Samsung Lions


The Samsung Lions are a South Korean professional baseball team founded in 1982. They are based in the southeastern city of Daegu and are members of the KBO League. Their home stadium is Daegu Samsung Lions Park. They have won the Korean Championship eight times, and also finished as runners-up on eleven occasions. The Samsung Lions are the first team to win four consecutive Korean Series titles, and are also the first team to win the regular season league title for five consecutive years.
During the 1980s and 1990s, the team was closely associated with the conservative political identity of their home region of Yeongnam. As a result, they developed a rivalry with the Kia Tigers of the liberal Honam region.

History

The Samsung Lions were founded in 1982 as one of the original six KBO League teams. They won their first championship in 1985, going 40-14-1 in the first half and 37-18 in the second half for a total of 77–32 for the best one-season winning percentage in KBO League history. The 1985 team had two 25-game-winners on their staff, Kim Si-jin and Kim ll-young; as the Lions were winners of both half-season pennants that year, no Korean Series was held and the Lions were declared champions outright.
The Lions would also win the championship in 2002, 2005 and 2006, having the best record in each one of those years. In 2010, Ryu Jung-il was hired as the new manager of the Samsung Lions. He led the team to the best record in the league and its fifth KBO title in 2011. After the KBO League, the Samsung Lions won the Asian Series championship. The Samsung Lions became the first team to win the pennant race, the Korean Series, and the Asian Series in the same year.
In 2012, one of the most notable players on the team, Lee Seung-yuop, returned to South Korea from Japan. With his help, the Samsung Lions won their sixth championship in the 2012 season. They won another two championships in 2013 and 2014, for a total of eight Korean Series championships. In 2016, Samsung Lions moved to their new stadium, Daegu Samsung Lions Park.

Team identity, politics and rivalry with Kia Tigers

The Samsung Lions, established in 1982, are closely tied to the city of Daegu and the Yeongnam region. The club emerged during a period marked by regional and political divisions in South Korea. In the years that followed, the Lions became a prominent symbol of local pride and conservative identity within Yeongnam, with their growth in the Korea Baseball Organisation reflecting the region’s economic strength, partly backed by the Samsung conglomerate. The team’s rivalry with the Kia Tigers of Gwangju has often been seen in the context of Korea’s broader regional and political divides. The Lions represent the conservative Yeongnam region, while the Tigers are based in the liberal Honam region. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, matches between the two sides were characterised by intense fan passion and occasional unrest, mirroring deeper social and political tensions. For example, in 1986, the Korean Series between the Samsung Lions and Haitai Tigers was marked by serious fan violence. A Tigers supporter struck Lions pitcher Jin Dong-han with a thrown soju bottle in Game 1, and after later games in Daegu, Lions fans rioted, throwing bottles onto the field and setting fire to the Tigers’ team bus. Police used tear gas to control the crowds on several occasions. In 1987, the two teams met again amid rising political tension linked to South Korea's democratic transition. Although no violence occurred, the lingering memories of the previous year’s riots and the upcoming presidential election gave added significance to the series, which the Tigers won in a four-game sweep. That year, following nationwide pro-democracy protests, conservative presidential candidate Roh Tae-woo, a former general from Daegu in the Yeongnam region, announced the June 29 Declaration, agreeing to implement direct presidential elections. Roh was set to face Kim Dae-jung, a long-standing opposition figure from South Jeolla Province in the Honam region.

Season-by-season records

Team

Current roster

Korean Baseball League MVP

Batting average

Home runs

Retired numbers

The first number retired by the Samsung Lions organization was number 22, in honour of catcher and slugger Lee Man-soo, who played for the team from 1982 to 1997, and was later a coach with the Chicago White Sox of the MLB and the SK Wyverns. Lee was a five-time KBO League [Golden Glove Award]-winner with the Lions, won the KBO League [Most Valuable Player Award|KBO League MVP] in 1983, and the hitting Triple Crown in 1984. The second number retired by the Samsung Lions organization was number 10, in honour of left-handed batter Yang Joon-hyuk, who played for the team from 1993 to 1998 and from 2002 to 2010. Yang led the league in batting four times, and holds six career batting records. The third retired number, 36, was retired in honour of Lee Seung-yuop, who has spent 15 seasons with the club and is the all-time KBO League leader in home runs with 467. Lee also holds the KBO records for runs scored, RBIs, total bases, slugging percentage, and OPS. At the end of the 2025 season, number 21 of Seung-hwan Oh, a closer who has saved 427 games in KBO and 122 games in NPB and MLB, was retired.

Yang Joon-hyuk
RF, DH
Lee Man-soo
C
Lee Seung-yuop
IF

Managers