Chapter 31

Chapter 31 – It Was Spring

Manager Rodriguez started walking over to protest...

And starting with Kim Hak-seong, the seniors on our team came rushing over in a group.

“Choi Jae-won, are you even playing baseball properly?”

The seniors usually wore friendly smiles, so seeing them rush out like this felt surprisingly reassuring.

Of course, I had already experienced this kind of feeling plenty of times in my previous life while playing in Seattle and Hiroshima.

Still, I was grateful that they were willing to fight for me.

“I didn’t do it on purpose! Ah, damn it! I said it wasn’t intentional!”

Choi Jae-won protested, but Kim Hak-seong shoved his shoulder hard.

“You’d better watch yourself. If you mess with our youngest, we’ll mess you up too.”

So he had this tough side to him.

Maybe that was why he was the captain.

I quietly admired him.

“He hit my kid. Hurry up and eject him. That bastard.”

Manager Rodriguez wasn’t his usual gentle self either.

His face was flushed red as he pointed first at the pitcher on the mound and then at the catcher in front of him.

The umpire shook his head awkwardly.

Since I hadn’t been hit in the head, an immediate ejection would be difficult.

Still, all of this commotion would serve as a warning to the opposing team.

After things finally calmed down, Choi Jae-won spoke to me again.

“Ah, damn. They’re ridiculously overprotective. Things like that happen.”

Was this guy still not thinking straight?

I’d dealt with more than enough psychopaths like him already.

In America, they called it discrimination against Asians.

In Japan, they called it discrimination against Koreans.

There had been plenty of guys who threw beanballs at me every other day.

I didn’t answer him.

A professional showed everything through skill anyway.

From now on, he would probably throw proper pitches.

140 km/h.

A polished sweeper came toward the outside.

I swung the bat.

Tak.

While everyone watched the ball, I immediately started running toward first base.

I could tell from the feeling at my fingertips that it wasn’t a home run.

Glancing over, I saw the third-base coach urgently telling Kwon Geon-woo to come around.

One RBI single.

The score became 1–0.

It was a clean hit into center field.

“…What the hell are you?”

Even the first baseman sounded impressed.

I didn’t react.

Why wasn’t I saying anything?

Because from this point on, I intended to play seriously.

A hitter with a high on-base percentage benefited greatly from having good baserunning skills.

And I wasn’t only talking about running speed.

There were players who were incredibly fast but constantly got thrown out because they couldn’t read when to run.

And there were players who weren’t especially fast but were good at stealing bases because they could read the timing.

I was the latter.

My running speed wasn’t among the best in the league.

But when it came to reading when to run, I was an expert.

You could tell just by looking at the pitcher’s mood on the mound.

That guy didn’t think I would try to steal.

That was exactly why I ran.

“Huh? Huh? Huh?!”

It didn’t take long for the confused sounds from the crowd to turn into cheers.

“Safe!”

As I stole second base, the umpire immediately gave the safe call.

The catcher hadn’t even managed to throw the ball.

Only the roaring cheers inside Sajik Stadium remained.

I had taken control of the early momentum.

The pitcher’s face twisted beautifully.

It seemed I would have to make sure these guys properly understood what I was capable of.

“Choi Seong is already on pace for twenty home runs and twenty stolen bases.”

“Is this even possible? An invasive species has appeared in Korean baseball!”

“Ten wins as a starting pitcher, twenty home runs, and twenty stolen bases. Across the histories of American, Korean, and Japanese baseball, that has only happened once.”

“A miracle is happening to the Oceans right now. This situation makes absolutely no sense!”

Kim Gyeong-man, who was commentating again today after yesterday’s game, and the play-by-play announcer had no choice but to be shocked.

After stealing second from first base, Choi Seong had immediately stolen third as well.

“To be honest, I had some doubts about Choi Seong’s ability to succeed both as a pitcher and a hitter.”

Kim Gyeong-man could no longer deny it.

A batter capable of shaking up the entire landscape of Korean baseball had appeared.

Then the cleanup hitter drew a walk and went to first.

