Olympic gold medal-winning skipper interviews for KBO manager job

The Hanwha Eagles said Friday they had interviewed Kim Kyung-moon, manager of the 2008 Olympic gold medal-

winning Korean team, for their vacant managerial job.

"We interviewed Kim Kyung-moon recently but we have not signed anyone yet," Eagles general manager Son Hyuk said.

"We'll try to wrap up the process as quickly as possible."

The Eagles have been without manager since Choi Won-ho resigned on Monday, taking the fall for the team's recent

downfall in the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO).

Choi's resignation came on the heels of a two-game winning streak and they have won all three games so far under interim

manager Chung Kyoung-bae. At 24-29-1 (wins-losses-ties), the Eagles are in seventh place among 10 KBO clubs, only 2.5

games out of the fifth and final postseason spot.

The Eagles soared to the top of the standings early in the season, on the strength of a seven-game winning streak in late

March. Since April 1, however, they have the league's worst record at 17-28-1.

Between 2008 and 2023, the Eagles reached the postseason just once. They finished either last or second-to-last in the

standings every year from 2019 to 2023.

However, they entered the 2024 season under high expectations.

They had signed some well-established players in free agency in recent winters to augment a young foundation, and made

their biggest splash to date in February, when they reunited with former major league pitcher Ryu Hyun-jin. Ryu, who first

pitched for the Eagles from 2006 to 2012, ended his 11-year stint in the big leagues and signed an eight-year contract with

his old KBO 안전 team.

But he has not lived up to considerable preseason hype yet, with a mediocre 4.50 ERA and a 3-4 record after 11 starts.

Elsewhere, captain Chae Eun-seong is stuck at three homers with a .229 batting average through 37 games, after launching

23 home runs and hitting .263 last season.

With Choi, 51, out just one year after signing a three-year contract, the Eagles are believed to be seeking a more veteran

voice in the dugout.

And they don't come with much more experience than Kim, who has managed 1,700 games in the KBO for the Doosan

Bears and the NC Dinos and won 896, the sixth most in league history. He managed four Korean Series - three with the

Bears and one with the Dinos — but has yet to win a title.

Kim's biggest coup came at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, where he guided Korea to the gold medal over Cuba.

Korea won all nine games.

Kim returned to the national team helm for the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, but Korea finished fourth then

OLYMPIC GOLD MEDAL-WINNING SKIPPER INTERVIEWS FOR KBO MANAGER JOB