Number Fifty-One
"Hahahahaha! I'll grant you, the man's a little off. But he's not the kind of person you can just write off, either."
According to Yang Joo-il, Jang Woo-seok's past was anything but ordinary. He had come up as an elite and been drafted into the pros, only to linger as a minor-league player and a big-league reserve before the club forced him into retirement. After that he had started a second life as a domestic scout, and that road had proved no smoother.
"You've met him, so you know. His personality's something else. Then out of nowhere he decides he needs a wide range of experience in the majors and just up and leaves. Where was it? I can't quite remember. Anyway, I did hear he'd gotten on as an intern with a major-league club."
Yang Joo-il hauled on his coffee in one long, wet slurp and went on.
"Oh, and he went back to school, didn't he? I heard it was a pretty prestigious place. Figures. The guy's been sharp since way back. Anyway, then the year before last, was it? He came home saying he'd started working as an agent."
"How many players is Agent Jang Woo-seok managing right now?"
"Far as I know? None."
He said it so offhandedly that Do Kang-hyun's first instinct was to wonder whether he could trust the man in front of him at all.
"He looks like that, but he's got connections scattered around, and he's got ability. A real agent's work is finding the pearl buried in the mud, or whatever he calls it. He just hasn't found a player who suits him. Then he watched my personal broadcast and reached out first. Asked me to introduce my junior. Seemed pretty taken with you, too."
Kang-hyun gave the matter serious thought and wasn't sure it was something to be glad about. Jang Woo-seok was an eccentric with so many odd edges that letting him close felt nearly impossible. Kang-hyun already had obstacles enough that even a strong showing at a pro tryout left him wondering whether a playing career could actually begin. Trusting a crank of an agent on top of that only added to the worry.
"And I looked into a few clubs for a tryout. How about the Titans?"
"The Titans, sir?"
"Don't get the wrong idea. I'm not pushing them just because they're my old club. I asked around about developmental-player tryouts, and the Titans were the first to show interest, so that's why I'm saying it. They're already set up to hold one this time, too."
He offered it with no visible self-interest, but both of them knew better. Yang Joo-il might not have been a full-blown legend, yet he had been a franchise star, and the Titans had agreed with his standing in mind.
"From where I stand, I can't afford to be picky."
"Right. If a club's willing to test you, you run there without a word of complaint. Want me to get in touch with the Titans?"
"Wouldn't that be a bother for you?"
"Listen to our junior. Says all that, and still doesn't ask for the number so he can call them himself."
From Kang-hyun's side there was no reason to refuse. If Yang Joo-il stood in as the go-between, he would be that much less likely to be brushed off. If anything, since Yang had been the one urging him to try out, a little shamelessness seemed fair: let the senior see it through to the end. Yang knew he was the one who had put the idea in Kang-hyun's head, and whether the thing came to anything or not, he meant to take responsibility for the tryout all the way.
"Okay. Then I'll lock in a Titans date as fast as I can. What are you thinking about the agent?"
"I'll need to think it over."
"Yeah. Not the kind of thing you decide on the spot. Still, since I'm the one who introduced him, I'll say it once more. The man himself may be a little prickly, but he's diligent and he's smart. Try to see him in a good light."
"I'll do my best to."
Satisfied, Yang Joo-il gave Kang-hyun's shoulder a couple of encouraging pats and got to his feet.
"You've helped me in so many ways. If you have time today, let me at least treat you to a meal."
"A meal? Sounds good. Not now, though. Later. You pass the tryout and sign a contract, and then we'll eat something worth eating."
With that Yang Joo-il left, and Kang-hyun threw himself back into training. The next day, a call came.
"Junior! Three days from now, you and I are heading down to Busan!"
The date of the Busan Titans' tryout was set.
The Titans' minor-league complex stood in Gimhae, South Gyeongsang Province. Do Kang-hyun stepped out of the car Yang Joo-il had driven himself and looked over the grounds.
"Should this really have been open? Maybe I should have pushed for a closed tryout, the way that guy said."
Yang murmured it while carefully reading Kang-hyun's face. Before they had come down to Busan, Jang Woo-seok had sought them out and advised that a closed tryout would serve better than an open one.
The reason was age. In Jang's judgment, competing physically against younger players left Kang-hyun almost no chance of standing out. The remark had stuck. All the way south, and even now, Yang was kicking himself, convinced a private test would have been far more to their advantage.
"It's all right. I'll do well."
Kang-hyun soothed him, then walked into the complex with his head up. Some KBO clubs, depending on the circumstances, held official tryouts in the off-season, and the people who came were all over the map: high schoolers, college players, released former pros, amateurs who had never been drafted. Their backgrounds differed. Their goal did not. A contract with a pro club, and a chance to stand on a pro field. Everyone who had shown up carried the desperation of a person balanced on the edge of a cliff.
"Haa. I really have to get through this time."
"They moved it up from the date I expected. I'm not ready..."
"Huh? Dong-seok! You signed up for the tryout too?"
"I'm going to take it as far as I can, but I have a feeling this is the last time."