“The pitcher on the mound is rattled right now. His stuff was decent until a little while ago, but now he’s starting to lose it.”

“He just allowed two stolen bases. I don’t think it’s the aftermath of the bench-clearing incident. I think those steals themselves shook him mentally.”

Their commentary continued.

The fifth batter was Yoon Jae-jun.

The twenty-year-old rookie battery combination that Kim Gyeong-man had dismissed so easily.

“Yoon Jae-jun’s potential is worth watching as well. Both of them came from Saeum High to the Oceans, right?”

At the announcer’s words, Kim Gyeong-man nodded.

But he didn’t have particularly high expectations.

Yoon Jae-jun was basically a bonus item.

Even when catching yesterday, the game-calling had been centered around the pitcher rather than the catcher.

And all of those calls had worked.

So Yoon Jae-jun could be seen as a catcher who stayed beside Choi Seong mostly because Choi Seong felt comfortable pitching to him.

A buy-one-get-one-free deal.

Kim Gyeong-man’s evaluations of players other than Choi Seong remained cold.

“We’ll have to keep watching.”

Yoon Jae-jun watched the first pitch strike go by.

There was a certain desperation in his eyes.

Like every other player, he probably didn’t want to lose his place in the starting lineup.

To prevent that, he had to prove himself.

CRACK!

While Kim Gyeong-man quietly watched, Yoon Jae-jun swung.

“Is it going? Is it going? It’s gone!”

Along with the announcer’s excited shout, a three-run home run flew over the fence.

“Yoon Jae-jun hits his first professional home run in only his second game!”

“That swing path was extremely clean. It looks completely different from yesterday. It almost feels like he received some kind of special training...”

“The score is now 4–0! Last year’s last-place Oceans are rebelling against the defending champion Jaguars in the very first series of the season!”

“They’re different. I really think this year’s Oceans are different...”

Even Kim Gyeong-man had no choice but to admit it.

The Busan Oceans felt different starting this season.

The comments, however, refused to agree.

• Here they go again. The commentators are already overreacting. Spring-only first-place Loser Oceans.

• Weren’t they good around this time last year too? LOL.

• Seriously... I want to kill these commentators. They’re going to jinx the game again.

• I bet 500 won they lose after giving up the lead today.

• Why are these idiots getting more excited than the actual fans?

Ah, because of Gyeong-man, we’re not making the postseason again this year.

Negative comments quickly flooded the comment section.

There had always been an unwritten rule among Busan Oceans fans.

Whenever it looked like they might win...

Whenever it looked like they might reach the postseason...

Never get ahead of yourself and jinx it.

That was practically law.

But this game was different.

The Oceans won 8–4, securing their first opening-series win in five years.

I wasn’t the player of the game.

Three at-bats.

One hit.

One run scored.

After that first hit, for some reason, I couldn’t make good contact.

Well, days like this happened.

If I were always in perfect condition, I wouldn’t be human.

I’d be a robot.

Today’s player of the game was Yoon Jae-jun.

“You went three-for-three today. You even hit a home run in the first inning. People are already saying the Choi Seong–Yoon Jae-jun battery could become legendary.”

There were dark circles beneath Yoon Jae-jun’s eyes.

That was because I had trained him hard.

“It’s all thanks to Choi Seong. Without Choi Seong, I wouldn’t have been able to hit that home run today.”

It was a rather robotic answer, but the message was delivered clearly.

The players still remaining near the bench started chuckling when they heard him.

“Oh? Did he teach you some special secret?”

“Yes...”

Yoon Jae-jun’s eyes weren’t even focused on the announcer anymore.

He was staring somewhere far into the distance.

It hadn’t even been that hard today.

Why was he acting like this?

All I had done was make him keep batting until he could send the ball exactly where he wanted.

So that he could reliably produce runs.

Leaving the dazed Yoon Jae-jun behind, the remaining players also left the bench to shower.

Two straight wins.

Not bad.

