The Jackpot Left Off the Lineup
The Daejeon Phoenix Soar Out of Okinawa!
Daejeon Phoenix Cruise to a Comfortable Win over the Chunichi Dragons' Farm Team!
"Late-Blooming Rookie" Do Kang-hyun Homers in Three Straight At-Bats against a Top Chunichi Dragons Prospect!
Phoenix's New Foreign Arm, Luis Cardoso, Sends Expectations Soaring with Four Flawless Scoreless Innings!
The Daejeon Phoenix Open Their First Exhibition of the 2026 Season in Style! Next Up: the Yomiuri Giants' Farm Team!
Once the Daejeon Phoenix's first exhibition result hit the papers, the hottest name in them could only be Do Kang-hyun. Home runs in three straight at-bats was a monstrous showing, and the Phoenix faithful were in a literal fever, their expectations launching skyward. A few voices called the judgment far too hasty, but those words never so much as reached a Phoenix fan's ear.
Unlike the Phoenix fans roaring that the Do Kang-hyun ticket had hit the jackpot, Titans fans could do nothing but curse their front office. Yang Joo-il had set that ticket in their hands, and they'd let it go over an ugly little haggle on the price. Their stomachs were bound to burn.
Of course, all of it had come from a single exhibition, so to fans of other clubs watching from a step removed, it was nothing short of comedy. The levelheaded judgment was the right one—that you'd have to see at least the preseason through before you could take the true measure of Do Kang-hyun.
"Who drags experience into it when you're bringing in a rookie? A rookie is pure expectation! He's an unlisted stock, nothing else!"
Lee Seok-jun of Daeil Sports scrolled through the posts on the domestic fan boards, the corner of his mouth twisting up. The fans hadn't been able to see the game for themselves, but Lee Seok-jun had watched it from the stands, and he was certain. Do Kang-hyun's stock was going up. And not by a little. He'd been handed that certainty yesterday—the certainty that it was going to soar.
"If Kentaro Yoshida went out of his way to praise him, that says everything. You know how cold and particular that man is."
He'd heard it through his contacts in Japan. Kentaro Yoshida, hitting coach of the Chunichi Dragons, had singled Do Kang-hyun out and spared none of his praise. This was the same Kentaro Yoshida who had coolly appraised even Yuichi Matsumoto, Japan's best hitter the season before, so for a moment Lee Seok-jun wondered if he'd misheard. But it was true.
And as the story spread quietly from ear to ear, a considerable crowd of reporters and club officials had claimed seats for today's exhibition between the Daejeon Phoenix and the Yomiuri Giants' farm team.
"The good stuff's better when you get to enjoy it alone."
It was a shame he couldn't keep the pleasure to himself, but what could he do? Lee Seok-jun simply waited for the Phoenix's starting lineup. He waited in high spirits, and in time the lineups for the Daejeon Phoenix and the Yomiuri Giants' farm team were posted.
"......What?"
It wasn't there. The name he had been waiting for—Do Kang-hyun—was nowhere on the starting lineup.
"Is he coming off the bench today?"
Do Kang-hyun had taken three at-bats in the previous exhibition, so by the very purpose of camp—spreading the chances evenly among the other players—the manager's choice was only natural. He understood the decision. What he couldn't help regretting was that the trouble so many officials had taken, coming all this way to see a Do Kang-hyun running white-hot, had just been wasted.
"If he's a sub, will he even get one at-bat?"
The thought that he might see only a single plate appearance left Lee Seok-jun oddly deflated. The other reporters and club officials who had come to the ballpark felt the same. All around, it was easy to spot people lamenting Do Kang-hyun's absence, or venting their displeasure outright.
"Anyway, he'll come up for at least one at-bat."
Lee Seok-jun typed both teams' starting lineups onto his laptop and waited for the game to begin.
"......You've got to be kidding me. What are they doing?"
The game was over. The Daejeon Phoenix, who had beaten the Chunichi Dragons' farm team by a fairly comfortable margin, were beaten cleanly by a Yomiuri Giants farm club of roughly equal strength. The final score was 12–5. Taken on its own, the result was exactly the Phoenix so many experts had projected.
But the win and the loss weren't what mattered. Left off the starting lineup, Do Kang-hyun never even came to the plate as a substitute. Thanks to that, the faces of the reporters and officials from various clubs who had deliberately made time to be there couldn't have been colder.
"Ah, damn it. Total waste of time!"
"I came all this way to see with my own eyes how well he hits, and Manager Lee Man-jae pulls this."
"And there's nothing else on the Phoenix worth watching, is there?"
"Jake Barnett still has to wear a question mark, honestly. At least for now."
Listening to the reporters around him, Lee Seok-jun hurriedly finished his piece. Once it was uploaded, he packed the laptop and stood. He headed for the dugout, where the Daejeon Phoenix players were clearing out.
"Choi Woo-sung!"
As luck would have it, he caught sight of Choi Woo-sung, a face he knew, and called out to him.
"......What is it?"
Choi Woo-sung answered with his annoyance written all over him. Lee Seok-jun understood well enough why the man was in a particularly prickly mood.
Two strikeouts and a ground ball for a hitless day, and on defense he'd misread his positioning and let a catchable ball get through. No way he was in a good mood.
