The Draft, the White Room, and a Father's Broadcast
Summer was drawing to a close, and September was bringing autumn with it.
This was the season when baseball fans' fortunes diverged sharply. Fans of teams that had clinched a playoff berth raised their glasses in celebration, while fans of teams that had missed the fall classic poured out their grievances against their clubs.
Kang Min-jun, an accountant by trade and a baseball YouTuber by passion, turned on his broadcast as he did every day.
<The Daejeon Hawks. Is This Really Okay?>
"Seriously. Be honest — four straight years of 9th, 10th, 10th, and 10th place? Isn't that going too far?"
Min-jun's stream, proudly billed as a Hawks home-bias broadcast, drew viewers from rival teams too — apparently thanks to his entertaining reactions.
Midway through reading the chat, he pulled a face like a man who'd just washed his face with no water.
"The thing's such a disaster, I honestly don't know where they should start shoring it up."
Kang Min-jun's face brightened as he scanned the comments.
"Exactly. The front office needed a good flush-out."
Opinions among fans were split on the Hawks' way of running things. The owners' family — the parent company's founding clan — was famous for its flashy temperament. They spent freely and generously. But once they put their faith in someone, they kept backing him to the end, which was why some grumbled that the same failures kept repeating.
"Everybody calm down, please."
When the denunciation of the club began to boil over, Min-jun made a gesture for restraint.
"Anyway, with a new GM coming in, the parent company will probably loosen the purse strings a little. What do you all think — where should they reinforce first?"
...
When the draft came up, Kang Min-jun fell silent.
Because, after all, they were talking about his own son.
Ordinarily, he would have enthusiastically endorsed the argument that the team needed to sign a catcher through free agency. But before he was a fan, he was a parent. No father welcomes the thought of his son facing a fiercer battle for a starting job.
"Well, I just hope the new GM leads the team well."
With the morning broadcast fizzling out, Min-jun stepped out into the living room — and found his son standing there.
"Son. You're up?"
"Father."
But the boy's reaction was anything but ordinary. Ever since he'd hit adolescence, he hadn't so much as played catch with his old man — and now he was suddenly throwing his arms around him in a crushing bear hug?
"You rascal..."
Min-jun figured the shock of being drafted by the Hawks must have hit him harder than expected, and silently patted his son on the back. In the same moment, a question sprang to mind.
Was his back always this broad?
Min-jun tilted his head, puzzled.
Stepping out of the White Room, was it just his mood that made the whole world look beautiful?
Food, in particular — eaten after so long — was a work of art in itself. Lacking an appetite and refusing to eat were two entirely separate matters. Since his time in the White Room, he had come to appreciate anew just how essential the act of taking in food was to a human being.
"One more bowl, please."
"...Is it really that good?"
"Yes."
Watching him savor the same old breakfast menu as if it were a delicacy, his father wore an unmistakably puzzled expression. Staring hard at him as he ate, the old man finally spoke.
"Come to think of it, you've gotten bigger, haven't you? Or am I imagining it?"
"...Must be your imagination."
He found himself instinctively hunching in on himself. However close a family might be, there are secrets you simply cannot tell. Imagine recounting everything that had happened in the White Room? It wouldn't have been strange at all to be hauled straight into a psychiatrist's office.
Frankly, I don't even believe it myself, so there you go.
The first time he'd risen from that bed, he'd wondered if it was all a dream. But the countless torn micro-muscles aching from head to toe, and the calluses settling into his palms, insisted otherwise. Mercifully, his muscles hadn't grown conspicuously larger.
Maybe because I skipped meals?
His father seemed content to let it slide.
"I did some digging. Once you've been drafted, moving to another club is basically off the table, apparently. In the old days you could go to the college league or somewhere else, but under the current rules it's not so easy..."
The complaint he'd grumbled over drinks had evidently been nagging at him, because his father had gone and researched all sorts of things.
"It's fine."
"Yeah?"
"Yes. I've decided not to worry about which team I'm on anymore."
After all, what had been the original reason he'd wanted a strong team? A simple greed — the desire for systematic training during the years when a player grows the most. But for someone who had trained to the point of nausea in the White Room, it hardly mattered anymore. When he answered so casually, his father apparently took it for renewed resolve, because his expression brightened.
"Right. The Hawks are a good team, you know. In their heyday, that is — they were quite the force back then. Sure, the century's turned since. When your dad was young..."
Beaming, his father launched into stories of the Hawks' unified championship era. He watched the man with a quiet smile.
By all means, go on. What's a silly game of ball ever mattered?
Wasn't the real priority savoring an ordinary everyday life like this, together, right now?
After breakfast, he headed for school.
So this is what Descartes meant. I think, therefore I am.
Ordinarily, he kept his distance from books. Since the weekend league system had been introduced, baseball club members had been required to attend class — but how many of them actually focused on their studies? For him too, face-down asleep on his desk during lessons had been the daily routine.
But was it because of his time in the White Room? Textbooks he wouldn't have glanced at before now struck him as genuinely interesting. His teacher, perhaps taken aback by the change, approached him.
"Well, I'll be. Kang Hyuk!"
