20-Year-Old Korean-American Baseball Player at US University Dies from Elbow Surgery Complications

[Asia Economy Reporter Baek Kyunghwan] It has been revealed that a Korean-American baseball player who played as a pitcher for a U.S. college baseball team died from complications after undergoing elbow surgery.

According to local media on the 20th, Baek Sangho (20), a student at George Mason University in Virginia, passed away on the 12th due to complications from elbow ligament reconstruction surgery (commonly known as Tommy John surgery).

Tommy John surgery is a procedure that replaces a damaged elbow ligament with another tendon and is known as a surgery that pitchers who injure their elbow ligaments in Korea, the U.S., and other countries undergo to make a comeback. Local authorities are expected to conduct an autopsy and other measures to determine the exact cause of Baek’s death.

Meanwhile, Baek was born in January 2001 in Seoul, graduated from a high school in Salisbury, Maryland, and participated in seven games for the George Mason University baseball team since March of this year.