Kim’s struggles highlight the adjustment Korean players face

BALTIMORE — The reception Hyun Soo Kim received on Opening Day needed no translation. The reverber- ation of boos transcended lang uage and culture; they mean the same thing in Eng- lish as in Korean. After the Baltimore Orioles outfielder refused an assignment to the minor leagues out of spring training, a right stipulated in his contract, many critics let Kim know how they felt.

Outfielder Adam Jones noticed something when Kim would turn around to look at the fans who were yelling at him. “If someone is saying something to him, he just looks at them like, ‘I don’t know what you’re say- ing,’” Jones said.

But as Kim stepped up to the plate in a recent game against the Los Angeles Angels, now batting second, he received a warm recep- tion, making the Opening Dayb oos seem like a distant memory.

It certainly helps that Kim is performing at an excep- tionally high level since earning a significant role in the Orioles offense, hitting .329 with a .410 on-base percentage.

But to understand why Kim, prior to going on the disabled list Tuesday, looks like a different player than the one who couldn’t buy a hit in March, one needs to understand the worldflipping transition t hat an international player goes through.

“(Kim) was an easy target,” Jones said. “(The critics) were insensitive bastards.”

Spring training, for many in Major League Baseball, is viewed as a season of leisure. That time is used differently in the Korean Baseball Organization, where Kim had played since 2007. For teams in the KBO, spring training starts overseas, mostly in Arizona, nearly a month before teams in MLB.

By the time Opening Day comes around during the first few days of April, KBO teams have been playing for three months.

For Kim, spring training with the Orioles presented the challenges of needing to work on an accelerated schedule, adjust to a foreign culture and language and meet expectations domestically and internationally.

For any immigrant coming to a new country, assimilating is overwhelming enough.

“I knew that I needed to adjust quickly, so I put all of my focus and energy into that,” Kim told The Post in Korean. “I thought that culturally, I needed to come here and figure things out for myself because I didn’t have anyideawhattoexpect.”