Guests from Seattle
Days passed as they always did, a steady rhythm of training and games. Then one afternoon, my phone rang — my agent, Uncle Sungho.
“Hyuk, it's me.”
“Yes, Uncle.”
“How've you been? I never hear a word from you, you know that?”
“Ahaha……”
I scratched my head in embarrassment. Plenty of players spend their evenings after games catching up with friends and family on the phone, but with my training routine packed in every single day, there simply wasn't any slack left in my schedule to make calls.
...Though is that really an excuse, or just the truth?
“Well, seeing how many calls keep coming in from other places, I can tell you're doing well enough.”
“From other places?”
“Yeah.”
According to him, companies had been calling fairly often lately, wanting me as an advertising model. “Mostly athletic gear and sports drinks,” he said. “But the money they're offering is too low, or they'd just be burning through your image. I've been turning them down. I'll let you know when something good comes along.”
“Understood.”
“Actually, that's not why I called.”
It didn't take him long to get to the point. “You remember Marcus and Simon from Drive Baseball? They mentioned wanting to visit Korea sometime.”
“Oh! Yes.”
“They've got some free time on their hands now, and they want to come over and have some fun. Is your schedule okay?”
“Of course!”
My voice pitched upward without my even noticing, riding on the warmth of it. The White Room deserved the most credit for my string of outstanding performances, but the time I'd spent at Drive Baseball had mattered too. It was where the hitting mechanics I'd drilled into my body in that room finally took shape as theory, where I learned systematic training curricula, the broader philosophy of baseball, full-body measurement protocols. A place that had taught me a great deal.
“By the way, how are they getting here? Who's covering the costs?” Our arrangement, after all, had been made on the condition that they could share my physical data for research — but they'd helped me so much already that I couldn't stomach making them spend their own money.
Uncle answered with a cheerful laugh. “The Hawks front office says they'll cover it. These days, once the club hears your name attached to something, most things get a free pass.”
“That's convenient. So when exactly are they arriving?”
“This coming weekend. And wouldn't you know it, it lines up with the road series in Jamsil. You can meet them there.”
“Sounds good.”
Shame I won't get to show them Daejeon.
I couldn't quite hide my disappointment. Lately there was a running joke online that branded Daejeon the “No-Jam City” — the boring city — and I didn't buy it for a second. Daejeon had Sungsimdang bakery... it had Sungsimdang bakery... and it had the Daejeon Expo, after all.
Though I wonder if foreigners would even know who Kkumdoli is.
Whatever anyone said, no city was better to live in. But with our schedule landing squarely on a Seoul road trip, introducing them to Daejeon would just have to wait for another time.
“Hey! Kang!”
“Marcus! Simon! It's been way too long.”
I broke into a bright smile at the familiar faces and pulled them into a hug. True to his trainer's instincts, Marcus went straight for my lower traps and lats, giving them an appraising squeeze.
“Haha. Looks like somebody hasn't been slacking on his lifting.”
“You're the one who taught me. Of course not.”
I asked how things were going back home. “Isn't the baseball center slammed right now? How did you two even manage to get away?”
“Off-season's when we're busiest. Mid-season like this is actually the slow stretch. So we had the time to spare.”
As we caught up, Uncle, who had driven the two of them in from the airport, spoke up. “How about we get some food first?”
“What are you two in the mood for?”
“They said since they came all the way to Korea, they want to check out Myeongdong first. Namsan Tower after that, apparently.”
“That's the classic foreigner tourist route, isn't it?”
At that, Simon's mouth puckered into a pout. “None of that matters. I want to analyze Kang's physical data already...”
“Hey, Simon. You flew all this way and you're going to talk about work? We're here to sightsee!”
So Simon was itching to get his hands on my body data, and Marcus had clearly come down with a bad case of tourist fever. I hurried to play peacemaker.
“We can collect data anytime — when we've got hours to spare. Why don't we look around first?”
And so it was decided: a stroll through the streets of Myeongdong. Like any tourist hotspot, the prices were enough to make my eyes bulge.
