A power analyst said he got “goosebumps” when his alma mater, Kyoto International High School, advanced to the finals of the National High School Baseball Championship (Summer Koshien).
“When I was a student, the Koshien final was an unheard-of stage,” Shin Shin-hyun, a power analyst, told Yonhap News Agency on Feb. 22, adding, ”I'm proud of the juniors for their great performance in a harsh environment.”
“I watched the juniors competing in this tournament, including the semifinals,” he said, ”and I got goosebumps, especially when the Korean school song came on.”
“I hope they will focus and play well in tomorrow's final,” Shin said, adding, ”I will be watching and cheering them on from afar.”
Shin has a close relationship with Noritsugu Komaki, the head coach of Kyoto International High School.
In an interview with the Asahi Shimbun published in March, Komaki recalled Shin as a Korean international student and said, “It was difficult to coach him because he only spoke one word of Japanese, but he was a player who worked hard with a hungry spirit, even if it meant hard training.”
“Even after graduating, I've been in constant contact with Coach Komaki,” said analyst Shin. ”I deliberately didn't contact him because I needed to focus on my studies, but I will say hello to him after the tournament.”
After graduating from Deoksu Middle School, Shin went to Kyoto International High School in Japan, an ethnic Korean school, at the urging of his parents, and was drafted by the Hiroshima Toyokafe in the fourth round of the 2008 Nippon Professional Baseball Draft.
After failing to break into the first team at Hiroshima, he joined the Goyang Wonders (now disbanded) and then the Hanwha Eagles of the KBO League as a developmental player in 2016, before moving to Doosan via trade in April 2017.
He played in 287 KBO games until last year, batting .217 with 16 home runs and 59 RBIs before retiring and now works as a power analyst for Doosan's second team.
When asked to evaluate the skills of the juniors as a power analyst, Shin said, “The pitchers are very good,” adding, “There are many players who deserve to be nominated by Japanese professional baseball clubs.”
Kyoto Kokusai advanced to the finals with a 3-2 victory over Aomori Yamada High School in the semifinals of the Summer Koshien Tournament at Hanshinshinshien Stadium in Nishinomiya City, Hyogo Prefecture, on June 21.
Kyoto Kokusai will face Kanto Aiichigo for the championship on Nov. 23.
Kyoto International High School, operated by Kyoto International Gakuin, is a small Korean school with a total of 160 students in both middle and high school as of this year. About 65% of the students are Japanese and 30% are Korean.
Kyoto International School was founded in 1947 by a group of Japanese overseas Koreans who voluntarily raised money for ethnic education.
Kyoto International High School is notable not only for its grades but also for its Korean-language school song, which begins, “Across the Sea of Japan, the land of Yamado (大和-Yamato) is the holy dreamland of our ancestors.”
The school anthems of the participating schools will be played at the Koshien, and the entire event will be broadcast live on public broadcaster NHK. 토토사이트 순위
