HOUSTON — Major League Baseball has canceled its postseason tour of South Korea.
Announced in August, the tour was to have been MLB’s first trip to Korea since 1922. There were to have been games between an MLB team and players from the South Korean league at Busan Sajik Baseball Stadium on Nov. 11-12 and Seoul’s Gocheok Sky Dome on Nov. 14-15.
“MLB has had ongoing contractual issues with the event promoter that we have been trying to resolve for some time,” Jim Small, MLB’s senior vice president for international, said in a statement Friday. “Regrettably we are at a point where we have to cancel the upcoming tour because the event is unable to meet the high quality our Korean fans deserve.”
The Korea Baseball Organization said Saturday it was “perplexed” by MLB’s decision to cancel, saying that it caused disruption to players who had been preparing for the games and disappointed fans who had planned to attend.
“Even though we had expected difficulties in assembling our team because of league schedules and other issues, we decided to cooperate with MLB to help globalize the game of baseball,” the KBO said. “But the event was canceled in the end and we regret the confusion and inconvenience it has caused our fans.”
MLB players appeared in Japan, Korea and China as part of a 1922 tour that included Casey Stengel, Waite Hoyt and Herb Pennock.