"What?! Why?"
"Why do you think? How old am I? Next year I'll be twenty-seven. At twenty-seven even a developmental deal is a black hole, and you want me to still be wandering around taking tests? If it isn't working, a man has to know when to quit."
"Hoo... hearing you say that, it doesn't feel like someone else's problem. I really need to make it this time too."
Kang-hyun let their talk wash past him in silence as he loosened up. Not a single person at today's test lacked desperation, and his own resolve was, if anything, greater than theirs. Age was still the biggest obstacle.
If he failed today, he had already decided the honest thing would be to give the dream up clean, without lingering regret. Yang had told him not to carry too much weight, that another test could be arranged. Kang-hyun didn't see it that way.
A tryout is a tryout, wherever you take it.
Fail the Titans and pass somewhere else? It was possible. But that would only mean he was worth something as a run-of-the-mill developmental player, and nothing more. He put everything he had on today.
"All participants, please gather!"
At the staffer's call he let out a short breath and joined the crowd. The bib they handed him was number 51. The very last one.
"And last, number 51, Do Kang-hyun! Here's hoping for a good result..."
The Titans front-office employee passing out the bibs checked his age, then looked up at him with open disbelief, as if to ask why he had even shown up. Age had become an obstacle before anything had begun. So this is reality. Kang-hyun took number 51 with a bitter smile.
A moment later the employee seemed to catch his own slip and, perhaps out of apology, cheered him on in a louder voice.
"Do Kang-hyun! You've got to pass! Come on, you can do this!"
"Yes. Thank you."
Once the bibs were handed out, they sorted everyone from number one into groups of eight. Six groups in all. The head count didn't divide evenly, so Groups 4, 5, and 6 each took one extra man and stood at nine.
"Group 6! We'll begin measuring flexibility and joint range of motion."
The point of the test was to judge injury risk by reading flexibility through the range of the shoulders, the hips, the hamstrings, and the rest. The method was simple: a sit-and-reach, folding the torso forward to measure how far the fingertips traveled; a shoulder-mobility check, rotating the arms behind the back or crossing them high and low to see how close the hands could come; and hip and knee range taken from a seated straddle and a lunge. That was all of it.
Ngh. I've been loosening up every spare minute, and I'm still stiff as a plank.
Kang-hyun held his breath and forced the measurements as far as they would go, but flexibility locked up over long years doesn't come back from a short stretch. The club trainer doing the scoring didn't look particularly pleased, and Kang-hyun could only click his tongue.
"Sprint test."
Sensor pads laid across the ground stamped a time on a digital timer every time a runner crossed one. The test measured splits at ten meters, thirty meters, and sixty: a pure reading of short-burst acceleration and explosiveness. Three runs, and they would keep both the average and the best.
The start tone cracked, and Kang-hyun broke with it.
"Hah! That start is insane!"
It was. Because the test ran in sequence, he could be set against everyone who had gone before him, and he was overwhelmingly faster than the Group 6 runners ahead of him—faster than anyone at the tryout. Set beside that perfect start, though, the final time left something to be desired.
"If you only look at the start, 6.5 seconds is a shame. Still upper tier, though. The speed's good."
The club trainer nodded and logged the result with care.
The third test measured reaction time. Press a button the instant the LED in front of you lit. Press it at a beep. Then, when both signals came at once, separate by a hair which sense—sight or hearing—arrived first. On that test, Do Kang-hyun was overwhelming.
"Th-this is a real number? Four hundredths of a second?!"
Unable to believe the reaction speed, the trainer assumed a mechanical error and measured him again.
"Ghk—! Two hundredths?!"
He stared at Kang-hyun the way a man stares at a monster, as if the breath had gone out of him.
The fourth test was agility. Changes of direction, side steps, rotational power—Kang-hyun posted astonishing scores on all of them. His reaction when he cut on a signal was so quick and so exact that no one could match it. Goosebumps rose over the whole body of the trainer taking the measurements.
"Next is the core-strength test."
Planks, medicine-ball throws, and the like measured the endurance and power of the muscles at the center of the trunk. Here, regrettably, Kang-hyun showed nothing exceptional. Through sheer grit he scraped an average, and he had to take his comfort in that. On the last measure, the shuttle run for heart and lungs, he stalled at level 10—about where an ordinary athlete would land—and felt, keenly, how far his base fitness still fell short.
"Thank you all for your hard work. That concludes the physical testing. After a rest, we'll move on to the skill tests by position."
The trainer had barely finished before the tryout players, every one of them, groaned and folded to the ground where they stood. The physical test was the first gate. No one had taken it lightly, and the sight of them said so plainly.
"I expected it. Still, my stamina really is shot."
He had prepared hard, in his own way. There simply hadn't been enough time, and sure enough, he had nothing like an across-the-board advantage that would make him stand out. There was no need to be disappointed. From the start, the test he had confidence in was the one by position.
Someone must have judged the rest sufficient. The trainer reappeared, and this time the Titans' coaches and scouts came with him.
"We'll begin the position skill tests. When your name is called, please move to the area for the position you applied for."