Everything costs at least one and a half times what it does anywhere else.
We were wandering along when —
“Hm?”
My footsteps stopped in front of a street stall.
Baseball Toss Game
It worked like darts at balloons, except you threw baseballs at a structure set up on a table. A woman had come up ahead of me and was mid-game, or rather, the man who appeared to be her father was — hurling ball after ball with no command to speak of, and the structure refused to budge.
thock—
“Ahh, so close! Better luck next time!”
“Hng......”
While the stall owner beamed, the little girl who wouldn't be taking home the prize doll was on the verge of tears. Watching her, I raised my hand.
“Can I give it a try?”
“Of course, of course! Five thousand won a game!”
The man explained the rules with a gleam in his eye. He had no idea who I was, apparently. For someone who threw every single day in training, this level of difficulty was about as challenging as eating a meal lying down.
whoosh—
CRACK!
The structure exploded apart on the first throw. The stall owner's face froze solid.
“H-huh. You've got quite an arm there.”
“So I can claim the doll, then?”
“Yes. I suppose I have to......”
I collected the biggest prize doll on the rack and handed it to the little lady who'd been about to cry.
“Here you go.”
“Wow...!”
“Soyoung, what do you say? Thank the— huh?”
The girl's father had looked up at my face head-on and gone stiff. He'd recognized me, it seemed.
“You're... Kang Hyuk, aren't you? The player?”
“Ah. Yes.”
“It's a real honor.”
“Are you a Hawks fan, by any chance?”
“No, actually, we're Metros fans, but......” He glanced at his daughter, still hugging the doll in delight, and smiled. “I suppose as of today we'll have to be Hawks fans too.”
“Haha. You don't have to force yourselves on my account.”
I ruffled the girl's hair and stood to leave. Apparently that little scene had struck a chord, because Marcus was beside himself.
“Hey, Kang! Can I throw some too?”
“Of course, boss! We'll take another game!”
The stall owner's face went dead serious. “Customers who've won once cannot re-challenge.”
“It's not for me, it's for my friend here——”
“Accompanying parties are also barred.”
...Ending it in one throw must have been murder on his revenue.
After lunch — a whole chicken split between us — we ambled through the neighborhood until Marcus's gaze snagged on something.
“They have batting cages in places like this?”
A batting practice facility sitting right in the middle of downtown seemed to fascinate him, and he marched straight through the door. “Fair warning,” I said, “it's nothing like a professional pitching machine.”
“Oho.”
The man simply could not walk past anything baseball-related — pure born-and-bred baseball guy, through and through.
“Watch this, will ya?”
With machine pitches as slow as these, Marcus — who'd played ball all the way through high school — strung hits together without breaking a sweat. He'd driven more than half of them where fielders couldn't reach, and he came strolling back positively buzzing.
“See that?”
“Whoa! You've still got it!”
“Your turn, Kang.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. Hitting right-handed would be boring — we both know what you can do. How about left-handed?”
“Batting lefty? Sure, why not.”
I rolled up my sleeves and took some practice swings before stepping in.
It's been a while since I hit from the left side.
Up through middle school, I'd sometimes step into the box as a left-handed batter. Back then, lacking power and refined hitting technique, batting from the side closer to first base gave me a real edge in beating out throws.
But once my strength started coming in during high school, I'd largely settled into hitting right-handed rather than switching back and forth as a true switch hitter.
“Ready when you are.”
I fed a bill into the machine and swung in time with the pitches. Crack—
At first I produced nothing but grounders and pop-ups, but as the minutes passed and my feel returned, I began squaring balls up dead center.
CRACK—!
“Wow......”
The sound was anything but ordinary, and onlookers started gathering one by one.
“Let's head out.”
The moment a few of them raised their phones to film, our group slipped away in a hurry.
“Hey, Kang.”
“Yes?”
“Were you a switch hitter all along?”
“No? I've only hit right-handed since high school.”
