I hope y'all enjoy this, I did.

 

 

Sizing up Choi

 

By Dave George, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Sunday, February 29, 2004

 

JUPITER -- They wanted to say "Wow," the group of startled kids that bumped into the tallest and newest Florida Marlins' regular at the Palm Beach Mall recently. What came out of their mouths, however, was "Yao!"

 

"I say, 'No, it's Choi, baseball player,' " Hee Seop Choi says with a grin. "Yao, he's a basketball player."

 

A 7-foot-6 Chinese basketball player with the NBA's Houston Rockets, to be exact. Yao Ming has become an international star, even making massive Shaquille O'Neal work a little harder for his points lately.

 

Choi's goals this spring are more basic. He wants to demonstrate that being the first every-day position player in the majors from South Korea is more than a passing fad. Already he looks the part at 6-5 and 240 pounds, which is bigger than New York Yankees' outfielder Hideki Matsui on both counts.

 

Choi also wants to prove that the Marlins didn't do so badly in the off-season trade that brought him over from the Chicago Cubs in exchange for Gold Glove first baseman Derrek Lee. "I try my best to be like him, like he played," said Choi, who the Marlins are counting on to handle Lee's old position in addition to bringing some left-handed power to the lineup.

 

 

'The Korean Elvis'

 

These, however, are strictly business propositions. To know Choi fully is to appreciate the fun he has off the field and the outgoing nature that made him so popular in Chicago with fans, players and reporters.

 

For openers, anybody up for karaoke?

 

"No chance here," said Choi, who seeks a traditional Korean restaurant or nightclub where he can rent a private studio and pass a few relaxing hours singing familiar numbers in his native language. "Maybe in Miami. I want to go, by myself always, but if any players want to come, they can."

 

There's a thriving Koreatown neighborhood on the north side of Chicago, just a few miles from Wrigley Field. The closest Choi has been able to come to an Asian smorgasbord experience so far in Palm Beach County is the Crazy Buffet restaurant in West Palm Beach.

 

He recently treated a half-dozen Korean journalists to a meal there, just to show there are no hard feelings for the way they shadow him every day, filing stories for the front pages back home even when there's no more than a mundane spring workout to describe.

 

Seoul's baseball community was wild for the Cubs last year, even though Choi didn't play that much or that well after a freak collision with pitcher Kerry Wood while chasing a pop-up in June. Now fans there will obsess over the Marlins, ever hopeful that their hero will take the grand October stage in the uniform of the defending World Series champions. One Chicago reporter went so far last year as to call Choi "the Korean Elvis," but the big guy is not buying it.

 

"Not yet," he said. "Thirty or 40 home runs this year, every year, maybe. I have to hit. Then I become more popular."

 

He says this with a wink, never taking himself too seriously. This is one immigrant who really gets the American sense of humor, the sarcasm, the nuance, the give-and-take that makes a baseball clubhouse seem like a playhouse at times. Fairly amazing, considering Choi's first crack at conversational English was in 1999, the beginning of a minor-league education that included stops in West Tennessee and Iowa.

 

Tough to find kimchi in those places, so Choi weaned himself off the traditional Korean side dish of pickled cabbage and red hot peppers and developed an appetite for good, old Midwestern beef. Steak, that's his new favorite, and lots of it. "Big Choi" as Marlins manager Jack McKeon calls him, isn't about to waste away in the broiling South Florida sun.

 

"I've never seen anybody eat like him," said Leon Lee, the Pacific Rim scout who originally signed Choi to a Cubs' contract. "We went to breakfast one time and he had 10 eggs, two orders of bacon and two orders of toast. When he first came over here I took him to a steakhouse and he ordered three steaks."

 

Oh, by the way, Leon Lee, the scout who signed Choi to a Chicago contract, is the father of Derrek Lee, the Marlins' favorite for whom he was traded. Just another twist to a story that begins in Kwanju, the small farming community that somehow has produced two more South Korean major-leaguers -- pitchers Byung-Hyun Kim of Boston and Jae Weong Seo of the New York Mets.

 

Just another one of Hee Seop's fables.

