San Francisco Giants center fielder Jung Hoo Lee‘s first MLB home run gave him a memory he’ll never forget.

Lee’s home run came in the top of the eighth inning with the Giants leading the San Diego Padres 3-1. With one out and facing a 1-1 pitch, the lefty slugger slammed a slider from Padres pitcher Tom Cosgrove with an exit velocity of 104.4 mph.

After the game, Lee met the family who caught the ball — taking pictures and giving them autographed balls, according to Giants social media. The family was originally from the Bay Area but moved to San Diego and have since become Padres fans.

The young boy told Lee that his favorite player was Padres shortstop Ha-Seong Kim — Lee’s close friend. Through his translator, Lee told the boy that he’ll tell Kim about meeting the young fan during dinner.

Lee’s teammates also gave him a beer shower to celebrate the achievement, according to Giants social media.

 

Lee Jung-hoo: Where does he come from, how well does he know Kim Ha-seong and why is his dad so famous?

Lee Jung-hoo of the San Francisco Giants exploded on to the major league stage with an RBI in his big league debut, a multi-hit game with an RBI in his second appearance and a home run in his third.

In Game 4, Lee drew three walks and a single strikeout, leaving with a .286 batting average, four hits, four RBIs and a home run on his line after the opening series.

“I don’t have any regrets,” Lee told Yonhap News Agency after his debut on Thursday. “I think I played a pretty good first game.”

In that single series, Lee proved that he is worth the hype — not to mention the $113-million, six-year contract — and looks unlikely to have any issues adjusting to big league ball. San Francisco got a new hero, Korea got a new MLB team to follow and Kim Ha-seong (of the Padres) got to cross paths with an old friend.

But who is Lee Jung-hoo, where does he come from, how close is he to Kim Ha-seong and why is his dad so famous?

Strong start

Lee Jung-hoo graduated from Whimoon High School in 2017, a prestigious private school in southern Seoul with one of the strongest baseball programs in the country.

He was drafted in 2016 in the first round of the 2017 KBO rookie draft by the Nexen Heroes (Whimoon grads Ahn Woo-jin, Kim Dae-han and Lee Min-ho would all go on to be first-round picks in 2018, 2019 and 2020) and made his debut with the Heroes in 2017.

Lee was KBO Rookie of the Year in his debut season, batting .324 with 179 hits, 47 RBIs and 12 stolen bases. A year later he won his first Golden Glove award, a feat he repeated for five straight years until his injury-stricken 2023 season took him out of the running.

At the end of the 2018 season, Lee was called up to the national team and represented Korea at the Asian Games. Korea won, earning Lee a military exemption that allows him to continue his career without having to take the best part of two years out for military service.

With the military service exemption under his belt, Lee began fielding questions about playing overseas even as the dust was still settling on his second professional season.

“I’m not sure yet,” he told the JoongAng Ilbo, an affiliate of the Korea JoongAng Daily, in 2018. “I’m not thinking about it at all. For now, my biggest wish is to fully recover my left shoulder. Then I want to play in more games next year than I did this year. Since I thankfully resolved my military service issue, I just need to be good at baseball.

“Once I retire, the fans will evaluate when I was at my best, so I’ll keep on working hard.”

By 2022, his last full season in the KBO — Lee only played 86 games in 2023 before an ankle fracture ended his season — Lee was batting .349 with 193 hits, 113 RBIs and 23 home runs on the season, earning the KBO MVP title. He left the KBO last year with a career .340 batting average, 1,181 hits, 515 RBIs, 65 home runs and 69 stolen bases over six and a half seasons of work.

When Lee met Kim

Long before they were Californian baseball rivals, Lee and Kim were teammates with the Heroes. Both players joined the club during its Nexen phase and left after naming rights were sold to Kiwoom Securities.

Lee and Kim played together with the Heroes for four years and were fast friends — close enough that when Lee won the Golden Glove in 2018, it was Kim who let him know (Lee was doing his military basic training — a must even if you have an exemption — at the time). Like all good friends, Lee assumed Kim was having him on.

“At first, [Kim] Ha-seong told me and I assumed he was lying,” Lee told the Joongang Ilbo in 2018. “Our platoon leader called me separately and told me. When he told me, I said, “Me?” because I never imagined that I would win the award.”

The two continued to be close friends, appearing together for Korea even after Kim left for San Diego, and, based on Instagram posts, Lee has been a frequent visitor at Kim’s house since moving to California.

That friendship crosses party lines — when Lee picked up his first MLB knock against the Padres last week and then immediately got picked off trying to steal second, he says he was able to get over the mistake and back in the game thanks to a few words as he passed Kim on the way back to the dugout.

“He told me, ‘Don’t worry about that play,’ and it really hit me,” Lee said, according to Yonhap News Agency. “I was able to put that out of my mind right away.”

Kim, the reigning National League Gold Glove winner for utility players, has no doubt about Lee’s potential.

“He’s like my little brother,” Kim told reporters after the Padres-Giants series ended Sunday. “And I am thankful to have someone like him around me. I hope we can both play well this season. I think Jung-hoo is going to have a better season and so I have to try to keep pace.”

Grandson of the Wind

Lee might be the most famous member of his family in the world right now, but that wasn’t always the case.

“I’m glad fans are starting to remember my name, I’ve been called Lee Jong-beom’s son since I was little,” Lee said in 2018. “I turned pro early because I wanted to get recognized for my ability, but even once I turned pro I was still frequently called Lee Jong-beom’s son, so I was stressed by that.

“I think fans are now recognizing me as baseball player Lee Jung-hoo, rather than Lee Jong-beom’s son. Now, I don’t have any stress in being Lee Jong-beom’s son.”

Lee Jung-hoo’s father Lee Jong-beom is Korean baseball royalty.

Debuting with the Kia Tigers in the KBO in 1993 and with the Chunichi Dragons in Japan’s NPB in 1998, Lee senior trumped his son in the awards category, winning a Golden Glove in his rookie year and KBO MVP in his sophomore year.

A 13-time KBO All-Star (that makes him an All-Star every single year he played in the KBO), Lee Jong-beom won six Golden Gloves (one more than junior), KBO MVP, two Korean Series MVPs, was KBO batting champion and won four Korean Series titles with the Tigers. His No. 7 was retired by the Tigers in 2012.

Lee Jong-beom was known as the Son of the Wind for his speed — a nickname Lee Jung-hoo has inherited as Grandson of the Wind — and is widely considered the best KBO player of the 1990s and one of the best KBO players of all time.

The Lee baseball family recently got even bigger.

Last January, Lee Ga-hyun, Lee Jong-beom’s daughter and Lee Jung-hoo’s sister, married pitcher Go Woo-suk.

Go, the former star closer of the LG Twins, signed with the San Diego Padres over the offseason but was sent down ahead of Opening Day.

Go’s move to San Diego takes the entire younger generation of Lee’s to California. Lee senior, meanwhile, has been working most recently as a minor league instructor with the Texas Rangers.

 

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/39847720/jung-hoo-lee-san-francisco-giants-padres-home-run-mlb

https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2024-04-02/sports/Baseball/Lee-Junghoo-Where-does-he-come-from-how-well-does-he-know-Kim-Haseong-and-why-is-his-dad-so-famous/2016228