KBO gifted handwritten founding documents of Lee Yong-il, ‘the midwife of Korean professional baseball’

Lee Geum-hee, left, and Lee Ji-hyun, the daughters of the KBO’s first secretary general Lee Yong-il, hold their father’s memorabilia at the KBO on Dec. 2. [KIM KYOUNG-ROK]

 
Long before thousands of fans filled stadiums and baseball stars signed billion-won contracts, Lee Yong-il worked quietly on a single idea: The country needed its own league.
 
Now, more than four decades later, the handwritten papers he kept have resurfaced, showing how much of today’s KBO he helped design.
 
 
Baseball officials and team representatives held a founding meeting at the Lotte Hotel in Sogong-dong, central Seoul, on Dec. 11, 1981, which the KBO later designated as “Baseball Day.”
 
For years, the league held its Golden Glove Awards on Dec. 11. But after Korea won gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics on Aug. 23, that milestone became the new Baseball Day. 
 
This winter, for the KBO’s 43rd anniversary, Dec. 11 is returning to the spotlight as the blueprint for the league’s creation, the minutes from the founding meeting, a 10-year development plan and other documents have found their way back to the KBO. 
 
The items belonged to the late Lee Yong-il, the KBO’s first secretary general, who is often called “the midwife of Korean professional baseball.” Lee died in September, after which his family donated 260 baseball-related items to honor a man they said devoted his entire life to the sport.
 
Ahead of professional baseball’s birthday, Lee’s two daughters — Lee Geum-hee and Lee Ji-hyun — visited the KBO Archive Center (translated) on Tuesday to see their father’s belongings. They stood in what had once been their father’s workplace and traced the artifacts with their hands. At times, they struggled to speak.
 

Early photographs and documents from the founding years of Korean professional baseball that Lee Yong-il kept throughout his life. [KO BONG-JUN]

 
“My father thought only about baseball until the day he died,” Lee Geum-hee said. “He always watched Korean and American baseball on TV and checked how the players were doing every day.”
 
“Ever since we were little, baseball documents were scattered all around the house,” added Lee Ji-hyun. “He kept everything. He had a meticulous habit of writing notes and organizing them, so he never discarded even the smallest piece of paper. While sorting his belongings, we found many materials related to the league’s founding. He didn’t leave any formal instructions, but we believed [the items’] historical value warranted a donation.”
 
Lee Yong-il, born in 1931 as the fourth son of Lee Man-su, the founder of Kyungsung Rubber, grew up around baseball. After attending Kyungdong High School and Seoul National University’s business school, he helped establish the baseball team at Gunsan Commercial High School, cementing his lifelong connection to the sport.
 
In 1981, while serving as the executive director of the Korea Baseball Association, he was asked by the Chun Doo Hwan military regime to draft a blueprint for professional baseball. 
 

Lee Yong-il, right, is elected the KBO’s first secretary general at the professional baseball founding meeting on Dec. 11, 1982. [JOONGANG ILBO]

 
He worked with Lee Ho-yeon, his classmate from Seoul National University. They collaborated with Lee Sang-ju, the Blue House senior presidential secretary for education and culture; Park Young-gil, the manager of Lotte’s semiprofessional club; and Jang Hoon, who was then playing in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. Drawing on the success of high school baseball in the 1970s, the team designed a regional, hometown-franchise model and created a six-team league.
 
The newly donated materials include major documents — many once classified — chronicling the birth of the KBO League: the original founding plan written in August 1981; minutes from the founding meeting at the Lotte Hotel on Dec. 11 of that year; and the program for the inaugural season’s opening ceremony on March 27, 1982, at Dongdaemun Stadium. 
 
The founding plan contains the full structural blueprint of the league, and the meeting minutes detail the selection of the first commissioner. The opening-day program, organized chronologically, reflects Lee Yong-il’s strong attention to detail.
 
His deep love of baseball remains clear in his children’s memories. Lee Geum-hee, the eldest of his three children, said, “When he was planning the launch of the league, he met so many people involved in baseball. I still remember him going in and out of the stationery shop near our house, storing important documents carefully in envelopes.”
 

Lee Man-soo, left, then a Samsung player, poses for a wedding photo on Oct. 16, 1982. Lee Yong-il, center, the KBO secretary general, officiates the ceremony. [JOONGANG ILBO]

 
“When Gunsan Commercial High School played at Dongdaemun Stadium, we would hold our parents’ hands and go cheer for them,” she continued. “We bought bags of bread at Taegukdang and gave them to the players. High school players even came to our home — stars like Kim Bong-yeon, Kim Il-kwon and Kim Seong-han.”
 
Listening beside her, Lee Ji-hyun added, “I also remember our connection with manager Lee Man-soo. Since he shared the same name as our grandfather, we naturally became close. My father even officiated his wedding. Every holiday, he visited our home. Seeing him at my father’s funeral brought back so many emotions.”
 
Lee Ji-hyun, who lived briefly in the United States in the 1980s, recalled another memory. “Two years ago, my father and I were invited to Dodger Stadium by the late Peter O’Malley, the former owner of the LA Dodgers,” she said. “That visit was even featured in the JoongAng Ilbo’s U.S. edition. His English wasn’t perfect, but he always tried to communicate with overseas teams for the development of Korean baseball.”
 
She noted that the current KBO headquarters was also her father’s initiative. “He emphasized that unless the KBO built its own building quickly, future generations would have no choice but to move from rental to rental,” she said. “He cared deeply about administrative foundations.”
 

Lee Yong-il, the KBO’s first secretary general, poses with his two daughters. [LEE JI-HYUN]

 
Lee’s belongings, marked with his handwriting and fingerprints, will now be preserved as part of Korean baseball history. The KBO plans to present them at exhibitions and use them for research before transferring them to the Korea Baseball Museum, scheduled to open in 2027.
 
“One day, our father asked us, ‘What kind of life did I live?’” the sisters said. “We told him, ‘You devoted your entire life to baseball,’ and he smiled. We hope more people will come to love the sport as he did — and that someday, people will look back and remember whose efforts made Korean professional baseball possible.”

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY KO BONG-JUN [[email protected]]