The Air Feels Different

The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Daejeon Phoenix scraped out a one-run win over the Suwon Techs in their final practice game, closed out every last day of spring training in Okinawa, and flew home on March 7. The camp that had begun in Arizona and ended in Okinawa had gone off without any real trouble. The squad took a single day of rest, then gathered again.

"You all know the exhibition schedule, right?"

"Yes, sir!"

The exhibitions running from the 14th through the 24th were set at ten games a team, fifty in all. How many clubs would actually play all ten, once rain and the rest of it got involved, was anyone's guess.

"You know what these games are for, so I won't bore you with the speech you've heard a hundred times. Think hard about what each of you needs to show out there, and play like it."

When Manager Lee Man-jae's short, blunt talk ended, the Phoenix were led off by their coaches and dropped straight into tune-up work for the exhibitions.

"Do Kang-hyun."

Kang-hyun had already started after the hitting coach. At the manager's call he turned and jogged over at once.

"You wanted me, sir?"

"Must've eaten at you in Okinawa, grinding nothing but conditioning by yourself."

"Not at all."

"Don't give me that. First exhibition opponent is Duonex. I'm starting you in center, batting third. Get everything you missed over there out of your system."

"Thank you."

Manager Lee gave his shoulder a light, encouraging pat.

Saturday, March 14, 2026.

A good crowd had come out to Daejeon Phoenix Park for the first exhibition game. Enough fans had shown up that it was almost a shame parts of the stands were still closed.

"Come on, let's actually be decent this time! Seven straight years fighting for last place—enough! I want to watch baseball in October!"

"Buddy. Phoenix baseball in October. Does that even make sense?"

"Of course it doesn't. Look around me—more people are wondering who'll finish dead last than who'll finish first."

"Heh heh heh. Well, scrubs beating the hell out of each other is always the best show."

"Why are you assholes talking shit before the season even starts? You're jinxing us—shut your mouths!"

Even the shout of a die-hard who had been backing the Phoenix for more than twenty years couldn't stop his friends from cackling and jawing about another last-place finish.

"This year's a wash too. At least through last year they brought in some semi-regular free agents, bubble or not. What've they got this time?"

"That's what I'm saying. Last year's roster plus three imports. That's the whole story."

"Still, at least they didn't piss money away. Watching them throw good money at guys who can't play makes my blood boil."

"True enough. But there's that one fella, isn't there?"

"Who?"

"You know—that Do Kang-hyun!"

"Him? He's way too old. Even kids fresh out of high school get worn down in the second half if they play every day. Thirty-two? Thirty-three? You think his body's gonna hold up?"

"Still, the talent's real, no? That article said he hit like three homers off the Chunichi farm team."

"Ah, come on. That was a practice game. When has a good Phoenix exhibition record ever meant a good regular season? And while we're on it, if you want exhibition records, look at the Titans. Those guys are championship favorites every single year. Am I right, or am I right?"

The middle-aged fathers kept up their cheerful autopsy of the Phoenix offseason, content that an exhibition was still just an exhibition.

"Are exhibition games always this packed?"

"These days, pretty much. Used to be most of them were free. Now they charge."

"Oh, really? And once the exhibitions are over, the league starts right away?"

"They take a few days off, then the season starts for real. Opening Day this year is the twenty-eighth."

"So are we coming to Opening Day too?"

"Doubt we'll get tickets."

"Baseball's that popular?"

"That's why players are worth over ten billion won. Jeong Hae-woon, the guy who just signed with the Gwangju Thunders—six years, sixteen billion as a free agent."

"Whoa! Sixteen billion? You love baseball so much, you should've been a player. What a waste!"

"......"

The boyfriend, struck dumb by his clueless girlfriend, was watching his own face curdle when the exhibition finally got underway. As the home team, the Phoenix came out to take the field, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a portion of the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠crowd met them with applause and cheers.

"Just the lineup I figured—huh? Do Kang-hyun's starting?"

Phoenix fans studied the man standing in center with every kind of expression. Of everyone signed over the winter, his résumé was the strangest, and the question hung over him: was he actually any good, or just a flash of popularity riding an internet-broadcast push, a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠bubble and nothing more? Caught between all that hope and all that doubt, Kang-hyun kept his face blank, rolling his shoulders and loosening his ankles as if he were afraid the nerves might lock his body up.

"His body's better than it looked on those streams, though."

"I was thinking the same thing. I mean, if he was really just some ordinary guy, even a sucker franchise like the Phoenix wouldn't have signed him."

"Fair point."

Fans who had no idea how hard Kang-hyun had worked these past few months to build that body simply assumed he had always been put together that way. They knew the pro game wasn't kind. Without at least that baseline physicality, no one stepped onto a professional field at the late age of thirty-three.

