Welcome to the KBO
The Daejeon Hawks were holding their own intrasquad game at spring training. On the mound, their foreign pitcher Romero found himself lost in thought.
He had spent most of his career bouncing between Double-A and Triple-A, though for a brief stretch his name had actually appeared on a Major League 40-man roster.
And that was when he learned the truth.
'Ah. I'm not talented enough to play in the Majors.'
Seven years in the minors, all spent chasing a spot in the big leagues — and the wall called MLB had been endlessly high. Pitching in long relief, he'd posted an ERA in the sixes, and before long he'd been sent back down to the minors with no way back up.
Even after hitting that ceiling, he'd been stuck in limbo — baseball was the only thing he knew how to do. While he agonized over his future, his agent floated the idea of playing in another league.
Pitching on foreign soil wasn't exactly an easy choice, but Romero chose Korea just to keep playing the game he loved. The language barrier made communication a struggle, sure, but the salary was respectable and the organization looked after his comfort, so his family seemed satisfied.
'It really is as good as they said.'
The caliber of the players, though, was another matter entirely.
In the minor leagues, nearly every player spent the entire off-season getting into playing shape for a shot at the big club. The Hawks' hitters, by contrast, looked like they'd spent the whole winter resting on their laurels — they were utterly helpless against his 95 mph (153 km/h) fastball.
'They told me this league was a mix of Single-A and Triple-A talent, didn't they?'
Thanks to that, he'd thrown two scoreless innings and was off to a smooth start. Maybe he'd adapt here even faster than he'd expected, he thought, his confidence swelling — and that was exactly when a baby-faced batter stepped into the box.
'That's... a lot of muscle?'
The kid's build was reminiscent of the sluggers he'd seen come up through the minors. Unlike the hitters before him, this one had clearly put real work into his body — and for just a moment, Romero felt a flicker of unease. But with zero scouting information on this batter, all he could do was trust his catcher's pitch calling.
'First pitch. Fastball, inside.'
Romero checked the PitchCom signal, nodded, and unloaded with everything he had.
"Hup!"
He'd been mowing down the previous batters and his confidence was riding high. The instant the ball left his hand, instinct told him this was the best pitch he'd thrown all day.
'Got him!'
But the crack of the bat that reached his ears sounded nothing like he'd expected.
BANG—!
The ball rocketed toward the outfield at a terrifying speed. Anyone could see it was a monster home run, easily clearing 130 meters.
Romero stood there watching it sail away in a daze, and then his eyes drifted back to the batter.
Completely nonchalant, the kid flipped his bat.
If this had been MLB, that was a violation of the unwritten rules — he'd have thrown his cap on the ground and started a scene on the spot. But his agent had once told him that in the KBO, bat flips weren't just tolerated, they were practically encouraged. So he swallowed his anger.
"Shit."
They did say all East Asians looked young for their age.
It was his own fault for letting that baby face fool him.
'Did I take him too lightly?'
A bitter smile crept across Romero's shell-shocked face. The batter rounding the bases seemed to be saying something to him.
Welcome to the KBO.
Ever since I started visiting the White Room, if you'd asked me which pitch I had the most confidence in, my answer would have been the fastball, without hesitation.
I could aim for a breaking ball and adjust my swing to hit a fastball, but the reverse was impossible — if I guessed breaking ball and got a heater, there was no reacting in time.
My benchmark had always been calibrated to the fastball, ever since I had to conquer a pitching machine that threw everything from 80 km/h slop to 160 km/h smoke. As it happened, I'd been sitting on a first-pitch fastball, so teeing off on a foreign pitcher's offer wasn't especially difficult.
The problem came after I flipped the bat — that was when I thought, oops.
I didn't usually go in for that kind of showmanship, but with so many people watching, the moment must have swept me up.
'...I should've held back a little.'
There was a decent chance I'd be sharing a battery with the pitcher I'd just homered off, and rookies really shouldn't be putting on a show like that. So I jogged the bases in a haze of self-reproach — and contrary to all my expectations, the veterans in the dugout were there banging their helmets to welcome me back.
"There he is. Our cleanup hitter."
"Hey, it was one at-bat. Don't get ahead of yourself."
"No, seriously — even his muscles are different. Look at this arm!"
At one senior's words, a crowd of players swarmed around me, prodding and squeezing my forearms and lats.
"Gotta watch ourselves around this kid. Act all senior on him and he'll beat us to death."
"No, sir. I would never dare lay a hand on seniors as venerable as you—"
"Strength and good baseball make the senior, kid. You rich too, by any chance?"
Relieved that nobody seemed to care much about the bat flip, I let out a long breath.
