Former baseball manager Baek In-cheon, the sole .400 hitter in South Korean professional baseball history, is currently in critical condition due to a worsening cerebral infarction.

Baek, who resides in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, was transported to a nearby hospital via ambulance around 6:00 a.m. today in a state of cardiac arrest.

Family members prepared for funeral arrangements after being told at the hospital that he had stopped breathing, but his pulse faintly returned. He is currently on life support in the emergency room.

Medical staff are closely monitoring his condition, and his family is reportedly opting against life-extending treatment.

Baek, who had previously suffered from cerebral infarctions four times, fought off the illness with indomitable willpower. He had reportedly undergone a regular hospital checkup just yesterday in relatively good condition.

Born in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, China, in 1942, Baek defected to South Korea during the Korean War and learned baseball at Kyungdong Middle School and Kyungdong High School.

Playing as a catcher, Baek joined the semi-professional National Agricultural Cooperative Federation baseball team in 1961. In 1962, through a free agency agreement, he moved to the Toei Flyers, the precursor to Nippon Professional Baseball's Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters.

Winning the Pacific League batting title in 1975 with a .319 batting average, Baek played in the Japanese league until 1981 before returning to Korea.

Returning to Korea as the player-manager for the MBC Chungryong in 1982 with the launch of the domestic professional league, Baek recorded a batting average of .412 that year, remaining the only .400 hitter in Korean professional baseball history.

His coaching career was also illustrious.

Baek served as the inaugural manager of the LG Twins, which was re-founded after taking over the MBC Chungryong in 1990, and won the Korean Series.

He later managed the Samsung Lions and Lotte Giants.

However, his later years were fraught with hardship due to turbulent family affairs, ongoing cerebral infarction symptoms that first flared up during his tenure as the Samsung manager, and fraud committed against him by an acquaintance.

Reported by Kim Jiuk | Video by Jang Yu-jin | Graphics by Yang Hye-min | Produced by SBS Digital News