Hank Conger, a Korean-American catcher

Hank Conger (left), with Shin-Soo Choo of the Cleveland Indians. Photo by John Cordes/Courtesy of Angels Baseball via KoreAm magazine

L.A. based Korean-American magazine, KoreAm‘s May issue is all about Hank Conger, Korean-American catcher for the Los Angeles Angels. Conger is a a third-generation Korean American, born and raised in the United States, and both of his parents are of Korean descent. His story — and his whole family’s story — is an American story. It really is an American Dream that he now plays in the Bigs.

In the past, Yun [Conger, Hank's dad] could be one of those overbearing sports parents, the older Conger admits.

Says Hank, with a laugh, “There’s some stories I shouldn’t share because it’s probably borderline child abuse. Yeah, he pushed. At the same time, it wasn’t like he was forcing me to play. I was constantly trying to drag him out to the baseball field.”

“It didn’t matter how hard I pushed him, he always wanted more. Thanksgiving, Christmas, his birthday, my birthday, we were on the baseball field,” says Yun. “My wife would bring us lunch. Hank would hit, and his younger brother Adrian and my wife would fetch balls. Our whole family had to sacrifice a lot. But we enjoyed it.”

It also meant family vacations not to Alaska or the Bahamas, but rather to Florida or Cooperstown, New York, site of the baseball Hall of Fame, traveling along with one of Hank’s teams. Yun, who was an assistant coach on some teams, had to take a lot of time off from work—even when he didn’t have the time. Thrice, Yun has been fired from a job because of baseball.

“I had to do what I had to do,” says Yun. “Also, I got to spend a lot of time with him. Everywhere he went I went; actually as a family we went. It was good.”

Read the whole story here.

Reminds me of Japanese cartoon, Kojin no Hoshi (or Star of the Giants), the way Hank’s father trained his son and lost his job three times. It is a great story now that he has made it to the majors. Ichiro Suzuki’s father was another that dedicated a lot of his time for his son’s baseball.

American League West has more Asian catchers. Kurt Suzuki of Oakland Athletics is a Nikkei Sansei player from Hawaii. Kenji Johjima, only Japanese catcher to play in MLB was with the Seattle Mariners. And Oakland bench coach and former-Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu was a catcher in his playing days and Yonsei Japanese, but he played for Chicago White Sox (AL Central) in 1991.

Korean-born Players who played in MLB

Even though Hank Conger is not included, because his place of birth is in United States, baseball-reference.com keep track of all players by birth country. Here are the list of MLB player who were born in South Korea.

PITCHERS

Rk		Yrs	From ▴	To	W	L	W-L%	ERA	G	SV	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	Birthdate	Debut
1	Chan Ho Park	17	1994	2010	124	98	.559	4.36	476	2	1993.0	1872	1046	965	230	910	1715	Jun 3, 1973	Apr 8, 1994
2	Jin Ho Cho	2	1998	1999	2	6	.250	6.52	13	0	58.0	73	43	42	11	11	31	Aug 16, 1975	Jul 4, 1998
3	Byung-Hyun Kim	9	1999	2007	54	60	.474	4.42	394	86	841.0	781	451	413	94	376	806	Jan 19, 1979	May 29, 1999
4	Sang-Hoon Lee	1	2000	2000	0	0		3.09	9	0	11.2	11	4	4	2	4	6	Mar 11, 1971	Jun 29, 2000
5	Sun-Woo Kim	6	2001	2006	13	13	.500	5.31	118	0	337.0	396	211	199	44	127	211	Sep 4, 1977	Jun 15, 2001
6	Jae Weong Seo	6	2002	2007	28	40	.412	4.60	118	0	606.1	691	341	310	86	184	340	May 24, 1977	Jul 21, 2002
7	Jung Bong	3	2002	2004	7	4	.636	5.17	48	1	78.1	81	50	45	11	43	62	Jul 15, 1980	Apr 23, 2002
9	Cha-Seung Baek	4	2004	2008	16	18	.471	4.83	59	0	279.2	294	161	150	35	81	184	May 29, 1980	Aug 8, 2004
10	Dae-Sung Koo	1	2005	2005	0	0		3.91	33	0	23.0	22	12	10	2	13	23	Aug 2, 1969	Apr 4, 2005
11	Jae Kuk Ryu	3	2006	2008	1	3	.250	7.49	28	0	39.2	54	33	33	9	18	32	May 30, 1983	May 14, 2006
	Totals	55	1994	2010	249	247	.502	4.57	1371	90	4388.0	4404	2416	2229	535	1814	3495

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 5/11/2011.

BATTERS

Rk		Yrs	From ▴	To	G	PA	AB	R	H	HR	RBI	SB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	Birthdate	Debut
7	Hee-Seop Choi	4	2002	2005	363	1086	915	130	220	40	120	3	262	.240	.349	.437	Mar 16, 1979	Sep 3, 2002
12	Shin-Soo Choo	7	2005	2011	493	2072	1774	281	518	63	287	58	437	.292	.385	.478	Jul 13, 1982	Apr 21, 2005
	Totals	66	1994	2011	2238	4142	3525	458	867	107	463	63	976	.246	.333	.402