It has participated in every edition of the World Baseball Classic (WBC), reaching the finals in 2009, and won the WBSC Premier12 in 2015.

South Korea also hosted and won the Baseball World Cup in 1982, and has participated in several Summer Olympic Games (winning gold over Cuba in 2008).

South Korea's main rival is Japan, which it has met in several WBC, Olympic, and Asian Baseball Championship games.

South Korea then lost to Japan in a 14–2 contest shortened to 7 innings by the WBC's early termination rule.

They were eliminated for the second time ever, after their poor performance at the 2013 World Baseball Classic, as Israel and the Netherlands advanced to the next round.

[7] In January 2020, the WBC announced the 16 national teams which participated at the 2017 World Baseball Classic, which included South Korea, will automatically qualify for the tournament.

[14] The South Korean roster, for the qualifying, is mainly professional players from the Korea Baseball Organization and is not subjected to the scheduling conflicts that troubled the teams from Australia, Canada, and Mexico.

[15] Going into the tournament rated by the experts as an outsider, or a dark horse at most, South Korea surprised everybody by finishing the group stage in first place with a perfect 7–0 record.

South Korea bounced back the following day with a tightly contested 1–0 victory over Canada, with Ryu Hyun-Jin recording a complete-game shutout.

The team finished their Round Robin Tournament in style, hammering the Netherlands 10–0 and beating them on mercy rule.

South Korea soon tied the ballgame at 2 apiece in the bottom half, then took the lead in the 8th thanks in large part to Lee Seung-Yeop's clutch 2-run home run.

In the finals they overcame the perennial favorites Cuba for the second time in the tournament, surviving a bases-loaded 9th inning situation with a double play to win the game 3–2, allowing South Korea to obtain their gold medal for Baseball.