A Thumbs-Up for Respect
Turning back the clock, several days before the game.
Han Jiseong, scrolling through the sports news, had sunk deep into thought.
Why does the media only obsess over Kang Hyuk?
He was off to a blazing start of his own, so why did the spotlight keep swinging toward Kang Hyuk? Why was it Kang Hyuk, and not him, being anointed the frontrunner for Rookie of the Year?
After chewing it over at length, he arrived at a single conclusion and confided it to the team's catcher.
"And why exactly do you think that, sunbae?"
"Huh? Well... because Kang Hyuk's playing really well?"
"No. This is a tilted playing field, I'm telling you."
He, the starting pitcher, took the mound once every five days. Didn't hitters get to play every single game? Of course the difference in exposure meant a difference in media attention. It was simple arithmetic.
"Well? What do you think of my razor-sharp deduction?"
"That's insane. Pitchers and hitters play a different number of games. That's just how it works."
"Hmm. So even you were a helpless catcher once, sunbae."
Han Jiseong nodded as if in perfect understanding.
Hadn't some catcher famously said it before? Pitchers are aristocrats, catchers are beggars. It sounded plausible at first blush, but on reflection, wasn't that line itself a frame job cooked up by catchers?
It's to keep competitors from flooding into the honey pot.
You could call it a catchers' guild of sorts. Even Kang Hyuk was enjoying the benefits right now — getting all the media love merely for posting good hitting numbers for a catcher.
And then, as he mulled over how to surge ahead in the Rookie of the Year race, a thought flashed through his mind like a spark.
What if I just crushed him head-on?
The public attention pouring onto Kang Hyuk would come flooding back to him instead. With his perfect plan in hand, Jiseong nodded solemnly to himself.
"Just you wait. Kang Hyuk."
"……."
Watching Han Jiseong drift off into his private world, the Kingdoms catcher shook his head slowly from side to side.
Another one's gone off the deep end.
Was there something inherently wrong with the position of pitcher? Or did broken people just gravitate toward pitching? Every single pitcher he'd caught for had been missing at least one screw.
At first he'd tried to make sense of it — the loneliness of standing alone on the mound, the crushing weight of being the ace — offering up excuse after excuse for their mental fragility. Eventually, he'd simply given up.
But what could you do?
Part of why catchers commanded such high salaries relative to other positions was the grueling defense, sure. But the other part was babysitting pitchers like these. You just had to roll with it.
Time flowed on, and game day arrived.
After a ten-pitch duel ended in a walk, Han Jiseong recalibrated.
Beggars it is.
Having realized he couldn't beat Kang Hyuk straight up, he'd promptly folded — fouling off pitch after pitch, dragging the at-bat out in the filthiest way imaginable. So the whole "catchers are beggars" thing hadn't been a lie after all.
Still, it's a draw.
Walks didn't count against your batting average. You could call it a stalemate, more or less.
But just as he was straining to keep his composure, his brow furrowed.
Wasn't Kang Hyuk, over at the plate, raising a thumb in his direction?
For a moment he thought the catcher might be signaling to his own dugout, and glanced back — no, that wasn't it. Kang Hyuk was staring directly at him.
The equilibrium he'd barely managed to hold onto wavered in an instant.
What is with this guy?
He nearly kicked off the mound and marched straight over, but just barely kept his feet planted. Kang Hyuk's split forearms and dense, powerful lower half filled his vision.
I'm the pitcher here. I can be the bigger man.
This was absolutely not fear. Getting rattled by an opponent's provocation was something only second-rate players did. Besides, come to think of it, wasn't that face far too bright and guileless to read as trash talk?
He'd seen Jiseong's fastball and genuinely admired it — that was the interpretation he settled on, and honestly, it didn't feel bad at all.
Next time...
Next time, Jiseong resolved, he'd strike the guy out and raise the thumbs-up himself.
Kwon Jae-hyuk, who had been sailing along smoothly through three innings, ran into trouble in the top of the fourth.
Ta-kak—!
A base hit dropping in front of the center fielder! The runner from second is coming home!
That last one — the circle changeup's timing was read completely.
The score is 1-0! The Kingdoms strike first. And this inning is far from over!
One out, with runners stranded on first and second. A big crooked number would surprise no one here.
I visited the mound to try to stem the tide.
Unlike his bullpen sessions, Jae-hyuk sunbae stood there with a sullen scowl on his face.
"Sunbae. You okay?"
"I'm fine."
"Do you have a plan in mind?"
"Hmm... I'll get ahead with the two-seam, then induce a double play with the changeup."
"Isn't a two-seam risky at this juncture?"
It was the pitch I'd taught him, but the two-seam had clear weaknesses. Its structure made extra-base hits unlikely, yet a hitter who sat on it and swung short could easily punch out a single.
"It's fine. No way he's expecting a two-seam after I walked out here. Nobody thinks that."
"And if you get hit hard...?"
"Then that's on our hitters for not scoring runs. How is that my fault?"
"……."
Should I call that bold, or just shamelessly thick-skinned? Still, there was no denying that an ego like that served a starting pitcher well.
"Then let's do it this way instead."
"Do what?"
"Use the two-seam as your putaway pitch."
It wasn't polished enough that he threw it often, but sunbae could throw a two-seam when it counted. And odds were the opposing hitter had every other pitch on his mind right now.
Sunbae nodded, evidently pleased with the idea.
Then came the next two pitches.
Our plan worked exactly as drawn up.
Ta-kak—!
The fooled hitter grounds it straight at the shortstop... OUT! The Hawks turn the 4-6-3 double play!
