Chapter 21. That’s Not How You Play Baseball
I could see the confusion on Park Seunga’s face.
Well, there was no way he could’ve expected a curveball to come in that fast.
I rubbed some rosin onto my hand while standing on the mound.
The power curve had worked perfectly.
If my four-seam fastball seemed to rise upward, the power curve broke sharply downward.
Now I had another way to create completely different movement depending on the situation.
“Nice ball!”
At Yoon Jaejun’s shout, Park Seunga glanced behind him.
The troublemaker didn’t look happy.
Nine pitches remained.
I went into my windup again.
Then I threw a four-seam fastball.
My four-seam, which had gained quite a bit of velocity by now, buried itself directly inside the strike zone.
Park Seunga swung again.
But he couldn’t touch the ball.
It was because of the difference in velocity between the power curve and my four-seam fastball.
There had been roughly a 10 km/h difference.
“Eight pitches left.”
Park Seunga let out a long sigh.
Then he choked up on the bat.
He was probably determined to put the ball into the field somehow.
Earlier, he had been holding the bat near the end because he wanted an extra-base hit.
Seeing him suddenly throw away his pride was pretty funny.
The next pitch was a slider.
I went into my windup again and threw.
The pitch broke hard and fell about three ball-widths outside the strike zone.
But Park Seunga swung.
No.
He had no choice but to swing.
“Oh…”
The reporters watching me exclaimed in admiration.
Their eyes had looked half-dead before they heard about our bet.
Now they were excitedly snapping pictures.
“Seven pitches left!”
At my words, Park Seunga slapped himself hard across the cheek.
This time, I threw a fastball while putting more force into my fingers.
He managed to make contact.
But the ball went straight backward.
It was a foul, and the power of his bat had been completely overwhelmed by the pitch.
The velocity had reached 151 km/h.
Would the RPM be over 2,800?
“Six pitches.”
Dust covered Park Seunga’s face.
But he didn’t seem to care about something like that.
He just kept trying to make contact with my pitches.
Looking at him like this, he really did have monstrous talent.
Following my pitches was incredibly difficult, yet he kept adjusting his timing little by little.
But I hadn’t shown everything I could do either.
What looked like a relatively slow fastball suddenly dropped downward.
The changeup was considered one of the breaking pitches with a relatively low injury risk in modern baseball.
And during the past month, I hadn’t spent all my time practicing only the power curve.
A curveball could move differently depending on the grip.
Because of that, I had also learned how to throw a normal curveball.
“Five pitches left.”
Like that, I used my fastball, slider, circle changeup, and power curve.
Across all ten opportunities, Park Seunga failed to put even a single ball into the field.
“Game over, Seunga. Looks like you need to learn everything from the beginning again. How can you lose this badly to a rookie who just joined the team?”
“This… This was my first time facing him, so of course I lost. If I keep seeing his pitches…”
“Is that why you hit in the .100s and ruined your season?”
At the words of team captain Kim Hakseong, Park Seunga couldn’t answer.
“Buy Choi Seong a meal and stop acting like some arrogant senior. The rest of us seniors have been leaving you alone because we didn’t want to interfere.”
Park Seunga still couldn’t respond to Kim Hakseong.
I simply added one sentence.
“That’s not how you play baseball.”
Park Seunga no longer glared at me.
He simply bit his lip tightly.
Our manager, Rodriguez, watched the whole scene with interest.
Rodriguez had already secured a comfortable retirement.
He had accumulated enough service time in Major League Baseball to qualify for a pension.
He had never been an ordinary player in the majors.
However, injuries and the subtle discrimination he faced as a Dominican had made things difficult for him.
Fortunately, after retiring, he joined a coaching staff that thought highly of him and went through the Florida Marlins’ rebuilding seasons together.
As the team repeatedly finished near the bottom of the standings, they experimented with all kinds of strategies.
“What did you think of the players?”
