Wiz, Eagles to release documentaries ahead of 2022 season

Baseball

Published: 17 Mar. 2022, 15:24

Wiz, Eagles to release documentaries ahead of 2022 season

A poster advertises the KT Wiz documentary ″Winning Run″ that tracks the weeks surrounding the team's historic pennant and championship title win last year. [SEEZN]

With just two weeks to go before the 2022 KBO season kicks off, the KT Wiz and Hanwha Eagles are taking the opportunity for a little retrospection. The two clubs, who finished the 2021 season at the opposite extremes of the table, will be releasing documentaries over the next week chronicling their experience in 2021.

The Wiz, winners of both the pennant and championship last season, will release the documentary "Winning Run" on Seezn, a streaming service operated by KT, on Saturday.

The documentary chronicles the club's achievements from the tight race at the end of the regular season to the championship series and the Wiz's first title.

The KT Wiz were crowned the winners of the 2021 Korean Series after beating the Doosan Bears at Gocheok Sky Dome in western Seoul in November last year. En route to the championship series, the Wiz had topped the table for months before suddenly getting caught up in the second tie-breaker in KBO history to win the regular season title.

The team only became a KBO club in 2015, when KT established the Wiz in Suwon, filling the void left by the Unicorns seven years earlier. In the six years the club has existed, they've finished the season in last place three times, ninth once, sixth once and then third in 2020. That uphill trajectory continued into the 2021 season, earning the club a spot in the Korean Series for the very first time.

"Winning Run" will focus on the drama of those last few weeks of the 2021 season. Part one will premiere on Seezn on Saturday, followed by part two on March 26. The documentary will then be broadcast in full on SBS Sports on March 31.

The Hanwha Eagles documentary "Clubhouse" is likely to tell a very different story.

A poster advertises the Watcha documentary series ″Clubhouse″ that follows the Hanwha Eagles' attempts to rebuild the team during the 2021 season. [WATCHA]

Unlike the Wiz documentary, which appears to have only been planned when it became clear that the Suwon club were on track for their best season ever, Hanwha announced their partnership with streaming service Watcha before the start of the 2021 season.

In March last year, the Eagles announced that they had granted Watcha full access to film the club's planned restructuring process and allowed the company to release it as a documentary series in the first half of 2022.

The attempt to reinvent the club was never going to be easy. With the exception of a third-place finish in 2018, the Eagles have not qualified for the postseason since 2007, and haven't topped the league or won the Korean Series since the 1990s.

As part of the plan to shake things up, the Eagles brought in a comprehensive international staff led by former Milwaukee Brewers bench coach Carlos Subero, with American hitting coach Johnny Washington and bench coach Darryl Kennedy, and U.S.-born Puerto Rican pitching coach Jose Rosado.

But whatever the plan was, it didn't pay dividends during the 2021 season. The Eagles slipped straight back down to last place, finishing a big 25.5 points behind the Wiz with only 49 wins and 83 losses on the season.

The disappointing result doesn't appear to have deterred Watcha. The Eagles documentary "Clubhouse" will be released on March 24 on Watcha with the tag line "Can we do it?"

The documentary, according to the streaming service, chronicles the first steps of the club's rebuilding process as a "last-place team dreams of change."

The release of the two documentaries come just a few days before the 2022 season kicks off on April 2. The Wiz will be at home on opening day as they host the Samsung Lions, while the Eagles will head to Jamsil Baseball Stadium in southern Seoul to take on the Bears.

Elsewhere in the KBO the SSG Landers will face the NC Dinos at Changwon NC Dinos Park in Changwon, South Gyeongsang, the LG Twins will take on the Kia Tigers at Gwangju-Kia Champions Field in Gwangju and the Lotte Giants will visit the Kiwoom Heroes at Gocheok Sky Dome in western Seoul.

All five games will begin at 2 p.m.

BY JIM BULLEY [jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr]