After a meeting by the technical committee of the Korean Baseball Federation in Seoul, South Korea on Friday, a 32-man so-called second preliminary roster for the 2009 World Baseball Classic was released. Besides their intentions not to play for Korea in the Classic in March, the roster still has the names of Seung-Yeop Lee and Chan Ho Park on it. Lee, who plays for the Japanese Yomiuri Giants and Park, who recently signed a contract with the Philadelphia Phillies, want to concentrate on training camp for the upcoming season.
The federation still hopes that both will join the national team right in time. Manager In-Shik Kim said, “Since we assembled the national team, we wanted the best players. We included them both because we wanted to form the strongest team.”
No longer on the roster is San Diego Padres pitcher Cha Seung Baek, as he became a naturalized American citizen. Cleveland Indians outfielder Shin-Soo Choo and pitcher Byung-Hyun Kim are on the team. The federation wanted to finalize the roster already on Friday, but now will probably wait till January 10th to submit the final 28-man roster.
You can find the complete roster on Baseball-Reference.com
The Dong-A Ilbo: Korea’s World Baseball Classic Roster Released
The Korea Times: 2nd Roster for WBC Announced