Having embarked on South Korean baseball's first retirement tour, Samsung Lions slugger Lee Seung-yuop just wants to keep a low profile.

Modest to a fault, the career home run leader in the Korea Baseball Organization, who will retire this year after 15 seasons here, says he doesn't want to get in the way of his teammates or his opponents -- literally and figuratively.

Nine other KBO clubs have planned ceremonies for Lee's final visits to their ballparks. The Hanwha Eagles, based in Daejeon, some 160 kilometers south of Seoul, provided the first stop on the farewell tour at their Hanwha Life Eagles Park on Thursday.

They'd planned special events for Friday, which would have been Lee's final game in Daejeon if Thursday's contest hadn't been rained out. That game will be rescheduled for sometime after Sept. 19, when teams start playing make-up games. Though Lee will visit Daejeon again later in the season, the Eagles will go ahead with their retirement ceremony for the league's greatest slugger as scheduled.

And before Thursday's game, Lee was besieged by cameras and reporters on the field. He said he wanted to make sure there would be enough space for both his teammates and the Eagles to stay focused on the game at hand.

"This is a huge honor for me," the 40-year-old said of the farewell tour, inspired in part by what Major League Baseball stars Derek Jeter and David Ortiz experienced in recent years.

"But I don't want this to interfere with other players' preparations," Lee added. "Professional ball players come to the stadium to win games. And I don't think it's appropriate for a ceremony to take away from the game itself. That's why I've been asking for toned-down ceremonies."

Lee admitted he is the type of person who perhaps worries too much about what others think of him and who doesn't want too much of the spotlight on himself.

As far as he is concerned, Lee is just a ball player who wants to keep winning.