On top of that, this was the final year of his contract with the Phoenix, so even an exhibition was enough to put Choi Woo-sung on edge. Even so, thick-skinned reporter that he was, Lee Seok-jun asked without a shred of shame.
"Why didn't Do Kang-hyun play?"
Beating around the bush clearly wasn't going to get him a useful answer, so he asked it straight. Sure enough, the moment the question turned to a player fighting him for the same position, Choi Woo-sung's face twisted even more savagely.
"How the fuck should I know?"
With the curse, Choi Woo-sung made it plain he had no interest in answering further and disappeared into the dugout.
"Still a nasty piece of work. Oh! Baek Young-joon! Baek Young-joon! Over here!"
"Wh-who?"
"Lee Seok-jun, Daeil Sports! There's something I'd like to ask—do you have a moment?"
Baek Young-joon snuck a glance toward the dugout, then gave a small nod.
"Do Kang-hyun didn't come out today. Any idea why?"
"Senior Kang-hyun?"
"Yes! From the last game, you two seemed close. Is he hurt somewhere? Or was he held out today over some internal issue?"
"I don't really..."
"If you know anything, tell me. It stays with me."
Lee Seok-jun worked his tongue for all it was worth, trying to pry open the mouth of the innocent-looking Baek Young-joon.
"I was told you called for me."
"Yeah. Sit there."
Do Kang-hyun sat where Manager Lee Man-jae had pointed.
"How's the body?"
"Good."
"You've come a long way from the first time we met, I'll give you that. I like seeing you work hard and stay at it."
"Thank you."
"You'll learn this once you've lived it, but a season in the pros is one long war of stamina. Even the guys who talk big about their conditioning start wheezing and dragging around the field once you get past the middle. Happens all the time."
"That's the part I've been worrying about most, actually. I'm getting ready so it won't get in the way."
"So stamina's all you're worried about? Not how you'll actually play?"
"Pardon?"
Manager Lee Man-jae let out a short laugh, as if he were only teasing. Even to Do Kang-hyun, the manager's manner had turned incomparably warmer than at their first meeting. He'd thought they'd built plenty of goodwill and trust at the Arizona camp, but since yesterday's exhibition against the Chunichi Dragons' farm team, he could feel the look directed at him had grown another degree warmer.
"Got a call from the GM this morning."
When Manager Lee Man-jae brought up the general manager out of nowhere, Do Kang-hyun listened with a calm, sharply focused face. Even in his office years, when a superior called him in and started on something that seemed to come from nowhere, long experience had taught him it always tied back to him in the end.
At the complete lack of any stir on Do Kang-hyun's face, Manager Lee Man-jae let a smile gather at the corners of his eyes, as if that steadiness, too, was something he could trust.
"He asked me what I'd think of keeping you hidden. As much as we can."
"Me?"
"Arizona was the same, and yesterday's game too—it all goes up to the GM in a detailed report. Anyway, on the strength of everything so far, his faith in your ability has set firm. And he figures that cutting down how often you're seen helps you and the team both."
Do Kang-hyun understood at once. Instead of answering, he simply looked at Manager Lee Man-jae. He knew that what mattered here wasn't laying out his own thoughts, but how Lee Man-jae, the manager, was thinking.
"Honestly, the GM's idea isn't an easy one to swallow. Out on the field, nothing matters more than experience. Especially for a rookie—you take every at-bat you can, play every extra inning of defense you can, and that's how the experience stacks up. Meaningful plays in real games come out of that."
It was true, and Do Kang-hyun nodded to show he agreed. There is a saying that no teacher is better than the real thing. However much you train, and however long, the experience a live game gives you can never be matched by practice.
"But this time, I'm of a mind to go along with the GM. I talked it over with the coaches, and you'd have to call it unanimous. Not one of them felt any need to force you into the exhibitions. You know what that means?"
"It's more praise than I deserve. I'm a little thrown."
"That's all?"
"Pardon?"
"I'm asking if you don't want to play even one more game."
And if he did, would the manager actually allow it?
Do Kang-hyun could find the answer on Lee Man-jae's face. The GM, and the manager and the coaches with him, had gathered their intentions into one. However hard a player threw a tantrum, a decision already made for the good of the club did not look easy to overturn.
The GM wanted Do Kang-hyun locked away tight, then unveiled in a blaze. Kang-hyun could sympathize completely—the wish to show everyone that his choice had been the right one, after all the blame and the criticism, the mockery and the dismissal, that he'd had no choice but to endure for signing a thirty-three-year-old late-blooming rookie.
"If you're uneasy, I can start you in tomorrow's exhibition. Right now."
If he lacked the ability, or a firm confidence in himself, he could have seized Manager Lee Man-jae's offer with both hands. But Do Kang-hyun was short on neither ability nor confidence, and above all he was no green kid to be dragged into a mind game by a sly old snake like Lee Man-jae.
At Do Kang-hyun's answer, the light in Manager Lee Man-jae's eyes changed. Meeting that look head-on—a look that seemed to say well, look at this one—Do Kang-hyun thought he was going to have to redraw the Okinawa camp schedule.
It had been a closed-door talk between Manager Lee Man-jae and Do Kang-hyun, held the day before the exhibition against the Yomiuri Giants' farm team.