Pop Time
Manager Eom Tae-hoon turned to the coach running the measurements.
"What was the time?"
"1.88 seconds."
"Not bad."
He signaled for Kang Hyuk to throw again.
Throwing out base stealers was all about the quality of the throw, which was why even veteran catchers tended to show a wide spread in their recorded times.
Could've been a lucky one.
As if to laugh off the manager's doubts, another laser shot slammed into second base. The ball dropped down low enough for a natural tag, reminding him of his own playing days, back when he'd been called a defensive catcher in his prime.
"1.82 seconds."
Against all expectations, the time had actually gotten shorter.
"Whoa. That arm's for real."
"It's not just the arm. There's zero wasted motion in his mechanics. His footwork and his release happen at exactly the same time."
"Choi Dong-hyuk better be nervous."
They must have been genuinely stunned — coaches heaping praise on a rookie right in front of him.
Even after that, Kang Hyuk kept clocking pop times under 1.90 seconds, until Manager Eom finally called it there.
"Well, I'll be damned. Kid's something else."
Of course, the KBO hadn't been entirely without catchers who threw out runners well. It was simply that watching a rookie who'd barely shed his high school label deliver a performance like this was astonishing in itself.
The general manager didn't draft him in the first round for nothing.
Back when Kang Hyuk was doing nothing but blocking drills, he'd had his doubts about whether the kid was really worth a first-overall pick. But now he looked good enough to slot straight in as a backup on any team thin at the catcher position.
In the old days, plenty of people swore by invisible metrics — framing, pitch-calling, things like that. But ever since sabermetrics had arrived, the consensus was that a catcher's defensive game-calling had minimal impact anyway.
Now I'm curious about his bat.
"Jin-mo! Come over here."
"You called, sir?"
"What do you think of the kid?"
"He's good."
"Right?"
"What was I even doing at his age again?"
Manager Eom chuckled at Park Jin-mo's theatrical sighing. For all his grumbling, Jin-mo had been a highly touted catcher from his own rookie days — he'd stepped onto the first-team stage as a backup catcher in his very first season, after all.
Still, there was no denying that Kang Hyuk's tools left a deep impression.
"What are the doctors saying?"
"Same old, same old. Take care of the knee. Don't squat so much."
The manager nodded.
Last season, Park Jin-mo had played as the starting catcher, but he wasn't a young man anymore. His knee periodically filled with fluid, which meant his playing time needed careful management. The original plan had been to use Choi Dong-hyuk as the backup and let Kang Hyuk rack up experience in the minors — but if the kid tightened up his blocking and hit respectably, letting the two battle it out for the backup job didn't seem like a bad idea at all.
"Jin-mo."
"Yes?"
"Want to take that kid under your wing?"
Truth be told, he would have loved to keep watching the kid himself, but the pitchers had been promised to the bench coach, which meant he had to step away. Park Jin-mo nodded as if the request needed no explanation.
"Nobody understands catchers better than another catcher. Just leave him to me."
"You've got my trust?"
"I'll make sure the kid earns his keep."
Being the first day of spring camp, the pitchers had kept things to light warm-up pitching. The younger arms did push themselves a bit harder, eager to catch the coaches' eyes, but all in all it was a gentle start.
Thwip—
"Chan-gyu, you're muscling up that shoulder too much."
"Mm-hmm."
The pitcher I was working with right now was Kim Chan-gyu. And standing next to me was someone wearing a rather burdensome expression…
"Just now, when you caught the ball — you caught it on the edge of the mitt. Am I right?"
"…Yes, sir."
"The sound was off, I'm telling you. We need to make that popping sound echo across the whole practice field. You need to work on catching the ball dead center in the pocket."
"Understood."
Senior catcher Park Jin-mo, who had handed off the catching duties on account of his bad knee, had been pecking away at me from the sidelines this entire time.
"You're the reason the pitcher's tensing up his shoulder, you know. You can't catch the ball properly."
That's because YOU'RE standing here breathing down my neck!
The words climbed all the way up my throat, but I bit them back. And in the middle of it all, a familiar voice cut in.
"Why are you picking on our Hyuk?"
"I'm not picking on him, I'm teaching him."
"Oh, is that so? Coming from you, of all people."
It was Kim Hyun-woo, the team's captain. The two had been battery partners for so long that they were apparently quite close.
"Mind if I throw a few?"
"Of course, go ahead!"
The moment Kim Hyun-woo asked his permission, Kim Chan-gyu scurried out of the way. Apparently standing next to a senior was more than a little uncomfortable.
Hyun-woo settled into position, rubbed up the rosin bag, and began to pitch. Nothing close to full effort — the velocity wasn't there — but every ball landed precisely where I asked for it.
