Choo Military Service

[kimchi_chigae]

Choo and his military service is turning into a soap opera much like the release of Starcraft 2.

He should be given an exemption just for the monstrous 3 run jack he hit against Venezuela in the semis. Too bad it didn't go out of the park.

[Polar Bear]

hmm...

[kimchi_chigae]

Just a quick update on this. Korea has won the gold medal in baseball at the Asian Games.

Jordan Bastian via Twitter.

South Korea defeated Taiwan 9-3 to win baseball gold at the Asian Games. Shin-Soo Choo should now be exempt from required military service.

[MTUCache]

Good catch.... I had meant to dig up one of these threads last week when a similar story reminded me of it.

The Korean soccer team had the same service deal that the baseball team did, and is currently in the semi-finals (11/23)....

Scottish Premier League team Celtic FC refused to release their midfielder Ki Sung-Yueng for the Asian Games. Because the games are not in the FIFA calender, international clubs are not required to release their players to compete. Korean officials claim that they had a verbal agreement from Celtic that they'd be able to use Ki, but that has not been honored. Celtic have had a rash of midfield injuries lately, and Ki has stepped off the bench to become a bright-spot on their team as they compete for the SPL title. According to the Korean coach Ki is one of his country's brightest young prospects.

Ki previous has stated that he wants to play for Korea in the competition. There has been some speculation that Ki may be allowed to go to the competition now that Korea has made the semis, but I haven't heard anything officially on that.

How crazy is that? I don't know what the odds are on them winning the gold, but the Celtic management have basically sentenced this kid to 18 months of military duty before he turns 29 when all it would have taken is a couple weeks off to possibly get out of it the same way Choo did.

Makes me wonder where this power lies, and whether MLB/MLBPA/Cleveland could have had any say over Choo's decision if they wanted to.

[BitterDodgerFan]

damn how did japan not make the finals
well lucky for choo they didn't have to face them