If it wasn't for four years of college, there wouldn't be the Hongchanggi of today

If it wasn't for four years of college, there wouldn't be the Hongchanggi of today

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Hong Chang-ki, one of the top hitters in the KBO League, graduated from a college. He failed the first rookie draft when he was a technical high school student and entered Konkuk University. He spent four years in college trying to overcome the threshold of becoming a professional player, and was nominated by LG in the second and third round (27th place) of the 2016 rookie draft.안전놀이터

To borrow Hong Chang-ki's expression, he was an "ambitious player" in high school. Now a two-time Golden Glove outfielder, he played mostly as a pitcher until his second semester as a senior in high school. His speed didn't go as high as I thought, and he turned into a fielder with a rookie draft just around the corner due to his performance. Eventually, he got a bitter taste in his first try.

"The loss was huge. I felt especially sorry for my parents. I cried for the first time while talking to them on the phone on the bus home. I thought a lot about why it didn't work, but as time passed by, it was natural that it didn't work. I didn't hit a lot of home runs, but I didn't run very fast either. He was a very ambiguous player because he didn't specialize in fielding."

He wandered around for a long time. Whether he went to college or wanted to join the baseball team as a nurturing player, he never gave up on playing baseball. To Hong, who was not offered as a nurturing player at the time, college was the only option for him to continue playing baseball. He even decided on a college to enter in advance (though not possible now) in case he could not go to a pro baseball league. Consequently, going to college was an important turning point in his baseball life.

"I played as a professional outfielder for the first time in college and started playing a lot since I was a freshman. I gained weight, exercised, and built up my physique, and practiced to hit long balls a lot. Defending was fun, too. Four years felt really short."

Hong Chang-ki lamented the recent crisis facing college baseball. Watching the decreasing number of juniors from college graduates, he feels that college baseball's competitiveness has declined.
In the 2025 KBO Rookie Draft, a total of 110 players were invited by professional baseball teams. Only 16 were college players. Notably, the weakness of four-year colleges stood out. Only six were from four-year colleges, while the rest were from two-year or early drafts (nominated before graduation). Since the 2014 Rookie Draft, when almost half of high school and college players were selected, the rate of college player nominations has declined significantly over the past 10 years. The number of this year's 16 is the lowest since the 2010s. Scouts from multiple professional teams cited "low talent" as the main reason. "There are cases where high school players are picked based only on their physical conditions," said A Scouts head of a Seoul metropolitan area club. "Baseball is not increasing in college. The team thinks it is better to raise high school players themselves."

Since Jeong Yu-ra's alleged preferential treatment for Ewha Womans University's athletic specialists and academic management was revealed in 2016, the entrance examination and academic management of athletic specialists have become stricter. Lee Yeon-soo, director of the baseball team at Sungkyunkwan University, said, "You can't exercise normally unless you train at night after class. Now, the key is how efficiently you exercise in a short time. It doesn't matter because the ballpark is on campus, but it will be harder for schools that have to travel far."