The 100,000 Throw-Downs

"So it wasn't a mistake."

When I'd first escaped the white space, the message telling me I'd completed the Tutorial had kept nagging at the back of my mind. Sure enough, my bad premonition hadn't been wrong.

"Is drinking alcohol the trigger?"

I'd only been pondering why I'd ended up here again for a moment before flopping down onto the floor.

"No. No way. I'm not doing it!"

Tutorials, generally speaking, hand you the easiest task they can manage. I knew better than anyone how much time filling ten million swings had already cost me. And now I was supposed to fill an even bigger number?

I had zero confidence I could endure it.

I'd only been shutting my eyes and retreating from reality for a moment before opening them to an unfamiliar ceiling. No—not unfamiliar. The familiar white ceiling stared back, unchanged as ever.

"......"

As I stared blankly at the options, something from a little while back drifted up through my memory. It must have been about a week before I attended that home party.

One day, Marcus had suggested trying something different.

"Kang!"

"Yes?"

"Aren't you sick of doing nothing but physical training?"

"I'm fine with it."

"Still, repeating nothing but conditioning kills your efficiency. You burn out fast, too."

He grinned wide, flashing his pearly whites.

"It's not my specialty, but I'd love to watch you play some defense. I've gotten curious how good a future big-league catcher actually is."

Of course, his smile didn't last long.

"Kang. Have you seriously done nothing but batting practice?"

"...I was planning to focus on defensive drills once I went back to Korea."

"You're a lot worse off than I expected."

I scratched my head, embarrassed. Ever since the intra-squad scrimmage, I'd known I needed defensive work—but I'd been so slammed I couldn't find the time. And no wonder, with Marcus wringing every last drop out of my body day after day. By the time training ended, I was trudging back to the hotel with my legs trembling. Where exactly was I supposed to find the strength for more drills?

Ignoring my reproachful look, he sank into thought.

"There's more than one or two things you need to fix. Your blocking's half-baked, and your framing is a total mess."

"KBO did introduce the ABS system, so......"

"And with skills like that, you're planning to catch a pitcher's stuff? Listen, Kang. Some pitchers lose confidence just from the sound of the ball landing quietly ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in the mitt."

Having lived through something similar myself, I had no choice but to nod along. Whether my disappointment disappointed him, Marcus spent a while rattling off scoldings.

"Now, sure—there are guys who make it to the big leagues on their bats alone despite shaky gloves. But that tanks your value, no way around it."

"I know."

"The most pressing thing right now, though, is your caught-stealing ability."

"Caught stealing?"

"You've got a cannon for an arm, fundamentally. You threw past a hundred meters in long-toss last time, remember?"

"Right."

"But even with that arm, no club's going to deploy you as a catcher. Your pop time takes too long."

"......"

"Doesn't matter how good your bat is—no team keeps a catcher who's a revolving door. They just ship you off to another position."

I knew this wasn't idle talk but advice meant for me, so I took every word to heart in silence.

"So ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠what should I do?"

"Believe me, I'd love to help, but catching isn't my field. I'd be talking out of turn."

"Hmm......"

"There is one thing I'm certain of, though."

He thumped his chest with a fist.

"Unlike hitting, defense never betrays your effort. That's a fact."

"......"

"You'll have to work hard on your defense once you're back in Korea."

"Why am I remembering that now?"

Shaking my head to clear away the distraction, I fixed my eyes on the options.

"...Which one do I pick?"

I wanted to deny reality, but if I wanted out of here, I'd have to do as I was told. I weighed which option I needed most right now.

Skip framing. I'll need it eventually, but with the ABS system in the KBO, it won't matter for a while.

Core and rehab? I don't even have a guess what they'd make me do.

Batting is obviously important, but I've done it to the point of exhaustion already.

The choices distilled down to two: blocking and caught stealing—the very areas Marcus had called out. I was about to pick blocking, the most fundamental duty of any catcher, when I hesitated.

"...I'll take caught stealing."

It wasn't purely because of Marcus's criticism. I'd managed to scrape by on blocking, but it was obvious my caught stealing fell short of the professional standard.

Most of all, it has to be fun.

I had no feel for how many repetitions I'd need, but I figured caught stealing would bore me less than rolling around in the dirt for blocking.

As if approving my choice, the letters on the wall shimmered and a new instruction appeared.

"......"

Not knowing how many numbers I'd have to fill, I strapped on the gear with a racing heart and came to a halt at home plate. The wall soon changed.

"A hundred thousand?"

Certain I'd misread the number for a second, I blinked twice. But the figure was still there, and I let out a whoop.

"Yes! Yes!"

Now, a hundred thousand was by no means a small number. If a coach in the real world gave this instruction, calling it punitive disciplinary work would be no exaggeration. But for someone who'd already been through ten million swings, it genuinely looked manageable by comparison.

Just like last time, an animation drawn in clean black lines appeared on the dugout wall. Catching the pitcher's delivery, the exchange of pulling the ball from the mitt. Footwork transitioning into the throwing posture. Then the ball, fired hard, dropping in front of second base.

This sequence—catcher receiving the pitch and gunning it down to second—is measured as the pop time. MLB catchers, on average, aim to keep it under two seconds.

Maybe I can knock this out fast?

I was being treated as a liability right now, but there was a time I'd made my living off defensive tools. I'd logged a 2.00-second pop time even before my body had fully matured, so I had my confidence.

