An online cartoon depicting a Dominican baseball pitcher for a local team being chased by hooded Ku Klux Klan members has caused an uproar this week, forcing its authors to issue an apology and replace the controversial piece.

A tandem of cartoonists, under the pen name Bounce Kim, published the strip on portal site Nate.com on Monday, as part of their weekly series dubbed “Fastball and Jokeball.”

It showed Radhames Liz of the LG Twins in the Korea Baseball Organization running away from members of the notorious white supremacist group yelling “Die!”

Last Sunday against the Samsung Lions, Liz found himself in hot water for celebrating his third strikeout of the sixth inning with a little hop off the mound and a fist pump, after nailing Samsung’s leadoff man Bae Young-seop in the head earlier in the same inning.

Bae was stretchered off the field and taken to the hospital for further tests, and Lions’ fans felt Liz’s reaction at the end of the sixth was inappropriate in light of their outfielder’s injury.

It was Liz’s 19th hit batter of the season. He went on to hit another Samsung batter and now leads the KBO in the category.

The hard-throwing right-hander, who often reaches 160 kilometers per hour with his fastball, has developed a reputation as the most frightening pitcher here.

In the cartoon, a character representing the Lions asks Liz why he had to fist pump his way to the dugout in the sixth inning, after he’d hit Bae earlier in the same inning. (Yonhap News)