“Really? Because for someone who 'stopped,' that was way too good.”
He seemed to have some long-held romance about switch hitters, because Marcus kept at it — suggesting I try practicing from the left side for real.
“Why are you putting silly ideas in the head of a player who's doing just fine as is?” Simon cut in sharply, and Marcus deflated on the spot. Watching that big, boisterous frame crumple, I couldn't help laughing.
“Shall we head back, then, and take a look at my body?”
With the tour wrapped up, we returned to our lodging, got the front desk's cooperation, and made use of the facility's equipment. Sensors strapped on, the testing began, and I took the chance to ask Simon about what had been on my mind lately.
“I've been starting every single game. Is there any part of my body at risk of breaking down?”
“Hmm... have you had an MRI done recently?”
“Yes. They said nothing looked wrong.”
“I can't give you a definitive answer without our full equipment, but if the scans came back clean, you're probably fine.”
I let out a breath of relief. I was riding a wave of great numbers and momentum, but any athlete is one bad step away from a sudden injury.
Reviewing a handful of metrics, Simon let out a low whistle of admiration. “Your body astonishes me every time I see it, Kang.”
“What is it this time?”
“Your endurance and everything else are impressive, sure, but your left-right balance is perfect. How is this possible? Even a slight spinal curve is the norm — most people have something. It's hard to believe you're a baseball player who repeats the same motions thousands upon thousands of times.”
“That's a good thing, right?”
“Absolutely.”
Simon stressed that only by preserving that left-right symmetry could I keep my injury risk down. Listening quietly, Marcus threw out a question from left field.
“Then could he become a switch hitter? If his left-right balance is that good?” Apparently my left-handed swings at the batting cage had been stuck in his head all afternoon.
“A switch hitter?”
Simon fell into serious thought. “It's possible, sure... but why bother? He's doing great from the right side as it is.”
“Maybe he'd do even better? You've got the Cal Raleigh precedent, don't you?”
Cal Raleigh, now on the verge of retirement, had made history in 2025: sixty home runs as a catcher, a feat no one had ever accomplished. Only three players in MLB history — Babe Ruth, Roger Maris, and Aaron Judge — had hit sixty without performance-enhancing drugs, which made the record staggering on its own terms. Factor in that catchers contribute enormously on defense while burning through stamina like no other position, that Raleigh's home ballpark was pitcher-friendly T-Mobile Park, and that he was a switch hitter — a rarity in the league — and what he'd done could only be called legendary.
I was still puzzling over why Marcus kept fixating on switch hitting when an old conversation with him surfaced in my memory.
“Ah — you're a Seattle Mariners fan, right, Marcus?”
“Yeah. Lately I've been cheering for the team just to watch Cal Raleigh play. And now his retirement's right around the corner.”
So he's been seeing glimpses of Cal Raleigh in me. That explained the obsession.
But where Marcus was a hopeless romantic, Simon — a man who worshipped data — gave a skeptical answer. “Granted, with Kang's physical balance, he'd probably get good from the left side if he trained at it long enough. But he'd need a long time to get comfortable, and the efficiency relative to the effort just isn't there.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. Cal Raleigh grew up swinging from both sides. Kang didn't.”
Actually, I did play as a switch hitter when I was a kid, I almost said — and swallowed it back. It would've sounded like I was making a scene over nothing.
“What if, hypothetically,” I said instead.
“Hmm?”
“Not that it would happen. But just imagine... if I had plenty of spare time? Would playing as a switch hitter actually be worth it?”
“I wouldn't recommend it... but would it have an effect? Yes, probably. The left-handed batter's matchup is objectively more favorable than the right-handed one. In fact, plenty of players in MLB are right-handed throwers who bat lefty.”
“Hmm......”
Maybe I'll run a little test.
Simon had said the time-to-payoff ratio was poor. But then, didn't I happen to have a White Room with all the time in the world?
For the rest of the body measurements that day, one image kept playing in the back of my mind: a beer, sitting in the corner of a fridge.