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Military may call for Indians' Choo

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By Tom Archdeacon, Staff Writer Updated 11:30 PM Sunday, June 27, 2010

CINCINNATI — The day was going great.

His Cleveland Indians had just snapped a seven-game losing steak and he’d hit two more home runs off Bronson Arroyo. Astonishingly, he now has four — plus a double — in his six at-bats against the Reds’ right-hander this season.

No wonder Shin-Soo Choo was all smiles in the visitors’ clubhouse at Great American Ball Park on Sunday, June 27, after the Indians knocked off the Reds, 5-3.

One by one, teammates congratulated the South Korean-born right fielder as he headed to the showers. In the waiting room, his wife, Won Mi Ha, sat with their two little boys — Alan and Aiden — both wearing “I LOVE Daddy” shirts.

Then came the question that drained the delight:

“Just as your big league career is taking off, the deadline for your military commitment back home is coming due. How do you feel?”

South Korea has mandatory two years of military service for all men to be completed by the time they’re 30. In just over two weeks, Choo turns 28.

While the government has given waivers to some athletes who have medaled in the World Baseball Classic and the Olympics, Choo missed those teams.

He was not selected to the 2006 South Korean team at the WBC and because he was on a 25-man major league roster, he was not permitted on his nation’s team that won gold at the 2008 Olympics.

He did play in last year’s WBC, but South Korea didn’t grant dispensations. The only waiver chance he now has left is at the 2010 Asian Games — but there his team must win gold.

Soldiers are revered in South Korea — especially with the heightened tensions with North Korea — so Choo’s fate is huge news at home.

One of the woeful Indians’ brightest lights, will he leave the team for the military? Will he try to stay in America — he lives in Buckeye, Ariz. — though that could produce negative fallout back home?

Early this season, he said the situation is “always hanging over my head.” Sunday he wouldn’t quite say that, but his look told you as much.

“I won’t answer that military thing for anybody here or the Korean media,” he said quietly. “Nothing has changed and if I say something, maybe there’s more problems. We’ll see at the end of the season what happens.

“But I really didn’t think about it out there. Today, I just tried to play baseball.”

In the first inning, he sent an Arroyo fastball into the right-field seats. In the fifth with two on, he drilled what he thought was an Arroyo sinker deeper into right center.

“Obviously, he’s comfortable against me,” Arroyo said. “Four homers in two games is pretty outstanding. And he’s hit three different pitches out of the park, so it’s not like he’s just hit the same pitch every time. There ain’t much else to throw at him.”

Last season — his first times facing Arroyo — Choo went 1-for-6.

“He has so many different angles coming down at you and he has that big, high kick and last year I just got caught up in the whole motion and it fools you,” Choo said. “This year, I just see his hand. That’s all I was focusing on today.”

Soon, though, he’ll have to focus on something much trickier.

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