 

His first major-league hit, for instance, was a home run in a September call-up to the Cubs. His first extended run as Chicago's starting first baseman made Choi the National League rookie of the month in April, with five homers and 14 RBI.

 

And what was his first move last October after watching the Marlins eliminate the Cubs in the National League Championship Series?

 

"I was on a plane the next morning for winter ball," said Choi, who added a short season in Venezuela to three previous off-season stints in the Arizona Fall League. He reported to Jupiter a week ahead of the other Marlins regulars and spent six weeks in intensive training at a South Korean baseball camp prior to that.

 

"I have a lot of amigos," Choi said when asked about the way Hispanic teammates first befriended him in the minor-leagues at a time when English was giving them fits, too. "Como esta?"

 

 

McKeon likes big guy

 

Choi won't be reading this, more than likely. He doesn't read newspapers or even use the Internet, he says, because poring over small print might not be good for his eyesight. Besides, who needs all the published reminders of his.218 average last season, or his 71 strikeouts in 80 games?

 

McKeon and his coaches certainly don't want to emphasize any of that. They are making a big effort instead to make Choi feel at ease, practicing together the new Korean words that coach Jeff Cox writes daily in his back-pocket notebook, for instance.

 

"I feel confident," Choi said. "Spring training is better than last year. They say not big problems, little problems."

 

McKeon gives Choi a high-five when they pass on the practice fields. One day last week he stopped to give the player a pantomime pep talk, reaching way up with both hands to playfully shake Choi by the shoulders.

 

"I know he's got good power," McKeon said. "I'd like to see him consistent and offset some of the power that left from here."

 

That's a reference to Lee, Pudge Rodriguez and Juan Encarnacion departing the Marlins in off-season deals. Choi, inactive for the NLCS, watched them all from the Wrigley Field dugout and marvels now that he has been given the opportunity to play for a World Series team.

 

"Last year was not so good, about.200 with eight homers, but the people (of Chicago) loved me the whole year," Choi said. "This year is the same. Work hard, hit a lot of home runs and they will like me more. I love them, too."

 

This guy hasn't met a big-league ballpark he didn't like, or a big-league city without a porterhouse.

 

"He loves America," Leon Lee said. "I asked him one time if he got homesick and he said, 'Mr. Lee, if ever I say I want to go back to Korea, just shoot me.' "

 

Nothing so drastic should be necessary, but it sure would make a good country karaoke song.

 

dave_george@pbpost.com

 

Big Choi in the PBP

"He loves America," Leon Lee said. "I asked him one time if he got homesick and he said, 'Mr. Lee, if ever I say I want to go back to Korea, just shoot me.'

 

Great line. :lol

"He loves America," Leon Lee said. "I asked him one time if he got homesick and he said, 'Mr. Lee, if ever I say I want to go back to Korea, just shoot me.'

 

Great line. :lol We should gather all the quotes from Marlins players and personal on this site and put it into a book. I'd buy it.

Haha I like this kid.

Picture of "BIG CHOI" in marlin's spring training...

I think he'll be as good as Lee......probably better.

I think he'll be as good as Lee......probably better.

not this year, but soon

You think? I think he's gonna do good. He'll be a better hitter than Lee.

choi will be a stud just wait and see GO MARLINS

Choi is a pimp in disguise

Wow. Sounds like a very level headed guy.

 

Not yet," he said. "Thirty or 40 home runs this year, every year, maybe. I have to hit.

 

You've got to love that attitude. Let's hope he delivers. :thumbup

I think he'll be as good as Lee......probably better.

totally agree, he's an on base machine. The question is whether he'll strike out like he did last year. With a little more experience and his eye for the zone, he'll make contact and hit about 25 homers with an awesome obp. He'll be very special.

The same people who hated on Lee will hate on Choi who has a very similiar skill set minus the speed. He wont hit for a high average...will hit for above average power...and will walk a ton. That amounts to a high OBP% skewed towards walks. So he wont drive in a bunch of RBIs and since thats the best statistic he will suck. :banghead

We will see about the RBI's. I'll guess he'll have 75...not quite as many as Lee, but not that far behind.