"Wow…"
The awe slipped out of me before I could stop it. I'd worked with plenty of pitchers by now, Yoon Tae-yang included, but pitchers who could hit exactly the spot I called for were few and far between. Yet true to his reputation for living on the edges of the zone, every ball Kim Hyun-woo threw seemed to get sucked straight into my mitt.
Jin-mo, who had been watching in silence, finally spoke up.
"Hey. Hyun-woo."
"Yeah?"
"If you paint it like that, the kid can't train. Throw it dirty, would you?"
"You think?"
"Excuse me, sunbaes… aren't we supposed to be training your pitching, not mine?"
Park Jin-mo waved off my puzzled protest like it was nothing.
"Do you know how many years Hyun-woo's been at this? He's just checking his form. It means nothing."
"Fair enough. So — no more talking pitch types, I just throw them?"
And with that, Kim Hyun-woo started pitching with no signs whatsoever of what was coming.
Whoosh—
The reason wild pitches are rare in a normal battery is simple: the catcher knows the pitch type and location in advance. Without that knowledge, the catcher might as well be a hitter standing in the box.
And Kim Hyun-woo's breaking balls, even without velocity, dropped hard — an absolute nightmare to handle. Thanks to that, I spent the entire session rolling around in the dirt while Jin-mo watched my struggles with perfect serenity.
"Ooh. That blocking was good."
"Hah… hah… what the hell was that pitch?"
"Slider. Stay focused. Here it comes."
By the time the pitching session that had started this way finally wound down, my entire body — wedged between the two veterans — was caked head to toe in dirt.
"Hmm…"
Hitting practice time. Watching the batters take their toss drills, Manager Eom Tae-hoon felt a familiar frustration welling up.
We've got way too few guys with real pop.
The Hawks being mocked as a "vegetable lineup" was nothing new, but the number of players who could actually drive the ball deep into the outfield was pitifully small. Take away the foreign bats and maybe one or two players even registered.
Do I need to change the plan?
His philosophy had always been defense first, hitting second — but this was a different story. No matter how good the Hawks' starting rotation was, you couldn't win games without scoring runs.
He was in the middle of seriously debating whether to abandon his own principles when he spotted the catchers, who had joined batting practice late after helping with the pitchers' session. Among them, he walked over to Kang Hyuk, who was absolutely plastered in dirt and sweat.
"The catchers didn't do their running today, did they? What, did you stop by a jungle on the way?"
"…I worked hard, sir."
"Did you now?"
What kind of manager would complain about a rookie putting in honest work? Eyeing him with satisfaction, the manager ordered the catchers to take their turns in the toss drills as well.
"Hitting coach!"
"Yes, Manager."
"We're revising the plan."
"How so?"
"Trim the defensive session a little and add more hitting work."
So the manager scrambled to adjust the training schedule with the coaching staff —
CRACK—!
— and his head snapped toward the sound of one clean line drive after another ringing off the bat.
Park Jin-mo, that rascal. Looks like he actually got himself into shape over the winter.
Assuming the batter had to be the veteran catcher, he turned to check the face — and froze.
CRACK—!
There stood Kang Hyuk, teeth clenched, locked in on every swing. Apparently he wasn't the only one who'd noticed — one by one, the other players had paused their own hitting to watch.
CRACK—!
Coaches tossing batting practice didn't put much behind the ball, so driving it deep wasn't easy — and yet the vast majority of Kang Hyuk's swings sent the ball sailing toward the outfield wall.
"…Not bad."
More than anything, what caught the manager's eye was the direction of the batted balls. Line drives spraying to left, right, and center without preference — proof that the kid could go the opposite way and pull with equal authority.
He glanced around and took stock of the players watching Kang Hyuk's session. The established starters, whose positions didn't overlap with his, wore expressions of intrigue. But on the faces of Choi Dong-hyuk and the players at positions without a settled starter, plain alarm was written.
Kang Hyuk seemed to sense the sudden hush that had fallen over the practice field. He stopped mid-swing, looking flustered.
The manager called someone over.
"Jin-mo!"
"Yes~ sir?"
"What do you think of the kid?"
He pointed at Kang Hyuk with a jerk of his chin.
"Kid's got the makings. I could enjoy watching him grow."
"In what way?"
"He whiffed on a few, sure, but he got a piece of everything Hyun-woo threw. And the kid's got fire in him."
"Is that so?"
He stroked his chin for a long moment, thinking, then met Park Jin-mo's eyes.
"You want to sit out the intrasquad game?"
"Come on, I stopped caring about that stuff ages ago."
"Right, of course you did."
Televised exhibition games were one thing, but when it came to intrasquad games, the manager's heart was set on giving promising young players their chance.
"So we'll consider you out of the intrasquad, then… You haven't found a roommate yet, have you?"
"Ah — come on, for a roommate I'd still prefer somebody quick on his feet…"
"Hmmm!"
"…Fine. Understood."