Kang Young-sik, the pitching coach of the Future Team, who is donning a Samsung uniform for the first time in 17 years after moving to Lotte in a one-for-one trade with Shin Myung-chul in November 2006, said, “The emotions are new. It’s like being in my mom’s arms. There are many people who have been with me in the past, and it was so nice to be welcomed back.”
There was a clear difference between how Samsung was perceived by outsiders and how they had been watching for nearly a month. Coach Kang Young-sik said, “Outsiders were worried about our pitching, but when I came here, I got the impression that there were many players with potential. Among the young players, their attitude toward baseball and their efforts to set clear goals stood out,” he said.
After retiring from active duty, Kang gained experience in various positions, starting as a pitching coach for the police baseball team, then as a pitching coach for Lotte Futures, a rehabilitation coach, 먹튀검증토토사이트 and a first-team bullpen coach.
He said, “What I realized while coaching the Future Team is that the most important thing is for the players to move themselves. They have to feel it. They have to want to do it and they have to recognize the need. As a coach, I want to help them feel the need, and if they do, not only will they improve, but the team as a whole will be stronger,” he said.
Young-sik Kang, who was an active player with hypertrophy during his playing days, was introduced to baseball by Jerry Royster.
“He told me, ‘Just throw strikes, if you can’t do that, I can’t use you.’ He was asking me to be responsible for the process rather than the result. I doubted myself a lot at first. I thought, “What if I throw a pitch up the middle with a one-run lead and it’s a home run? It was a ridiculous self-rationalization,” he admits.
“Once I started doing that, my walks went down and the pressure to throw strikes started to go away. At some point, I was able to throw whatever I wanted. I started enjoying going to the mound and getting results, and that’s when my baseball life began.”
Coach Kang Young-sik said, “While coaching, I realized the intention of Coach Royster. After all, baseball is played by players. The players have to move themselves. No matter how good the information is, it doesn’t mean anything if the player doesn’t do it. It was a very small start, but I experienced that small habits create miracles.”
Lee Jong-yeol, who said,
“I will focus on player development first, and I want to make the team a strong team that can produce sustainable results, not a team that shines for one year,” plans to maximize the development effect by introducing state-of-the-art equipment such as bio-mechanics and drive lines.
Having experienced cutting-edge systems such as bio-mechanics and drive lines during his time at Lotte, Coach Kang Young-sik has reached the point where he can explain things at the players’ level based on numerical data. “It’s different for the players because there’s an accurate basis,” he says.
Baseball is a typical mental sport. Kang is in constant communication with Song Bong-gil, a former Lotte mental trainer, to help strengthen his players’ minds. “I want to recreate the reputation of the past dynasties by working together with great coaches to build Samsung’s own futures system, and I think the most important thing is to create a sustainable system,” he emphasized.
Meanwhile, Kang joined Haetae in 2000 after graduating from Daegu Sangwon High School and has pitched in 750 games for the first team through Samsung and Lotte, with a record of 32 wins, 32 losses, 11 saves, 116 holds, and a 4.31 ERA.