Cha Woo-chan (37), a former professional baseball player with 112 wins in the KBO League, confessed the process of deciding to retire and how he felt after the decision.
Cha Woo-chan, who appeared on the YouTube channel “Jung Geun-woo’s Baseball Life” released on Tuesday, said, “I’ve been rehabilitating for about eight months at LG Twins, and the general manager contacted me to see me. I got a feeling,” explaining how he left LG.
“After I was released from LG, about four teams contacted me, and Lotte was in the best condition,” he said. “Thankfully, Lotte’s general manager Sung Min-gyu promised me that he would wait for me in the first half. I was very grateful.”
Cha Woo-chan, who joined Samsung as the seventh-ranked player in the second round of the 2006 Rookie Draft, played for one team for 11 seasons until the 2016 season. Cha Woo-chan, who became a free agent after the end of the 2016 season, signed a four-year, 9.5 billion won contract with LG on Dec. 14 of that year and moved to a new team. 메이저놀이터
After moving to LG, Cha Woo-chan won 10 games for three consecutive seasons from 2017 to 2019. However, he suffered a shoulder injury during the 2021 season, and eventually got a bitter taste of his release from LG in 2022.
Four teams competed to recruit a veteran left-hander with 112 wins, and finally, Cha Woo-chan wore a Lotte uniform. At that time, Lotte helped Cha Woo-chan’s rehabilitation by providing hotel support to stay in Busan, participating in spring camps, freely digesting schedules in the first half of the year and allocating dedicated trainers.
“I came back to the second team from Lotte, and it took about a month to throw and recover. I ended up saying I would stop,” Cha Woo-chan said. “I couldn’t even play baseball because my ligament was cut off. I wondered if this was my fate. When I decided to stop playing baseball, I honestly felt so comfortable that I would never get sick again, and I had no regrets. I just thought that I endured it well.”
In 2024, Cha Woo-chan left for the LA Dodgers in the Major League to take a leadership class at the rookie team. Cha Woo-chan also revealed an episode in which he was contacted by the Samsung Lions right before he went to the U.S. for the opening pitch.
“Samsung has played for 11 years since its debut at age 19. I wanted to make a memory with my family,” Cha Woo-chan said. “I was the first starting pitcher when Lions Park opened, and I was able to pitch my last pitch at Lions Park. I was so thankful.”
Finally, he did not forget to thank the fans, saying, “I’m sorry that I didn’t greet you properly until I retired, and there were some people who supported me during my career and some who whipped me.”