Do we like Ryu Hyun-jin?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Decades of low-key giving and no harmful words or company turned up, though the record on his views is thin.
Ryu is South Korea's most decorated pitcher of his generation: he came up through the Hanwha Eagles, spent years in Major League Baseball (78 wins there), including a stint with the Toronto Blue Jays, then came home to Hanwha. At 39 he's still the team's workhorse.
The milestone that got everyone talking this year came on 24 May 2026. Ryu beat Doosan 5-2 to reach 200 combined professional wins, 122 in Korea and 78 in the US. He's the first Korean pitcher to hit that mark since Song Jin-woo retired in 2009.
Scandal-wise, the only courtroom drama is one where he was on the receiving end. A former agent was accused by prosecutors of telling him a 2013 ramen ad deal was worth less than the real fee and pocketing the difference. A Seoul court cut the first-trial prison term to a suspended sentence on appeal in November 2025.
On the harm check, we found nothing: no campaigning against anyone, no conspiracy rabbit holes, no dodgy company. That's partly because he's an old-school sportsman who sticks to baseball, so we can't say much about his views. A pass, with the honest note that the record is quiet rather than loud.
The recent stuff has been a mix of triumph and a rough patch. He announced after Korea's 10-0 World Baseball Classic quarterfinal loss in March that it would likely be his last time with the national team. In September he ended a 10-game winless run and apologised: “I'm sorry we couldn't win for three months.”
The good stuff is the real stuff. In April 2026 he gave 200 million won, split between the Korea Childhood Leukemia Foundation and his own foundation for youth sport. In 2020 he gave to COVID relief in Korea and to the Blue Jays Foundation, and said “Donating is not an obligation.”