"Clay Bryan—he was a big leaguer, right?"

"He's got some big-league time, but not a ton. Most of his career was in the minors."

"Doesn't look that tall, but the muscle on him is no joke. Look at that chest. Must be the foreign-player thing."

"If we're talking pure build, today's starter, Jake Barnett, is the monster. Has to be six-seven, right? Look at those arms and legs."

The curiosity that had started on Kang-hyun soon swung toward the import hitter and the import pitcher, men who looked nothing like anyone else on the field. Phoenix fans especially couldn't pull their eyes off the towering Jake Barnett as he threw from the mound. The presence he carried up there alone was enough to send expectations surging—that this season, Barnett was going to own a real piece of the staff.

"This import's different! I can feel it! Son of a bitch—eighteen wins this season!!"

"Holy—! Warm-up pitch, ninety miles an hour!"

"Even the sound in the mitt is nasty!"

"Barnett! I'm riding with you!"

As if he could hear the roar, Barnett's warm-up pitches grew meaner by the throw, and the Seoul Duonex hitters waiting on deck started to tighten up.

"Even the air feels different."

It was nothing like what he had pictured. This wasn't even the regular season—just an exhibition—and part of him had walked out treating it like another practice game. But the heat rolling off the Phoenix fans packed into the stands, all that attention and expectation, seemed to warm the whole field, and before he knew it the nerves were creeping up the back of his neck. Maybe that was why.

"I can't make a mistake."

Kang-hyun muttered it under his breath. He couldn't shake the thought that if he got careless just because it was an exhibition and botched something, every Phoenix fan in the park would curse him with one voice. He was a rookie, but not the kind of rookie who got to be treated like one, and the pressure to get through today's game clean—in front of these fans—was already stacking up.

"Leadoff man... Yeom Su-hwan."

Kang-hyun pulled the defensive-shift card from his back pocket.

The palm-sized folded card held a brief note on Yeom Su-hwan, today's leadoff man and Duonex's leadoff hitter from last season. Kang-hyun slid it back into his pocket and shifted a couple of steps toward left field.

"He swings harder at off-speed than at fastballs, and he pulls a lot. Speed's above average. Runs aggressive."

He kept murmuring, turning the notes on Yeom over in his head as the hitter stepped in. Jake Barnett delivered the first pitch. The fastball bored in hard on the hands, and even from center field Kang-hyun could feel how much power was on it. Yeom seemed to feel the same weight in the stuff; he choked up just a little on the bat.

Just trying to meet it?

That was usually Yeom's approach with two strikes, which was why the shift card noted how often he produced short contact in those counts. Kang-hyun immediately took three steps in. If the ball was hit short, even a reaction speed past anything human wouldn't be enough unless he was already there. Barnett's second pitch was a fastball away, and Yeom dipped at the waist and tracked it. The third was another fastball, knee-high and in on him.

Crack!

Yeom's choked-up swing came as quick as the shortened bat, and though there wasn't much on the ball, it still cleared the second baseman and the shortstop with room to spare.

Duonex fans roared, already seeing a blooper dying in front of center, while Phoenix fans let out sighs as short as the fly itself—their much-hyped import pitcher getting tagged for a hit by the very first batter. Then a man who looked like an old Phoenix lifer shot his eyes wide and yelled.

"Whoa—whoa—whoa!"

The ball that should have dropped cleanly in front of center, well over the shortstop and the second baseman, met a full sprint from Kang-hyun, who slid and stabbed his glove out as far as it would go. The people watching with a no-way, no-way, no-way caught in their throats shot to their feet and threw both arms in the air when the ball vanished, impossibly, into that glove.

"Waaaaaah!"

"Holy—! He's insane!!"

"What! What! What!!"

Phoenix fans split their faces grinning and roaring at the sight of Kang-hyun wiping a sure hit off the board with a defense that shouldn't have been possible. On the mound, Jake Barnett—who had been a pitch away from surrendering a leadoff hit—shot his right hand high, roared, and clenched his fist.

"Damn... hyung, you're crazy. How did you even catch that? Are you actually human?"

Left fielder Park Sang-min, who had somewhere along the way stopped calling him Senior Kang-hyun and started calling him hyung, came up beside him, brushing bits of grass off his knee, and said it like he still couldn't believe his eyes.

"You're not hurt, right? It's an exhibition—why dive for that? You get banged up, you're the only one who loses."

"It just kind of happened. I'm not hurt, so we're good."

"Hustle was supposed to be my thing... guess I have to hand it over. You're taking all of it."

At Sang-min's grumbling little pout, the smile never quite leaving his face, Kang-hyun tapped him on the backside with his glove and started back to his spot. Off the fantastic play he had made in the very first moments of the game, Daejeon Phoenix Park was burning even hotter.