'I owe Romero an apology later, though.'
Once I sat down and my excitement settled, things I hadn't noticed before began to come into focus. The ones offering me heartfelt congratulations were established starters — players whose spots in the lineup were rock solid.
The non-starters, on the other hand, either gave vague, noncommittal responses or watched me with eyes edged in wariness.
'I need to be careful from here on out.'
With seniors like Kim Hyun-woo around, and so many genuinely warm people lately, I'd almost forgotten — this was the professional world. Fall behind in the competition here, and you were cast out. That was the cold reality of it.
'First things first: make the first-team roster.'
I renewed my resolve, turned my focus back to the game, and settled in.
The weather hadn't fully warmed yet, so the actual chill in Okinawa was still biting. But after my home run, the stadium atmosphere had caught fire.
Perhaps riding that same energy, trouble arrived in the top of the third — we put a runner on base. A ground ball chugged toward third at an awkward speed, and the runner, sprinting at full tilt, barely beat the throw.
But a veteran is a veteran. Kim Hyun-woo acted as if nothing had happened at all, tapping his glove and calling out to steady the fielders.
"It's fine. We're fine."
And so the order came back around. Leadoff hitter Lee Won-taek stepped into the box.
"You lied to me earlier, you know?"
"Haha..."
"After the game, you and me. We'll talk."
Having delivered his threat, he settled in, locked onto Kim Hyun-woo's quickening delivery, and focused on his swing.
"Strike!"
A fastball painted on the outer corner had given us the favorable count. I sent the ball back to the pitcher and kept an eye on the runner at first.
'His eyes don't look right.'
Normally, starters at spring training avoided pushing themselves on the basepaths — sprint at full speed before your body's warmed up and injury risk spikes.
But the backup players, desperate for any way to catch the coaching staff's eye, were a different story. The manager had warned everyone to be careful about injuries, true — but nobody had said anything about not stealing.
One out, runner on first, 0-1 count.
I called for another pitch breaking away to the outside.
'This time, right at the edge of the zone — a ball's worth.'
Throwing a chase pitch to tempt the hitter once in a while wasn't a bad idea, and more than anything, I wanted to test the runner.
Kim Hyun-woo nodded and went into his windup — and the instant he did, the runner at first broke for second.
Lee Won-taek flailed his bat in a half-swing, trying to buy a little time, but...
THWAP—
I'd been ready, and I fired my step without hesitation. The throw zipped past Kim Hyun-woo — who ducked out of the ball's path — and streaked toward second.
It was exactly as it had been in the White Room, down to the millimeter. The ball, sucked into the glove of the second baseman covering the bag before the runner had even arrived.
The coach watching the play clenched his fist immediately.
"Out!"
The runner had gifted away an out for nothing. His glazed eyes found mine, and I gave him a polite little bow before settling back into position — just in time to catch the murmurs of amazement around the field.
"Does that kid do nothing but eat and throw out runners? What is that arm?"
"No kidding. A shoulder like that, they should've made him a pitcher. His high school coach dropped the ball there."
"Waste of a bat, though. Did you see that homer? That distance was insane."
"Fair point."
The inning didn't take much longer to close out. Lee Won-taek tried his best to cut foul, but working from an 0-2 count, there was only so much he could do.
Kim Hyun-woo came off the mound having tossed three scoreless innings, then ran his hand through my hair, ruffling it.
"So? Pitch calling's not so hard, is it?"
"All thanks to your guidance, sunbae."
"You might be better than Jin-mo, you know? Maybe I should ask the manager to make you my personal catcher."
"Come on, I don't even know when I'll get sent down to the second team."
"You won't be. Look over there."
He pointed toward the manager, sunglasses on.
"What about the manager?"
"He's chewing his gum slower."
"...?"
"When something bothers him, he chews faster. You can't read it in his eyes, but that play? He liked it."
"Oh, come on. No way."
"I'm telling you, it's real."
My senior grinned like he was congratulating me on becoming somebody's adopted son. I couldn't tell if he was joking or serious, so I headed back to the dugout wearing a suitably skeptical expression.
MLB Plaza — one of Korea's biggest baseball community sites.
It was mostly a dumping ground for anonymous trash posts, but every so often, baseball bloggers with actual expertise or even club insiders would publish there too. Among them, an account that mainly posted about the Hawks had put up a thread that started trending.
1. The foreign pitchers looked solid.
2. A healthy Kim Hyun-woo is still Kim Hyun-woo.
3. One very interesting new face showed up.
The Stove League was winding down, and the time had come for every club to turn its eyes toward the season ahead. Baseball fans' attention drifted, as it always did this time of year, toward the spring training exhibition games.