoto International High School received the lowest number of responses, at 4.7%, out of the eight schools. However, as if to mock many people’s expectations, they won consecutive games based on the solid pitching of the left-handed starting one-two punch of Rui Nakazaki and Itki Nishimura.
Kyoto City, where the school is located, was filled with festive excitement. In front of Kyoto Station and other places in Kyoto City, local newspapers distributed extra editions of the school’s school newspapers to celebrate the first Koshien victory in 68 years as a representative of Kyoto. One Kyoto citizen who received the extra edition said, “I watched all of Kyoto International High School’s games live. It was a close call in the finals, but I’m so happy that they won.”
Discriminatory comments such as “I feel bad about the Korean school song” were also posted on social networking services (SNS). Kyoto Governor Takatoshi Nishiwaki stated, “Discriminatory acts cannot be tolerated, so please refrain from doing so,” and announced that he had requested the Ministry of Justice and the operator of the relevant site to delete four severely discriminatory posts.
President Yoon Seok-yeol posted on Facebook that day, “I sincerely congratulate Kyoto International High School on winning Koshien,” and “This miraculous feat achieved under difficult conditions has given pride and courage to Koreans living in Japan.”
Nishinomiya = Special Correspondent Lee Sang-hoon [email protected]
2024-08-24 00:29:24