Seo Ho-cheol, an infielder of the NC Dinosaurs in the professional baseball league, will start the season as a starting member for the first time in his career. As the names of his old memories have left the team, an empty third base came into his arms. He thus exited the team. He had a batting average of 0.287 (114 hits in 397 times at bat) with five homers and 41 RBIs in 114 games last year. His career-high performance continued in the fall baseball league. He made a come-from-behind grand slam in the wild card game against the Doosan Bears and imprinted his name on the team.
Nothing will change. “I don’t think it’s a juggernaut. I just got the opportunity first,” Seo said. “I don’t think I’m here all the time. If I don’t do well today, I can’t go out tomorrow,” he said. “I need to keep taking opportunities and show more helpful performances to my team at the baseball stadium.”
He is off to a good start. His bat has been hot, with hits in seven consecutive games since the opening game. At the game against Kiwoom in Gocheok on Thursday, he quickly reported his first homer of this season. “I was lucky. I try to do as I have done,” he said. “I don’t want to get good grades yet.” “I didn’t think about a homer at all and tried to make a very strong hit to center the bat, but I think it came out.”
In this new season, Seo constantly repeats “self-care.” Seo is famous for taking thorough care of small things to eat, sleep patterns, and lifestyle. He said, “I still don’t have TV at home. I don’t even eat raw fish yet. It’s because I see a lot of people around me who will get sick. I’m trying to pay more attention.”
This is a lesson that I learned last year. “Recovery is as important as being good at baseball. I am agonizing over how to rest well,” he explained. That is why he prepared a massage chair and a present for himself. “I will not spare anything that I feel is helpful to my body,” he explained.
It was a lucky massage chair. “It hasn’t been long since I got here. I experienced it once, hit it well the next day, and I got a home run the next day,” he said. “I will use it again when I arrive at dawn after finishing my away match in Jamsil.” When asked how much the chair is, he said, “It’s a rental. I’m paying around 100,000 won per month.”
He is living a right life out of desperation. After failing to win the professional nomination after graduating from high school, he went to Dongu University and stopped playing baseball, and was able to be named 87th in the second round of the 2019 Rookie Draft. “When I couldn’t get the nomination, I tried to quit. But I did everything I could in college, thinking about ‘one more time’. Even a professional soccer player had a strong desire to join the pro league. NC gave me such a good impression,” he recalled.
Still, he has a strong mindset. “This is the beginning. I want to play full-time without any injuries as it is my first game. I want to see how I looked when I finished the race. I want to become a player who develops every year as if I were to develop an RPG (role-playing game) character,” he said. 먹튀검증