It’s safe to say that baseball consumers in the United States have a much different collective insight into the Korea Baseball Organization than they did this time last year. When the US was first brought to its knees by the pandemic and large-scale events nationwide were being cancelled by the minute early this summer, the KBO was one of the first major sporting leagues to resume play, with ESPN’s late-night coverage from South Korea providing some of the first live sports we’d seen in months on our TV streams.
We’ve known for years just how talented the league, and country, has been, as a burgeoning number of players have made the transition to Major League Baseball with success.