As I settled in at home plate and extended my mitt, the pitching machine spat out a ball.

Thwack―

Tep.

I snatched at the ball and immediately shifted into throwing position—then froze. I'd failed to get the ball out of the mitt.

"Again."

Whish―

This time the throw went off cleanly, but the time flashing on the wall read 2.21 seconds.

"Again."

Whoosh―

I shaved it down to 2.01 seconds, but the throw sailed high, and an X mark bloomed on the wall. That was the moment it hit me.

...I picked wrong!

For this drill, the hundred-thousand count wasn't the point—landing inside 1.92 seconds was what mattered. And since an unstable receiving posture made wild throws all the more likely, this was fundamentally a test of soft hands.

"Ha. Figures."

As if this godforsaken space would ever show me the easy road.

After more than a hundred attempts, I'd finally managed one success, and I sank into contemplation.

"I need to change my approach."

If I kept grinding away this crudely, I'd hit the number eventually—but my technique and accuracy would suffer for it.

First, I build the feel.

The sequence of exchange, footwork, and throw I'd mentioned earlier had gone untouched for so long that none of it felt natural anymore. When that happens, there's only one fix: breaking the motion into parts and drilling the feel back in.

I gave up on the throw entirely and started with simply pulling the ball out after the catch. Lately my hands had known bats and barbells far better than baseballs, so the rough texture of the seams felt strangely foreign. Once gripping the ball came naturally again, I chained on the footwork.

"Catch and step. Catch and step."

Skipping the throw altogether, I drilled until the movements had settled into my body—then finally unloaded one to second.

Whish―

A one-hopper, 2.02 seconds. I'd failed to move the count, but my fist clenched tight anyway.

"Okay. I've got the feel now."

It was only late because of the bounce. A clean throw would have made the time.

From there I poured myself into refining the throw itself. I'd always been told my arm strength was a gift, so rather than obsessing over velocity, I focused on dropping the ball where a natural tag was possible.

Maybe my new approach wasn't wrong—the numbers climbed steadily. My success rate started out laughably low, but eventually climbed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠past forty percent.

"Shall we call it a day?"

The space had no concept of time, but to keep my routine intact I ran through my usual weight training before drifting off to sleep.

What followed was repetition, and nothing but repetition. Just as a pitcher finds his command by throwing thousands upon thousands of pitches, the throws kept coming until the feel was mine.

"...So defense really is something you can only learn by doing a ton of it, huh?"

As I diligently stacked up the count and settled into a rhythm, greed stirred for something more.

Can I shave off even more time?

Caught stealing, of course, isn't the catcher's burden alone. There are even statistics showing that throws succeed more often when the pitcher's delivery time plus the pop time stays inside 3.3 seconds. But it goes without saying that the faster a catcher's pop time, the better the odds. Having long since grown comfortable in the white space, I stopped contenting myself with filling the count and threw myself into genuine improvement.

Didn't Molina throw a 1.80 once?

I'd never gone back to watch the old-timers' games, but I'd certainly heard of Yadier Molina, the archetype of the defense-first catcher. My school coach used to bring him up constantly as someone I should model myself after.

As I chased a faster pop time, tension crept into my shoulder and my wild throws piled up. Even so, I kept my focus on cutting time rather than padding the count. There isn't a man in this world who loves baseball and doesn't care about records.

And so the numbers piled up, one on top of another, until the count crept past eighty thousand.

"Ha!"

I'd finally hit 1.81 seconds, and I couldn't keep the pride off my face. Was this what it felt like to finally believe in yourself as a catcher?

After that, I attacked the caught-stealing drill from every angle. I even practiced the sit-and-throw—the crown jewel of defensive catchers—and with the form now reasonably grooved, I was reliably coming in under 1.92 seconds.

Still, stepping into the throw is more efficient.

And when, after that countless stretch of drills, I finally completed the hundred-thousandth throw—

I sank into a heavy sleep.

When I opened my eyes, I could see the hotel room and my uncle getting ready to head out.

"You're up?"

"Uncle."

"Yeah?"

"I've been through way, way too much. I'm exhausted. Seriously."

"Nightmare or something? You were snoring up a storm—slept like a log."

"...Never mind. Forget it."

"What's with that reaction?"

He checked my complexion, his voice turning concerned.

"Something urgent's come up and I might have to fly to Korea...... Should I cancel?"

"No. I'm fine, Uncle. Really."

"You sure?"

Chuckling, he ruffled my hair and pulled out his tie.

"Another employee's covering for me this afternoon. There's not much time left before you head back to Korea anyway. Hang in there just a little longer."

"Okay."

After he left, I sat alone in the room, lost in thought.

It now seemed beyond doubt that the White Room was a training space built just for me. Granted, this caught-stealing grind had been brutal—but compared to the Tutorial, it almost felt considerate. My baseball skills had undeniably grown.

Still, stay careful.

There was no telling when another merciless mission like the Tutorial might come down. And alcohol—the apparent culprit—did an athlete no good anyway.

Four days left until I fly back?

Without my realizing it, more than a month had passed since I'd started training in the States. It was time to start getting ready to return to Korea. I needed a decent amount of rest before the season began, too.

February 14th.

Spring camp—the proving ground for rookies—was just around the corner.