Friday, January 25, 2008

Oops, they did it again

News alert to the planet: Choi Kyoung-ju is one of the three best golfers in the world.

Or at least that's the latest out of the mystical land of FantAsia where Korean sports writers dwell. This article here does its damnedest to make Choi look like the man all the world is waiting for to take down Tiger Woods.

This is the chart they put in the article of the 'Big Three' golfers at the next PGA tournament.


I guess they were hoping nobody would actually read the numbers given in the chart. Looks to me like it's the Big Two and some random golfer pulled out of the middle of the pack.

Choi is a respectable golfer, of course, and certainly deserves praise for what he's accomplished. But why the Korean sports media feels the need to spin it so he appears to be threatening to 'conquer' the world of golf is a mystery that perhaps only psychologists can answer.

I'll go way out on a limb here and say that Choi Kyoung-ja does not finish in the top 3 at Buick.


The Korean sports media has a long and storied history of over-hyping Korean athletes. Speaking of athletes named Choi, this article here on former Major League baseball player Choi Hee-seop is perhaps the worst of the worst (published in the English language papers anyway. I'm sure this is standard fare in the Korean sports news publications).

'Big Choi' got off to a hot start in the 2004 season and had 5 home runs in the first 9 games. The hype that sportswriter Kim Sang-soo is classic stuff.

Given that his current homerun average is 0.625 per game, we can expect that he will break the historic home run record of Barry Bonds (San Francisco Giants), with 73 home runs per game, which is the highest home run figure for a single season. Further, we may witness him hitting 100 home runs this season as the first player in Major League history.
...

He is tied for second in home runs in the National League. However, he has hit five homeruns in 25 at-bats, which means one home run per five at-bats. No other hitter in the Major Leagues can match Choi.

Pretty damn amazing stuff, eh? On target to hit 100 home runs in one season! Holy Shit!

What's that? You don't recall Choi breaking any of those records back then? You're asking, "Isn't Choi the baseball player who got sent down to the minor leagues and finally came back to play in the Korea league last year?" Well, obviously despite sports writer Sang soo's math skills, somehow things didn't work out. Incestuous Amplification used to rip regularly on the so-called sports writers in Korea. He had a follow-up to the above article I will take the liberty of posting here:

9 + 9 = 101

I'm still waiting for the follow-up from my pal Kim Sang-soo. You know, the follow-up article that shows the following stat comparison for Choi Hee-seop:

9 games before the article: 5 HR, 9 RBI

9 games after the article: 0 HR, 0 RBI

Season projection then: 101 HR

Season projection now: 45 HR and dropping faster than Enron.

Then: Towering over Barry Bonds as one of the all-time greats.

Now: Platooning with Wil Cordero. He of the .192 batting average.

Then: Headed for the All-Star game, single-season HR record, and Cooperstown.

Now: Headed for the batting cage to break a slump.


All that change in only 10 days.Who'd a thunk it?

Oh right, I did.


God I miss that blog.

You'd think after every athlete the sports media build up to be bigger than Michael Jordan falls flat they'd learn, but I guess you gotta give the people what they crave.

Update: The first few rounds of the Buick tournament are over and Choi of the 'Big Three' failed to make the top 66 golfers and thus was cut after the second round. Here's the scoreboard thus far. Scroll down about 100 golfers and you can find Choi's scores.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

hi allen i`m ji eun from catholic univ. remember me? ^^ i miss u soooooo much ㅠㅠ

Anonymous said...

Party Pooper,

We can go through the usual reasons for these idiotic sports reporters doing what they do; massive inferiority complex, chest beating nationalism, natural desire to see your boys do well in the international arena, etc. But more importantly, imho, is the fact that very few of these "sports journalists" have ever played sports and have no elemental understanding of athletic competition. More generally, how many Korean men have you met that have ever played organized sports? To this day, my male students at the uni are without exception geeks who spent their first 18 years chained to a desk. Now, unless the sports journalists are drawn from the jock programs at the universities, there is no hope that these fools even understand the games they cover. Can you imagine that SBS Sports finding middle aged Koreans who have played hockey or football and can therefore call the NFL or NHL games they sometimes show? Let's face it, sports in this country is just another foreign import that Koreans have never really assimilated.

Unknown said...

Damn, someone misses you soooooo much TT.

:)

Anonymous said...

Ji-eun: Thanks Ji-eun, if I ever meet an Allen Mayfield who is NOT a fictional character, I'll pass on your heart-felt message.

