The Angle Director and the Bulldog

The next day.

"Hyung."

"Yeah?"

"Pitcher-group drills are over that way, though?"

Even after stretching was done and the squad had broken off into position groups, Jung Woo-young kept trailing after me like a duckling that had imprinted on the wrong mother.

"Mmm. See you later, then."

"Yes, sir."

At the sight of him trudging off with a face full of lingering regret, the other seniors burst out laughing.

"Kang Hyuk's already playing the big brother, huh?"

"Well, the one who made the first team first, or the one who's better at baseball — one of them's the hyung, right?"

"Then everyone here ought to be calling Kang Hyuk 'hyung,' shouldn't they?"

"……"

I waved both hands in protest.

"It's just because we trained together yesterday, that's all."

Truthfully, I understood exactly how Woo-young felt. This was his first taste of the first-team stage, and everything around it was strange and new. Sticking close to the one familiar face was the most natural instinct in the world — I'd done the same thing myself, shadowing Jin-mo or trailing after Hyun-woo hyung back when I first came up.

Still, it feels pretty good, not gonna lie.

I made a quiet resolve to take good care of every first-timer who came up after this.

Before long, it was time for defensive drills, and I — a catcher — joined up with the pitchers' group.

"Well, heyy~ Our Hyuk's here!"

"Yes, Coach."

Hm?

Something about the way the pitchers were looking at me was different from usual. Puzzled, I glanced around — and spotted the pitching coach, face lit up with excitement, spinning tales like a war veteran recounting old glory.

"So Kang Hyuk walks up and goes, right there — 'You need to narrow your shoulder angle.' And the very next instant, like magic, Wooyoung's slider comes alive! It rides in there looking like a fastball, then snaps off like a snake—"

Unbelievable, this guy.

Was he seriously painting me as some coaching savant? My face burned hot for a good while — and then the other players closed in around me.

"The Angle Director has arrived."

"Angle... Director?"

"You're the one who told Wooyoung to narrow his shoulder angle, aren't you? Congratulations — you're our honorary coach now. We're all calling you the Angle Director from here on."

"……"

I gave up on defending myself. Every face around me was already brimming with that particular mischief reserved for teasing the youngest member of the team.

"Hyuk, look, look. This is my slider grip, see? What should I be doing from here?"

"You're a soft-tosser — what's the point of fixing anything? Look at my grip instead."

"Get lost. A soft-tosser's got to master his breaking balls, that's the whole point!"

There was Kwon Jae-hyuk, bickering away with the others. A thought flickered through me — Kim Hyun-woo hyung, a living textbook of a pitcher, was standing right there, and this was what they wanted to do?

But I understood their hearts almost immediately.

They're grabbing at any straw they can find.

Where among professional athletes is there a single man who doesn't want to play baseball well? If there's even a sliver of a way to get better, any player would claw at it with everything he had. They were only wrapping it in jokes so I wouldn't feel crushed under the weight of it.

The real pity was that my knowledge of actual pitching was thin. I'd hammered my physical tools into shape in the White Room and absorbed theory by sneaking glances at the Driveline Baseball Center — that was the whole of it. Coaching Woo-young yesterday had been the product of a little instinct and a great deal of luck.

"I'm telling you, I really don't know! I'm off to put on my gear."

"Wha—!? Angle Director, don't go!"

"So it's true? You peeked at him and fixed Wooyoung's slider just like that?"

"Just one look at this grip before you leave, come on!"

Dodging through the crowd of seniors swarming me like a pack of reporters, I headed for the training ground.

Kang Min-jun's mood could not possibly have been better.

The Hawks, the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠team he cheered for, had climbed all the way into sole possession of fourth place. He'd even succeeded in building a little secret slush fund behind his wife's back. And above all — his son had won the monthly MVP! What kind of father wouldn't be walking on air?

But a baseball fan was a baseball fan, and so he rose and fell with every single pitch, helpless to do otherwise.

"No! How do you drop that!"

Min-jun slammed his palm down on the desk at the missed play.

Then the Grizzlies punched a single back up the middle, and the deficit stretched to three runs.

But Min-jun couldn't raise his spirits, because he already knew exactly how the picture would develop.

"So now they walk Kang Hyuk and go after Adam. Adam grounds into a double play or flies out, and there it is."

Thwack―

Min-jun let out a long sigh at the scene unfolding exactly as foretold.

"At this point, my expectations for Yoon Jun-seo have completely vani—"

Craaack―!

"That's it! I believed in you the whole time, Jun-seo! Come on — if not you and Kang Hyuk, who's supposed to carry this team?"

