The retiring South Korean baseball star Choo Shin-soo has decided to postpone a celebration of his long professional career to next year.

The SSG Landers of the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) announced Friday that Choo, who plans to hang up his spikes after this season, asked the club not to hold his retirement ceremony this year. According to the Landers, Choo said he didn't want to be a distraction during the club's fight for a postseason spot.

With their game on Friday rained out, the Landers are in sixth place with a record of 66-68-2 (wins-losses-ties), 1.5 games behind the KT Wiz for the fifth and final postseason berth with eight games remaining. The Landers are riding a four-game winning streak.

For the regular season, the Landers have two more home games remaining at Incheon SSG Landers Field in Incheon, just west of Seoul.

Choo, 42, announced his retirement plan in December last year but did not go on a retirement tour, as some other notable veterans have done in recent years. Since late July, though, Choo has held autograph signing sessions at visiting stadiums.

Choo has played for the Landers since 2021, and helped them win the Korean Series title the following year.

He signed with the Seattle Mariners out of high school and played in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 2005 to 2020. He was named an American League All-Star while playing for the Texas Rangers in 2018.

Choo is widely considered the greatest South Korean hitter in MLB history. He put up 218 home runs and 782 RBIs and 157 steals in 1,652 games, numbers that no South Korean player has come close to matching. Choo held the mark for the most home runs by an Asian-born player in MLB history, until the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani passed him this week.

In the KBO, Choo has batted .263 with 54 homers, 205 RBIs and 51 steals in 438 games. He has played in only 77 out of the team's 136 games this year due to injuries. In July, he became the oldest position player to play, get a hit and drive in a run in KBO history. (Yonhap)