Haha. Snatching that strike with the two-seam paid off. With the count buried in his favor, the hitter had no choice but to let the bat fly.
The next inning, the Hawks' offense got rolling, starting from the two-hole.
Apart from my walk, the Hawks hadn't managed a single baserunner all day.
Shedding my catcher's gear, I headed straight for the on-deck circle.
Watching Han Jiseong pitch from the batter's box, a thought drifted through my mind.
Same fifth-starter role, but their styles couldn't be more different.
If you asked me which pitcher was tougher to face, Han Jiseong won hands down. His raw stuff was better, and his delivery was solid too. But perhaps because of his inexperience, he had a tendency to overpower hitters with pure force rather than disrupting their timing.
Jae-hyuk sunbae, on the other hand, threw slow — but he pitched through games by varying his tempo, pulling hitters in and slowing them down.
Which just proves how much experience matters.
Give Han Jiseong a few more years, and that elite stuff of his would come married to real game management. Some people claim talent is everything in baseball, but experience carries more weight than they'd ever admit.
Just like my own training in the White Room.
Ta-kak—
Seo Ji-hoon sunbae, leading off, had gone down on a flyout.
I stepped into the batter's box.
Going to pitch around me?
As if to laugh at the very thought, the opposing pitcher hammered his very first pitch right into the zone.
At the sight of him burning a hole through me with those eyes, I couldn't help but smile.
Just watch out for the changeup.
I'd already made him throw ten pitches last at-bat and read his entire pitch trajectory. All I had to do was sit on the slider — his most likely putaway pitch.
Ta-ang—!
Count of 3-1 — and the hitter connects! The ball caroms off the wall! A double, and with that Kang Hyuk reaches base multiple times in today's game!
Truly remarkable. The more you watch this kid play, the more you realize — for a rookie, he's exceptional at working the count and winning battles.
Settled safely at second base, I peeled off my batting gear and locked eyes with the pitcher — then raised my thumb.
"Great battle."
Before long, the game had reached the bottom of the sixth.
The Hawks led 3-1, but Han Jiseong's grip had weakened, and he was starting to let runners aboard.
One out, runner on first.
Worse — the man stepping to the plate now was Kang Hyuk.
The Kingdoms' manager hauled himself up from the bench.
"Let's just skip past Kang Hyuk."
"……."
"The lineup's turned over three times already. He's seen plenty of your stuff. He's reached base twice already, too."
But Jiseong shook his head.
Walking him intentionally here — wouldn't that look like running away? And if so, the Rookie of the Year race would only slip further from his grasp.
And more than anything...
He still hadn't struck Kang Hyuk out and fired off his tee-bagging — no, his thumbs-up.
A "great battle"? Please.
A walk was one thing, but hadn't last at-bat just been a pitch lucky enough to get slapped for a hit?
Somewhere along the way, the only thought left in Jiseong's head, game after game, was the desperate urge to be the one giving Kang Hyuk the thumbs-up.
At the sight of his pitcher digging in his heels, the catcher sighed.
"Give up any more runs and the manager's coming out here. Throw with your head."
"Yes, sir."
And with that, his sunbae was gone, and Jiseong stood alone on the mound.
Facing Kang Hyuk for real, the task stretched out before him, vast and formless.
Breaking ball? He keeps laying off balls... Inside was the double last time...
High against a hitter with that kind of power was an invitation to extra bases. But painting the outside corner felt like surrendering, and his pride wouldn't have it.
"……."
After getting cut foul so many times, every square inch of the strike zone felt like forbidden territory — was it just his imagination?
He kept shaking off his catcher's signs, until he suddenly realized the pitch clock was running down and scrambled to get set.
And in the instant he released the ball, hesitation still clinging to his motion —
Jiseong knew.
It leaked.
And the hitter did not miss a mistake.
Ta-aaang—!
The ball rocketed off the bat with a clean, thunderous crack.
Jiseong didn't even watch it fly.
It was plainly, blindingly obvious that this one was gone.
Head bowed, staring blankly at the dirt beneath his feet, he soon heard the groans of the home crowd give way to the roaring cheers of the visiting fans.
It just keeps carrying and carrying! The pitcher has his head down, and this ball... it clears the fence by a mile!
Haha. Yes, it was a misfire — but Kang Hyuk's refusal to let the moment slip is every bit as impressive. That's a home run measured at over 130 meters!
A two-run blast to tie the game off the bat of Kang Hyuk! And this game is NOT over yet!
"Good work out there."
"I'm sorry......"
Watching Han Jiseong receive the ball with a hangdog expression, the Kingdoms manager thought to himself:
Maybe I should have just made him pitch around the guy.
Play this sport long enough, and you were bound to run into the occasional natural disaster of a player. He'd told himself that taking the loss here would be a valuable lesson.
Apparently the opposing hitter was even better than he'd estimated.
Daejeon Hawks survive a blood-and-guts extra-inning war to take the win. Player of the Game: Kang Hyuk, author of the game-tying homer.
Kang Hyuk goes 3-for-4 with a walk, a home run, and an RBI across five plate appearances. Declared the runaway winner in his Rookie of the Year duel with Han Jiseong......
Season home run No. 9 for Kang Hyuk — a monstrous blast measured at 130 meters that landed beyond the fence entirely. Batter of the Month incoming!?
Asked why he raised a thumbs-up instead of a celebration, Kang Hyuk said: "I wanted to show my respect for the opposing pitcher."
Han Jiseong exits the ballpark with a stone face. "A game I learned a lot from."... He stayed silent when asked if he wanted a rematch with Kang Hyuk.