As if he'd never cursed the man's name in his life, Min-jun snatched up his Yoon Jun-seo marking uniform and waved it proudly in front of the camera.

Jung Woo-young's first appearance came sooner than anyone expected.

Under normal circumstances, asking a rookie call-up to protect a one-run lead would be unthinkable. But the chase crew had already been used the day before, and the pitching coach had lobbied the manager hard for the kid.

Before taking the mound, Woo-young and I talked it over.

"We're going to run the game off your fastball. That's the plan."

"Mm."

"The slider's great, obviously — but it comes out of a slightly different slot than your fastball, so I'd rather we save it for now."

"Mm."

Maybe it was the weight of a debut, but he just nodded along obediently to everything I said.

Is he nervous?

He seemed different from the pitchers I was used to, and a flicker of worry crossed my mind.

That worry turned out to be entirely wasted.

"Strike!"

Whether it was the full warm-up in the bullpen or simply nerve, he opened with 152 kilometers per hour. The batter at the plate wore his shock plainly.

"Hey, catcher."

"Yes, sir?"

"Tell your pitcher to take something off."

"Understood."

I called for the fastball again — I could see the batter couldn't catch up to the heat.

"Strike!"

Another high heater, and the batter swung clean through it.

Time for the changeup—

It was the textbook count for an off-speed pitch, so I flashed the sign for one diving away and down. But Woo-young shook his head and signaled for a fastball in the zone instead.

Whish―

Pop!

"Strike three! Out!"

The pattern held through the next at-bat, too. Beneath that docile, puppy-like exterior, the man was pitching with ferocious aggression. Backed into an 0-2 count, the batter barely managed to foul off one fastball.

A slider clipping the bottom of the zone.

He checked my sign, then went into his windup without a moment's hesitation.

Whish―

Pop!

"Strike three! Out!"

The kid can really pitch.

I'd braced myself for debut jitters, but he was throwing as if the mitt were the only thing in the world — utterly indifferent to the batter at the plate. Granted, anyone can look brave against the six-seven-eight holes of a lineup, but still.

The sheer gall of it was something to behold.

The highlight of the inning came against the next hitter. Unlike the first two, I called for the slider three times in a row. Whether the batter had caught on that Woo-young favored attacking the zone or not, he kept firing his bat around — and never touched the ball.

"Strike three! Out!"

The moment the inning ended, Woo-young came sprinting off the mound straight at me.

"Well? That slider was nasty, right?"

"It was good. It just flat-out died right in front of the plate — even I would've been fooled."

"Hee hee."

Seen like this, he was practically an adorable puppy. But the moment he had a baseball in his hand, the way he hammered the strike zone over and over — relentless, clamping down and never letting go — called to mind something else entirely. A bulldog.

We're probably not coming back this inning, huh?

Now it was the Hawks' turn to send up the bottom of the order, and I wasn't expecting much. What came next stopped me cold.

Craaack―!

After Kim Hyeong-jun worked a walk, Shin Jaemin — the shortstop himself — had launched a two-run home run.

This was a man so devoid of extra-base power that fans had taken to calling him a pure defense-only player. Everyone in the dugout sat frozen in disbelief.

"When was the last time Jaemin hit a home run?"

"Three years ago, sir."

"Pretty sure that's his first homer in our park, too?"

"Should we all just pretend we didn't see it?"

Nine years into his professional career, career home run number three — Shin Jaemin came bounding back to the dugout, glowing from ear to ear.

"Did you see it? Did you SEE it?"

"……"

We gave him the silent treatment — the kind usually reserved for rookies. Sensing the mood, Jaemin shuffled to his seat with an awkward expression, and after a long stretch of no reaction from any of us, he finally spoke up, his voice thick with hurt.

"You're really not going to congratulate me?"

I was the first to move.

"Congratulations on the home run!"

"Attaboy, Hyuk. Our youngest really is the only decent one here."

Then the rest of the squad piled on him too, ruffling his hair from every direction.

"Congrats on career dinger number three. Saying it like that, it almost sounds like you broke a record."

"We don't have to wait another three years for the next one, right?"

"Hold this lead and let's take the comeback win!"

The dugout was warm and rowdy as a family dinner. Watching it all with a fond smile, the manager evidently decided the game still needed closing out — and deployed the Pilseungjo, the sure-win bullpen trio that had been resting until now.

A rookie reliever striking out three on just ten pitches. A shortstop batting in the low .200s launching the go-ahead home run.

Baseball. I really will never understand you.