Immediately after the first full-team practice ended, General Manager Kim Sangwon and Manager Rodriguez sat down for tea.
Kim Sangwon was well educated, so communicating in English wasn’t much of a problem.
“Very good.”
Rodriguez smiled with satisfaction.
He hadn’t expected much from a team that had finished last the previous season.
But the rookies were surprisingly good.
And unlike the Florida Marlins, this wasn’t a rebuilding team that tanked and sold off its players.
There were plenty of prospects worth looking forward to.
“Is there perhaps one player who especially caught your eye? I’d like to hear the opinion from the field so we can include it in our marketing strategy. This is an era where teams need stars, after all.”
Rodriguez nodded.
Every sport needed showmanship.
Captivating fans through that was one of the fundamentals of baseball.
“Choi Seong. You’ve probably read the articles already, but that kid will become a star.”
The reason Rodriguez had come to Korea in the first place was because he had been offered a managerial position.
He wanted to play baseball his own way.
He was tired of working under someone else and following another person’s philosophy.
Then, at the perfect time, an offer came from a distant country in Asia.
“Choi Seong is definitely good. As for the articles…”
Kim Sangwon trailed off.
Some rather entertaining articles had been published recently, enough to pull baseball fans’ attention away from the postseason and toward the Oceans.
[Park Seunga Suffers Crushing Defeat in Baseball Bet(?) Against Choi Seong]
[What Pitches Did Park Seunga Fail to Hit Against Choi Seong?]
[Last Year’s First Pick Meets This Year’s First Pick… Choi Seong: “It Was Fun. The Prize for the Bet Is a Premium Steak Dinner.”]
Articles like those were appearing one after another.
There were also plenty of reactions from online communities.
What number is Choi Seong wearing? I’m getting that jersey.
Park Seunga batting in the .100s and he thinks he can mess with Emperor Choi Seong?
Are we actually making the postseason next year because of Emperor Choi Seong?
Oceans fans only know spring, summer, and winter… but it feels like autumn might finally exist.
Kim Sangwon was already aware of the online reactions included in the reports he received.
However, Choi Seong was already the player on whom the Oceans planned to spend the most marketing money.
They had given him a signing bonus of three billion won, so they were already sending him around for all kinds of photo shoots.
“Besides Choi Seong, are there any other players who seem promising? Rookie or veteran, it doesn’t matter.”
Discovering new stars through marketing.
It was one of the ways the eternally last-place Oceans had survived.
That was why, before every season, the front office always asked the coaching staff how they could support potential stars.
“Hmm…”
Seeing Rodriguez’s serious expression, Kim Sangwon briefly wondered if there weren’t any.
But—
“There are two.”
“Two?”
Rodriguez calmly nodded.
“Catcher Yoon Jaejun and outfielder Kwon Geonwoo are both good. If you want someone easier to turn into a star, Kwon Geonwoo would probably be the better choice. He has a decent face when he isn’t wearing a catcher’s mask.”
Weren’t they all from Saeum High?
Even when the Oceans heavily drafted players from Busan Jeil High, the most they had ever selected from one school was two.
This was the first time they had drafted so many players from the same high school.
“They’re the guys fans call ‘Choi Seong Kids.’”
Because they kept mentioning how grateful they were to Choi Seong during their Saeum High days, fans had simply started calling them the Choi Seong Kids.
According to the articles, they seemed to stick together even during practice.
“Choi Seong Kids? That makes sense. Come to think of it, instead of asking the coaching staff, they keep asking Mr. Choi questions.”
“Really?”
“Yes. And Choi Seong’s English is incredibly good. His accent is practically native-level. The KBO really is amazing!”
Kim Sangwon gave an awkward smile.
Truthfully, even he had no idea why Choi Seong was so good at English.
He was good at baseball.
And apparently good at studying too.
“Anyway, we’re planning to propose a rule that will allow Choi Seong to continue playing both ways.”
