The Asian record of 56 home runs in a single season, the youngest player in history to hit 300 home runs, the third player ever to hit 400 home runs before the age of thirty, the best hitter on the best team in Japan, etc.

I am of course talking about Seung-yup Lee, who is rewriting Korea's baseball history. This season, however, unable to overcome a batting average of 0.173, Lee subsequently has faltered down to the minor leagues.

With respect to Lee's recent demise, baseball experts and pundits have raised various causes. My personal opinion is that he is placing too much pressure on himself to perform superbly all the time, including the burden of always having to hit a home run to live up to expectations. Perhaps this pressure has caused him to exert too much force on his shoulders and losing the soft tempo of his original swing. This past month has certainly been a "Tough April" for Lee.

If I can abruptly change the subject. Throughout history, the agent for change has been the creative minority. However, we have also witnessed that this creative minority that has succeeded in changing history also have a tendency to overestimate their accomplishments while falling into the trap of believing that their capabilities and ways and means to be an absolute truth.

Many successful people fall into this trap of "idolization" and as a result often fail at the next level. This is what Toynbee termed "hubris". Derived from a Greek word meaning "arrogant enough to infringe on the territory of the gods", even in English it means excessive arrogance or overconfidence. And "hubris" is often used to symbolize someone that has failed after dwelling too much on past successes. To put simply, hubris is a word that defines those who believe their past experience or achievements to be the only way of getting things done irrespective of the ideas and thoughts of others or how the world around them has changed.

This past April was also a difficult one for us. In several crucial "at-bats" we failed to deliver a hit. I'm sure some of that involved heavy shoulders from the burden and pressures of having to do well but we should also be on the lookout for hubris as well.

Have we reached a point where we think that our past accomplishments and experiences are the absolute answers? Have we all become intoxicated with the many successes of our past and not become aware of the changing world around us...?

Back to Seung-yup Lee, in all likelihood it shouldn't be hubris. He is probably just in a bad slump. We have faith in the fact that in the end, Lee has always made it happen. For the first 5 games of the 2002 Korean Series, he was in a serious slump with only 2 hits in 20 at-bats until Game 6 when he hit a priceless 3 run home run to tie the game, leading to his team's first Korean Series title. He has also endured many setbacks and challenges during his first year in Japan only to hit 30 home runs the following season. Finally he hit a spectacular 41 home run the third season.

Thus, I am confident that he will rise again this time as well. Not only is it still too early in the long race, but Lee is also a consummate pro.

It is now May, the "Queen of the Seasons." It would be nice to leave work a little early to enjoy a team gathering at the ballpark. Clear skies and cheerful sounds with a glass of cold draft beer will get rid of any slump.

With the earnest hope that you will invite me to your next ballpark picnic...

Nack-Hoi Kim