“Everyone around me told me not to do it. It would be ruined…”
It was November 2020. Yoon Hee-sang (38), who ended his career as a player, opened a small shop in Guwol-dong, Namdong-gu, Incheon, without a break. It is a 10-minute drive from SK Happy Dream Stadium (now SSG Landers Field) where you dedicated your youth. Not far away, his second baseball life began. Yoon Hee-sang, who recently met with this magazine, laughed, saying, “He really likes gloves, so he wanted to try making them. He’s doing it with a challenge.”
◇ Hobby as a new job
Yoon Hee-sang is a ‘SK One Club Man’. His 2004 debut marked his 42nd career win. He even took the mound as a starter for Game 1 of the 2012 Korean Series. He won the Taegeuk mark in the 2013 World Baseball Classic (WBC). He was once told that “SK’s left hand is Kim Gwang-hyun, right hand is Yoon Hee-sang.” After that, he set up ‘Uni Collectible’, a glove production and sales company, and has been running it for three years.
Yoon Hee-sang said, “At first, people around me worried a lot, saying, ‘How do you make and sell a brand?’ He said, ‘Don’t do it, if you want to do it, do it.’ That’s how I started this job.”
As a player, Yoon Hee-sang’s hobby was dismantling gloves. He said, “I didn’t drink alcohol or go to PC cafes like other players when I went to away games. My hobby was to wear gloves and tear off the gloves with a cutter knife to break them in, fearing that I would injure my hands.” I even sketched it. (Kim) Kwang-hyeon, (Choi) Jeong, and (Kim) Seong-hyeon who saw it said, ‘If that’s the case, just make your own.’ Some players said, ‘If you make a glove, I’ll use it.'” .
Colleagues who shared the glory of the past are a reliable support force. Helps when making samples or getting opinions. In 2020, the first season of the Major League Baseball (MLB), Kim Gwang-hyun wore the “Uni Glove” and digested the spring camp.
◇”What are you doing embarrassingly?”
Yoon Hee-sang’s glove is a custom-made product. There are a lot of online orders, but there are quite a few customers who visit the store. Everything was difficult at first. He started playing baseball at the age of 11, and having only played baseball for over 20 years, customer service was a challenge.
Yoon Hee-sang said, “When I first opened the store, it was an empty place without many gloves. There were 3 YouTube subscribers (1,750 as of 3 days). I was promoting the store, but people around me said, ‘What are you embarrassed about?’ It was really embarrassing when a customer came in while eating. I do this because I love it, but I felt shabby myself.” ,
The gloves are 100% handmade. Leather types are largely divided into cow (steer) and calf (kip). Professional players use soft calfskin gloves. When an order comes in, Yoon Hee-sang observes the shape of the hand, the angle of the wrist, and how the hand moves, creates a design, and then communicates with the craftsman while producing it.
He said, “If you see what’s made and you think it’s okay, give it to the player and if it’s not, modify it again. It takes a few steps to make a finished product. It’s fun to tell the story (between the player and craftsman). It’s fun when the glove comes out in the shape you want. It’s big. It doesn’t take long to make gloves, but since the maker is alone, it’s only possible to make 2-3 pieces a day. So there is a waiting period (when an order comes in), “he explained.
◇ “What if my shoulders were healthy?”
Yoon Hee-sang decided to retire the moment he thought he would become a burden to his teammates. He said, “I quit because I was sick, so I don’t have much regret. Pitchers have to help each other like a correlation, but I made my decision after seeing the young players struggling because of me. I’ve been doing this for a long time,” he said with a sad expression. Even so, he couldn’t say for a while, “I think about what it would have been like if I had been born with a healthy shoulder. Wouldn’t I have been able to be more active?”
Rookie Yoon Hee-sang was a ‘fireballer’. His highest speed in 2005, which was two years apart from his professional career, was 153 km / h. He said, “The goal was 155 km/h. I was so happy that I recorded 152 km/h even after giving up 3 runs in 1 inning and being beaten, so I even wrote it in my diary.”
The ordeal came at an unexpected moment. In 2006, a knife was placed on his right shoulder. His disease name was SLAP (joint and labrum lesion). At a time when there was a lot of perception that baseball life would end if he had shoulder surgery. In fact, Yoon Hee-sang’s rehabilitation period was quite long. It was in 2011 that he threw the ball again in earnest in the first team. He said, “I went through rehabilitation for four years and even went to the army, but I couldn’t throw it because I was sick바카라. I was worried about whether I should (convert) as a hitter.” He said that creating is a pro.’ It touched me very much, so from then on, I started studying throwing that didn’t hurt.”
Yoon Hee-sang endured the pain and threw it away. When he had his annual health checkup, every doctor asked, ‘Doesn’t it hurt?’ His shoulder was not in good condition, but he persevered with his mental strength. As a result, he also won his first 10 individual victories in 2012. His strained shoulder stopped pitching in 2019. After he underwent a second shoulder surgery (rotator cuff ligament damage), he never recovered. The calcification progressed and the ligaments were torn from his bones.
In 2020, he briefly returned to the first team with superhuman strength, but that was it. Yoon Hee-sang said, “If I said I was going to start five games, I had to make a choice. I had to throw two games with all my strength and throw three games lightly to recover my shoulder. (In the beginning of the season), from April to June, ‘If I throw hard now, the season can end. ’” and “People around me said a lot, ‘Why don’t you throw hard? said. It was always like that.” I looked back.
◇ “I want to make 10,000 gloves.”
A team that knows Hee-sang Yoon’s sincerity offered him a coaching job. But he refused. Yoon Hee-sang said, “The opportunity (to be a coach) may not come again. People around me told me to seize the opportunity when it came. But personally, I didn’t think it was an opportunity.” “There’s a lot more. I’m doing something I haven’t experienced as a baseball player. If I go back to that life (baseball field), there are of course things I can learn from there, but I don’t think I’m there yet.”
It is a dream to grow a little more of a dream that has been realized with difficulty. He said, “After making 10,000 gloves and wearing several gloves, I want to create a brand with my own factory. After becoming the representative of ‘Uni Glove’ and setting up a factory, I will invite craftsmen to make them in one place. Slowly and for a long time. I’m watching and doing this,” he said vigorously.
Incheon = Reporter Bae Joong-hyun