“That’s an interesting idea. Even MLB hasn’t introduced such a rule yet.”
“We’re going to propose a system where a starting pitcher can remain in the lineup as the designated hitter even after leaving the mound. Several clubs have already agreed to it.”
Rodriguez burst out laughing.
The Oceans were clearly determined to create a true superstar.
Even some American media outlets had introduced Choi Seong as Korea’s new rising prospect.
The kid had already spread overseas through the news.
“Good. I’ll build this team properly.”
Kim Sangwon was pleased by Rodriguez’s determination.
They were now a win-now team.
And bringing in the necessary free agents during the winter was his responsibility.
“Are there any players you’d like us to sign?”
“We’ll develop Yoon Jaejun as a catcher and Kwon Geonwoo as a center fielder. The rest of the lineup doesn’t seem to have major problems offensively either.”
The Oceans had ranked fifth in team batting the previous season.
Their offense had been fairly respectable.
The biggest problem now was pitching.
With Choi Seong’s arrival, one spot in the starting rotation had been secured.
But they needed to terminate their contracts with both foreign pitchers.
The lack of a reliable domestic ace was another major problem.
“We need two foreign pitchers and some middle relievers. Looking at last season’s numbers, the lack of a closer was also a serious issue.”
There weren’t just one or two holes to fill.
Their ERA from the seventh through ninth innings had been over 7.00.
But were the first through sixth innings, when the starters were supposed to hold the game together, any better?
Not at all.
Their ERA there was above 5.00.
They were experiencing absolute hell because of their lack of pitching.
They had filled much of their draft with pitchers, yet almost all of them seemed more skilled at blowing games than winning them.
There was a reason people joked that players became Oceans-ified after joining the team.
“I’ll look into every possible option.”
This time, Rodriguez looked satisfied by Kim Sangwon’s answer.
The two men shook hands and parted ways.
I calmly stretched my body.
Aside from the first team meeting, there had barely been any official team training during the fourth quarter.
I needed to improve my body even further.
If I wanted to drag the Oceans from last place all the way to first, I would realistically need at least ten wins while keeping my ERA below 2.00.
But my body still hadn’t returned to its absolute best condition.
So I trained endlessly to get there.
“You’re doing well! Your pitches look even better now.”
Coach Park Seonghyeon, who had successfully renewed his contract, said that while catching my pitches.
The first thing I had done after receiving my signing bonus was completely renovate Saeum High’s baseball facilities.
I expanded the indoor batting cage.
I donated ten thousand baseballs.
I had the dirt on the field completely redone.
I even bought new bats and gloves for the players.
As for Coach Park Seonghyeon…
“Coach! You know you’re getting 500,000 won every time you catch one of my pitches, right?”
“Yeah, you brat! It’s so much money that I feel pressured to death!”
I was paying him one hundred million won to help with my personal offseason training.
At first, he repeatedly refused to accept the money.
So I created a reason that would make him accept it.
“If you think there’s even the slightest strain on my shoulder, tell me immediately.”
I could see my stats floating above my head.
But instead of relying entirely on those numbers, I decided to trust Park Seonghyeon’s instincts.
He was the person who had always warned me whenever I was beginning to break down in my previous life.
I wanted to rely a little more on Park Seonghyeon’s intuition.
I continued building up my body through offseason training like that.
About another month passed.
Then the club contacted me.
During that time, the Gwangju Jaguars won the Korean Series, while the Seoul Triples finished second.
[Spring Training Roster Will Be Determined Through an Intrasquad Game.]
[Assemble at Sajik Stadium at 2:00 PM on December 29.]
[The game will be canceled if the temperature falls below 0°C.]
Until now, spring training rosters were often selected based heavily on a player’s reputation.
But this time seemed different.
Is this the power of having a foreign manager?
If I didn’t want to embarrass myself during the intrasquad game—
I’d better increase my training.
