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Spring training with a global feel

The Global Scouting Bureau, a Louisiana company, lures a Korean baseball team to Florida for big league competition and aims to bring in more foreign clubs in the future.

By LOUIS HAU
Published March 15, 2006

	[AP photo]
	Kory Casto of the Washington Nationals beats a throw to the Kia Tigers' Kyu-Sik Han during a spring training exhibition game this month in Viera in Brevard County. The South Korean professional team has been training in Port Charlotte and getting a taste of big league competition.

On a sunny afternoon in early March, the Kia Tigers struggled on their way to a 7-1 loss to Team Canada at a practice field in Dunedin in front of a crowd of mostly Canadian tourists.

But it didn't bother Seo Jung-hwan, the manager of the South Korean professional baseball team. The 50-year-old Seo (pronounced Suh) brought the Tigers more than 7,000 miles from home for a month and a half of preseason training under the Florida sunshine.

"It broadens their view of the game," Seo said, watching his team play the Canadians at the Toronto Blue Jays' spring training facility. "They get to see a lot of things."

Chalk up one in the win column for the Global Scouting Bureau. The Louisiana company began eight years ago by helping unsigned ballplayers secure contracts with independent teams and overseas ball clubs. Now, in a bid for expansion, the company is courting foreign teams like the Kia Tigers to come to Florida for preseason training.

"We take the individual that has a passion to play baseball and we try to match them up with a team," said James Gamble, a former independent league ballplayer turned scout, who founded Global Scouting.

In particular, Gamble is focusing on ball clubs in Japan and South Korea, where the weather is usually too cold to train in January and February.

Gamble's timing couldn't be better. International baseball is enjoying a moment in the spotlight with Major League Baseball's World Baseball Classic, which held some of its early round games last week in Orlando.

"International baseball is always competitive but now it's getting exploited (by Major League Baseball), which plays into our plans," Gamble said.

"We've got the facilities and we've got the teams they want to play."

For the Kia Tigers, Gamble and his staff negotiated a lease to use the Charlotte Sports Park in Port Charlotte, which had been the Texas Rangers' spring training facility until 2002. It also found a condominium where the team's 63 players and coaches could stay.

The company scheduled exhibition games between the Tigers and the Washington Nationals, the Cincinnati Reds and the Boston Red Sox, as well as four games with the Hyundai Unicorns, another South Korean pro team that has used Bradenton for preseason training since 1996 through a contract with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The Tigers also played two games with another Global Scouting client, the Vera Cruz Eagles of the Mexican pro league, which came to Florida in search of international opponents to play.

Gamble hired a videographer to shoot footage of the Tigers' experience, which will be turned into a marketing DVD that Global Scouting will send to ball clubs in Japan and South Korea.

One of biggest selling points of training in Florida is the opportunity for foreign ball clubs to play games against Major League opponents. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays are one of the teams that Global Scouting has contacted.

Rays spokesman Rick Vaughn said the company approached the team too late to schedule an exhibition game with the Tigers.

But a B-squad team of Rays did play a game with Vera Cruz and would be interested in fitting in some games next season with Global Scouting clients, Vaughn said.

"It's networking on the international scene," Vaughn said. "And it gives us a chance to look at their players. You never know what you might see."

In 2007, Global Scouting hopes to bring over one team each from Japan and South Korea to the Charlotte County training facility "and create an Asian spring training experience," Gamble said.

"The goal is to have 10 Major League games in Charlotte County," he said.

Laura Kleiss Hoeft, Charlotte County director of parks, recreation and cultural resources, said the Tigers made a good impression on local residents. The county Board of Commissioners even declared Feb. 18 "Kia Tigers Korean Professional Baseball Day."

"They were very respectful to our national anthem," Kleiss Hoeft said. "Hats off, heads bowed, just very gracious folks. ... But when training starts, it's all serious business."

Oh Hyun-pyo, head of operations for the Tigers, said the team enjoyed its stay in Port Charlotte and will consider returning next year.

The Kia team, based in the southwestern Korean city of Gwangju, has won nine championships, more than any other team in South Korea's professional baseball league, the 25-year-old Korean Baseball Organization.

The Tigers spent the previous nine years training in Hawaii, but few practice fields around Honolulu meant that only a couple of Korean pro teams could train at a time, leaving limited opportunities to play exhibition games, Oh said.

Florida, by contrast, offered far more teams to play.

The one drawback to training in Charlotte County was the food. While some players adjusted well to an American diet of hamburgers, hot dogs and pasta dishes, others did not.

So the team contacted a Korean grocery in Fort Myers, which delivered catered dinners for the Tigers once every three days. Team members also made more visits than they care to remember to a Port Charlotte Chinese buffet restaurant.

"It wasn't easy," Oh said with a smile.

Louis Hau can be reached at 813 226-3404 or hau@sptimes.com

[Last modified March 15, 2006, 01:31:19]