[Oceans Win Two Straight... Hero Yoon Jae-jun: “It’s All Thanks to Choi Seong”]

[Is Choi Seong the Oceans’ New Savior? Yoon Jae-jun Says, “It Was Thanks to Choi Seong’s Training”]

[Oceans Secure First Series Win in Five Years... Will Korean Baseball Change This Year?]

• Does Yoon Jae-jun always say everything is thanks to Choi Seong?

• Isn’t that basically gaslighting?

• But Choi Seong is actually better than him, so there’s not much he can say.

• How are those guys this good right after turning pro?

The online communities were going crazy.

I quietly read through them before heading toward the showers.

After washing up and preparing to get on the team bus, I noticed a familiar face.

It was Kim Mu-won, looking completely discouraged.

His performance through the second game wasn’t bad.

Six at-bats.

Two hits.

Especially today, he had gotten two hits against Wright.

Still, he had been heavily criticized by the batting coach because he had gone into the game using the exact same batting stance he used in high school.

“I’ll probably be removed from the starting lineup tomorrow. But I’m not giving up.”

Kim Mu-won suddenly started venting to me.

In this damned country, players were expected to follow the coaching staff completely when it came to batting forms and pitching mechanics.

If the results were good, it was because of the coach.

If they were bad, it was the player’s fault.

Even I could tell this guy would be ruined if they changed his batting stance.

That was probably why he had become an irrelevant player who never remained in my memories.

The Olympics weren’t far away now.

Instead of the usual unmotivated national-team veterans who had already completed their military service, we needed fresh players like this.

I gave him one simple piece of advice.

It would probably help him quite a bit.

“Just do what you want. A rock in your pocket is going to stick out eventually anyway.”

I avoided calling him an unpolished gem because I still didn’t know how much potential he actually had.

Considering all the unpredictable things he kept doing around me, the nickname rock suited him better than gem.

“Do what I want...?”

“Yeah. Rock. In the end, a professional proves himself with results.”

Kim Mu-won was the Jaguars’ first-round pick in the first place.

Even if he openly protested and refused to change his batting form, the coaching staff would eventually give up and put him in the lineup.

Because he was a prospect, the coaches interfered with him more than anyone else.

Ironically, being a prospect also gave him that kind of advantage.

“With results...?”

“You’re still young, so maybe you don’t understand this yet. A high school manager who ruled his team like a king and a professional manager are completely different when it comes to judging players and dealing with them.”

I wasn’t insulting Saeum High’s Manager Park Seong-hyeon.

“Just prove it with your current batting form. Show them that this is the right one. So even if they leave you out of the starting lineup for a while, don’t sit around sulking. Keep hitting. You’ll probably be back in the starting rotation sometime next week.”

“Okay...”

Kim Mu-won’s eyes began to shine.

Was this what he had wanted to hear?

I couldn’t always give people the answer they wanted.

But right now, it was simple.

He needed to do things his own way.

No one understood the condition of his own body better than himself.

“Overcome it. If you don’t, this is where your career ends.”

I had guessed why Kim Mu-won had come looking for me.

And it seemed I had guessed correctly.

This was basically a counseling session.

“Yeah... I’ll make sure I win. Against our batting coach...”

I turned around without any hesitation.

Then Kim Mu-won suddenly shouted loudly behind me.

“I’ll beat you too! So wait for me!”

At those words, the Oceans players who were arriving late burst into laughter.

“Seriously? Didn’t that guy strike out twice against you yesterday?”

Gu Cheol-min, who had allowed one run in one inning today, asked me.

I thought to myself.

Please worry about yourself and pitch better.

Anyway, our game was over.

The fans who had stayed behind were singing Busan Seagulls together.

“Please keep this momentum going all the way to the championship!”

Manager Rodriguez raised a thumb at the fans’ request.

I was feeling tired, but I still signed autographs for them.

“This year will be different!”

When Manager Rodriguez said it in awkward Korean, the cheering became even louder.

Hmm... Getting ahead of ourselves usually means guaranteed failure...

And that ominous flag soon became reality.

After taking the opening series with two wins and one loss, the Busan Oceans went on the road against the Daegu Cats...

And lost two games in a row.

It was spring.