BSC obtains international flavor

In the summertime, Bridgewater State Baseball head coach Rick Smith received an interesting DVD in the mail. He put the disc into the DVD player and discovered that Seob Yoon, a young Japanese infielder who went to school in Hawaii, wanted to try out for his baseball team. He called assistant coach Matt Poitras into his office and asked him what he thought of the recruit. Poitras watched the DVD of Yoon taking grounders at shortstop and taking batting cage swings and he thought it might be worth contacting Yoon.

Over the next two months Yoon and Poitras exchanged letters and phone calls and this fall he officially became a member of the Bridgewater State Baseball team. Poitras noted that Yoon looked like he could be a great contact hitter and bunter at the plate.

Seven months later, Smith thinks very highly of the freshman, who has been the back-up second baseman.

"He understands the game and he's very fluent in English," said Smith. "It's possible he could be an everyday player for us in the future."

Yoon learned at a very young age how to speak English. A child of two Korean parents raised in Japan, Yoon went to an International school in Yokohama, Japan where they taught everything in English.

After a two-year stay in New Zealand with his father, Yoon came back and went to another International school in Tokyo. In his sophomore year, he moved to Hawaii to attend Mid Pacific Institute, located in Honolulu. He lived by himself until he graduated and enrolled at BSC.

Yoon said that he has always liked baseball, but he hopped around from team to team as he continued to move from place to place.

"My international (elementary) school did not have any baseball teams for students, so I joined a baseball team for a Japanese school which was close to where I lived when I was ten years old," said Yoon. "When I got into middle school, I joined a club team and played there for three years."

After that, Yoon went to Hawaii and played for his high school at Mid Pacific Institute. While the rules of the game might be the same, the style in which the game is played is a little different.

"In Japan we practice a lot and hardly play any games, but over here we play more games than we practice," said Yoon.

Yoon didn't choose to play in the infield; he grew into the position naturally.

"I was just too short to pitch and I don't have an arm to catch, so I ended up playing in the infield," said Yoon.

An athletic training major at Bridgewater State, he has aspirations of going to graduate school to obtain his masters in Physical Therapy.

"I'd like to be a personal trainer or use my experience with the baseball team to work with a sports team in Japan," said Yoon.

As an avid fan of professional baseball in the United States, Yoon looks up to some of the Major League Baseball's great Japanese stars.

"My favorite players are Seattle Mariners outfielder Ichiro Suzuki and Tampa Bay Ray's second baseman Akinori Iwamura," said Yoon.

This year, Yoon has appeared in 10 of the Bears 36 games last Saturday Smith gave him the opportunity to crack the lineup in the second game of the team's double header against Becker College.

While he went 0-for-3 with a walk, Yoon received some of the loudest cheers from his teammates of the afternoon.

"Seob is great for our team unity," said Smith. "Up at the plate everyone in the dugout screamed as loud as they could for him."

Smith said that he was very impressed with Yoon after seeing him as a freshman this season. "Seob has a lot of potential," said Smith. "I think there is a bright future ahead of him.