"Yes?"
"What's gotten into you — staying awake through class of all things?"
"Haha..."
With a mountain of past sins to his name, all he could do was manage an awkward smile.
So it was that, having marveled at his own intellectual appetite, he arrived at the after-school hours. As he briskly made his way toward the training grounds, a tanned young man wearing glasses entered his field of view.
"Why..."
"Hm?"
"Why did YOU end up with the Hawks?!"
His classmate closed in slowly, then seized him by the collar, his face twisted with bottled-up frustration.
"You didn't even want to go to the Hawks!"
Maybe it was from being locked away in the White Room for so long. After raking through his memories for a while, he barely managed to recall the bespectacled boy's name.
Ah.
His name was Yoon Tae-yang.
He was the ace pitcher of their school, rated as one of the prospects expected to carry Korean baseball's next generation. A Daejeon native through and through, the boy was a fanatical Hawks supporter — and when the Hawks called Kang Hyuk's name with the first pick, he had been scooped up second overall by the Marines.
"I loved them first. You never even watched their games. I've been dreaming of playing for the Hawks since I was a little kid. I even own Kim Hyun-woo merchandise..."
Still gripping his collar, the boy muttered on to himself. He could understand the feeling perfectly, so he gently took hold of Tae-yang's wrist to loosen his grip.
"Whaddya want. Came all this way, didn't I."
"Why are you suddenly speaking in Busan dialect? Are you mocking me for going to the Marines?"
"I got picked by a last-place team too — why on earth would I mock you? Anyway, let go of my collar first, and let's talk like—"
"AAAH! AAAH!"
"Oops. Sorry. I've been having trouble dialing in my strength lately."
He'd meant to grip gently, but all that weight training in the White Room must have taken its toll — he'd failed at the calibration.
Tae-yang stared at him with eyes gone perfectly round.
"Were you always this strong?"
"Catchers are born with strength, you know. It's in the job description."
Brushing it off with vague nonchalance, he soothed Tae-yang along and headed for the training grounds.
I'll train a little, then head home.
This season had been a resounding success for the Bomun High School baseball club. Not only had they won the Golden Lion, the national championship tournament — they had produced two first-rounders and a second-rounder in the draft, a genuinely remarkable haul.
But where there is light, shadow is sure to follow.
Watching his players train, the manager of Bomun High spoke quietly.
"The professional world is merciless."
Only about ten percent of draft-eligible players were actually selected in the KBO draft. Naturally, that meant players who went undrafted existed — and they had to quit the game, or head to the college or independent leagues and wait for another chance.
The manager let out a long sigh.
"In that sense, it really is cruel."
Being drafted did not mean joining the pro club right away. They had to keep training with the high school club until graduation — which meant the drafted players and the undrafted players ended up sweating side by side on the same field. A genuinely strange spectacle, and the mood between the two groups couldn't have been starker.
The pitching coach, who had been listening to the manager's laments beside him, finally spoke up.
"But you gave it your all, didn't you?"
"Hm."
"You won the title while managing a bare-bones budget and rationing the kids' pitch counts on top of it."
"That I did."
Nodding, the manager clenched his fist.
"Coach Kim."
"Yes, Manager."
"Times like these are exactly when we need to keep the boys grounded."
There were always a few kids who let themselves slack off — whether they'd just been drafted or simply because the season had ended. But the draft was merely the starting line. It was no exaggeration to say the real game began only after they joined a professional club.
"Kids who get lazy with their training now will never amount to greatness."
"Agreed."
"Coach Kim, keep an eye out too. If you see anyone cutting corners out there, light a fire under them."
"Yes, sir."
Making his rounds of the training grounds and coaching his players, the manager came upon Kang Hyuk and stopped in his tracks.
"Hmm..."
The boy was taking batting practice against the pitching machine's timing, and the quality of his contact was startling. Coach Kim, watching from the side, must have felt the same, because exclamations kept spilling out of him.
"The launch angle and exit velocity are no joke, sir!"
"Was Kang Hyuk's swing always like that?"
"Right? Should we correct it now while we still can?"
The manager shook his head. He'd wondered at first whether getting drafted first overall had put too much tension into the boy's body — but Kang Hyuk's swing mechanics were as flawlessly consistent as a machine's.
And wasn't this a kid who would be playing professional ball starting next year? From here on out, it was out of their hands.
"How long has he been training?"
"The boys say about two hours."
"The rest of them should be taking notes."
Truly, first overall was not a title just anyone could carry.
If the other kids could only follow half his example, I'd be thrilled.
Results like that were only possible because of the effort and sweat poured in behind the scenes. Lately kids did nothing but carp with envy, the manager muttered, clicking his tongue.
After watching in silence for a long while, he handed Kang Hyuk a towel as the boy finished up.
"You're doing well. Just don't overdo it."
"I'm sorry?"
"A player's career is a marathon, son. Burn too hot too early, and burnout will come for you in the end."
"...I'm sorry?"
Kang Hyuk blinked, bewildered.
I literally just came out here to loosen up and swung maybe a thousand times?
For someone who had done nothing more than a light warm-up, it was a strange piece of advice to receive.