The mercurial career of pitcher Kim Byung-hyun took another strange twist recently when the sidearming reliever claimed to have lost his passport that would have allowed him to travel outside South Korea for the upcoming World Baseball Classic. In turn, the Koreans have dropped the 30-year-old Kim from their WBC roster.
After a stellar amateur career in Korea, Kim broke into the major leagues with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 1999, and went on to spend seven seasons in the bigs. Although he has pitched for two World Series champions and in one All-Star Game, Kim has had his share of controversy over the years. He allowed two game-tying homers in the 2001 World Series, gave booing Boston fans the finger when he was pitching for the Red Sox, and responding to Colorado manager Clint Hurdle’s decision to move him to the bullpen in 2007 by hiring Scott Boras as his agent and demanding to be traded. Kim didn’t play last year.
Korean manager Kim In-sik told reporters last weekend that since his team had to submit their final WBC roster on February 22, it was decided to drop the erstwhile pitcher instead of waiting for him to get a new passport.
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