The Lotte Group is the only company that has professional baseball teams in both Korea and Japan. Korea’s Lotte Giants, Japan’s Chiba Lotte Marines. All of them are located in the port cities of Busan and Chiba, respectively. The owner is Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin, and the mascot is also the same as a seagull.

Korean Giants players and coaches went to Japan Marines for training, and the front desks of both clubs regularly visited each other’s home stadiums to share marketing and team management know-how. As they are running clubs in the same sport, mutual exchanges were also active in the past. Recently, however, there was also the influence of Corona 19, but apart from this, there was not much exchange between the two clubs.

However, from this year, sister clubs within the Lotte Group will start active exchanges again. The Korean Giants visit the Marlins spring camp training ground in Japan. Lotte held the first camp in Guam, an American territory, from the 1st to the 18th, and after briefly returning to Korea on the 19th, they will leave for Ishigakijima, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan from the 20th to hold the second camp.

Ishigakijima belongs to Okinawa Prefecture, and it is a place that can be reached by traveling about an hour by plane from the main island of Okinawa. It is closer to Taiwan than Okinawa. In this place, which is also a resort for Japanese people, Chiba Lotte Groups 1 and 2 will hold spring camps. Currently, the first team has moved to Itoman City on the main island of Okinawa and is playing practice matches against other Japanese clubs that have set up camp on the main island of Okinawa. Ishigaki island has a team of 2 players left. The Giants train here for about a week and play two practice games against Chiba Lotte’s 2nd team on the 22nd and 24th.

In the past, both clubs set up a practice game camp in Kagoshima, Japan, and practiced fiercely, and exchanges between players and coaches were active during this process. It was an exchange between the two clubs promoted from the beginning by the late honorary chairman Shin Gyeok-ho, the founder of the group. Lotte Korea was an unemployed club, and Chiba Lotte Marines started in 1976, when it was the former Lotte Orions, so it was a group-level exchange of more than 40 years.

However, the last match between Chiba Lotte and Lotte Korea was in 2016, and it was the first exchange match held in seven years. The resumption of exchanges this year is also an issue that the group company is focusing on. Starting this year, I hope that the exchanges between the two clubs will continue in the future. The intention of the group company can be interpreted as the will of the club’s owner, Chairman Shin Dong-bin.

In order to regularize the exchange match with Chiba Lotte, the Korean Giants started thinking about the first camp site selection this year. Guam was chosen as an optimal place to focus on training without having to travel to Ishigaki Island and not have a big time difference. Although negotiations with the Guam state government are necessary, if Guam is the final choice for the first spring camp next year, Lotte has plans to invest. The environment of the Dededo Sports Complex and Paseo Stadium, which were training venues this year, are relatively underdeveloped. If this is extensively improved and intensive management is carried out right before camp, it is judged that it will be suitable for use as a campsite. 바카라

If the Giants’ Guam camp continues, the route leading to Guam-Ishigaki Island-Okinawa will be decided from next year. However, in the future, after two weeks of intensive training in Guam, I am planning to go over to Ishigaki Island a little earlier and have an exchange battle while the Chiba Lotte 1st team remains. It is expected that he will be able to meet Loki Sasaki (21), the ‘perfect monster’ who throws a fastball of up to 164 km. This year, the meeting itself could not be made because Sasaki is participating in the World Baseball Classic (WBC) national team training.

In addition, after the exchange game in Ishigaki Island, the Giants will move to Okinawa on the 27th and use Kushikawa Stadium as their home stadium to play an evaluation match with a domestic club. The Okinawa campsite is also struggling. From the finishing camp in 2016 to the spring camp in 2019, Okinawa Kadena Stadium was used as the base for practice games and training. However, at the time, Kadena Stadium was used only for practice as it was too small to hold official matches. Matches were only played away at the home grounds of other clubs.

Cadena Stadium was the Yokohama DeNA Baystars 2nd team training ground after Korea Lotte left, but it is known that it has recently undergone extensive remodeling. In the future, when the remodeling to the newest stadium is completed, it is expected that a large number of clubs who want to set up campsites will flock to Okinawa. The Giants club plans to conduct rental discussions with Kadena Stadium as well as holding the second camp this year.