That is, unless you can't remember clearly what 'Allen' looks like (and you're hot). In that case, I too miss you dearly and hope we can meet very, very soon.

Angus: A keen analysis and methinks you are right. I had always assumed that the sportswriter articles were outsourced to middle school kids, but your theory makes sense too.

Nomad: Right back at ya big guy. :)

Unknown said...

"Ji-eun: Thanks Ji-eun, if I ever meet an Allen Mayfield who is NOT a fictional character, I'll pass on your heart-felt message."

LOL

Allen, Scott, whatever the hell your name is; keep on posting - you're one of three or four blogs I read any more (strictly for educational purposes).

Anonymous said...

Usually the guards only give us 15 minutes per week on the internets, but I provided special hand relief (my supreme wrist dexterity was developed through extensive chopstick usage) to my favorite guard Fat Jerry (nickname does not apply to genitalia), so I got half an hour this week...giving me the opportunity to thank the Pooper for a shout-out and a trip down memory lane.

Given my limited interwebs access and decision to prioritize midget porn, I haven't been able to keep up with all my old favorite Korean sports legends as much as I'd like to, but I’ve made numerous assumptions that I’m 99.73% must be accurate. For example, I'm sure Choi Hee-seop is bathing in the glory of a $150-million contract with the Yankees by now and must be married to Jessica Alba...because what 100-homer star isn't?

I also assume that my old pal Lee Seung-yeop has already led the LA Dodgers to 3 World Series titles, given his previous supreme confidence in a future of dominating MLB. My cell mate actually tried to tell me that Lee was languishing in the Japanese League for the last few years and had NOT attained Babe Ruth-level status in the Major Leagues, and I literally spit his balls out of my mouth (I'm not gay, I was merely practicing for my Super Junior audition) when I heard that, because it was so ridiculous and unfathomable that the Home Run King of Asia would not have added Home Run King of the world to his title by now. I mean, he was the Home Run KING. Not the Home Run Prince.

And surely Lee Chun-soo and his gay haircut must be lounging in a hot tub in Madrid, stroking his FIFA Footballer of the year trophy while simultaneously masturbating to Wonder Girls videos. Last thing I heard from the Korean media before I was sentenced, he was well on his way to destroying the Spanish League and planting the Taeguki on European soil just like Rain planted it on American soil with his 10-times platinum debut album “It’s Raining Jizz On My Tongue.”

But enough about homosexual Korean athletes and their felatio-obsessed cheerleaders at the Suh-poach papers. Let’s talk about the Korean Tiger Woods. I will say that Choi Kyung-ju gets much respect for being a pretty humble and likeable guy. As far as I know he hasn't fallen into the trap of believing the sycophantic hero-worshipping horseshit that gets served up on a daily basis by Korean media fluff-boys. He’s that rare breed of Korean athlete that seems to understand that most of his fellow countrymen are functionally retarded when it comes to comparative analysis involving a fellow member of the master race. I assume it’s because he’s actually in the arena with Tiger Woods on a regular basis and he knows how large the gap is between them. As opposed to the pseudo-legends like Lee who rack up meaningless stats in domestic leagues and just extrapolate those results onto a higher level of competition like magic.

On a different note, you appear to be the Luke Skywalker of the Korean blogosphere...you're the only hope in providing the kind of sarcasm and wit that it so desperately needs. I cringe every time I hear about another deeply contemplative K-blog popping up that takes itself (and Korea) far more seriously than it deserves. Honestly, is it even possible to pretend to write in earnest about Korean politics when the politicians are pulling each other’s hair and throwing shoes? Come on, it’s Korea for fuck’s sake. It begs not to be taken seriously, and any sane person must comply.

Thanks for the time Pooper, and perhaps you’ll allow me to guest-blog upon my release, assuming my anus has contracted back to its normal size and is again capable of holding a pen tightly enough to write with.

Sincerely,

IA

Anonymous said...

#9 in the world right now http://www.officialworldgolfranking.com/rankings/default.sps

And in the past 2 years, Choi is 4th in PGA tournaments won. So he's an elite golfer.

Anonymous said...

And yet in tournaments such as the Buick where the best golfers in the game show up, Choi repeatedly chokes. That is not the sign of an 'elite' golfer. Come on, when is the last time Tiger Woods score put him in 125th place in any tournament? He could play in a wheelchair and still break the top 50.

Choi can be good, but he's not there yet and the Korean media just sets him up for ridicule when they insist he's something he's not.