Alt Account Suspicion
Ballpen.
A portmanteau of "bullpen" — the place where pitchers warm up before taking the mound — and "Ball," the shorthand for Baseball of Legend.
As the largest domestic community dedicated to Ball, Ballpen was a space where countless questions and debates unfolded among every kind of user imaginable.
And among all those posts, the ones that drew an outsized share of attention looked something like this:
Alt account suspicion.
Naturally, the reaction to a baseless call-out like this was ice-cold.
And so the call-out post took a downvote bombing and seemed destined to fade quietly into obscurity.
Until the next day.
A different username had posted this time — and this one came with video attached.
Ball automatically saved a replay of every finished game to the cloud, so players could pull it up for analysis whenever they wanted. On top of that, the AI auto-flagged clip points, making it possible to compile nothing but a specific batter's plate appearances.
The swing form of the Pi Anta in the footage was genuinely compact and razor-sharp. Even though the avatar doing the hitting was female, the swing itself was pure Pi Anta — and the Ballpen users watching couldn't help but be impressed.
A few users floated the idea that it might be a hack.
They were immediately buried under a concentrated barrage of fire.
Just as real soccer or baseball could never have "hacks," Ball's proprietary anti-cheat caught unauthorized programs so thoroughly that a hack accusation wasn't even a coherent topic of discussion. And as countless high-level Ballpen regulars testified, in the lower tiers — where pitchers' skill levels were inevitably amateurish — the tells on offspeed pitches were genuinely visible. Whether it was an arm twisting unnaturally in the opposite direction, or something like a curveball where the hand shape looked nothing like a fastball's, the tells simply showed. Pros trained until those hand motions became nearly identical to their fastball delivery. That was what made them pros.
Which, of course, meant:
That was the conclusion they landed on.
The smurf theory was entirely plausible. Ball allowed three accounts per person — a deliberate system design, since certain tiers were so clogged with intentional throwers that climbing out was nearly impossible, and starting fresh was the recommended escape route.
The real problem was when pro-level players spun up alt accounts as stress relief.
In that scenario, like it or not, you became a high-elo predator toying with newbies — so the community's attitude toward pros running alts was vicious enough that even the mere suspicion of it triggered a torrent of dual-barreled cursing.
Every so often the thread would devolve into a sudden open challenge, but the prevailing mood was still that two games could be a fluke. That, however, was nothing more than the tear-soaked ass-covering of Ballpen's old guard, desperately trying to keep the community from catching fire for no good reason.
If a third case dropped, all bets were off. Everyone could feel it coming.
And the next day:
The moment three confirmation posts went up, Ballpen didn't just catch fire — it detonated.
This was a major incident. It was the equivalent of Messi showing up at a weekend pickup soccer game, flexing on everyone, and walking off.
If the amateurs had known their opponent was Messi, they might at least have framed it as an honor. Failing that, they could have forced themselves to find meaning in the lesson. The problem was that this Messi had worn a mask, thoroughly concealed the fact that he was Messi, toyed with the pickup league members, and vanished without a trace.
Smurfing. That was exactly the situation.
Enraged Ballpen users dove into pro game footage with a vengeance.
The owners of problem smurf accounts were pitchers nine times out of ten. Pros who were hitters rarely bothered making another hitter account to begin with — and since Ball perfectly rendered each individual's swing form, a pro hitter's alt, on the rare occasions one existed, was usually run out in the open from day one, identity fully disclosed.
Pitchers were different. Anyone good enough to hit Master and get drafted as a pro was a pitcher by primary position only. Objectively, as hitters, they were still far better than most amateurs. So how did pitchers who almost never got to bat end up getting caught?
Ball's play modes split into two: American Mode, which featured a designated hitter who only batted and never played defense, and National Mode, which had no designated hitter at all. In National Mode, the absence of a DH meant pitchers had to step up to the plate whether they liked it or not — and that was precisely where their swing forms got exposed, leading to smurf account busts.
Any pro good enough to run a smurf could be narrowed to pitchers who'd hit Master. Filter that list further for ones with solid hitting numbers, and surprisingly few names remained.
A dark room.
A man who looked to be in his mid-twenties lay sprawled across the bed, scratching his head.
"Ah, fuck, my head…"
The Connector tossed carelessly beside the bed and the empty bottles scattered underneath it made it abundantly clear why this strapping young man was still groaning even with the sun high in the sky. His puffy face and protruding belly were hardly what you'd expect from a baseball player — and yet the height and frame, solid for a man his age, still gave off the impression of someone who actually worked out. A strange combination of a person.
The man raked his fingers through his dyed, permed hair and squinted blearily at his phone.
"…Huh?"
Notifications. A ton of them. And more still rolling in.
After skimming the contents, the man clicked his tongue and searched his own username online. Thankfully there were no news articles yet — but on the encyclopedia site's trending search list, his username sat at the very top.
"Fuck."
Eokpal
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The man behind the username Eokpal scrolled to the "Controversies" section of his own page. He visited the article often enough that he knew every controversy entry by heart — but a new subsection had been added.
"Eokpal = Pi Anta suspicion…?"
The page was comparing his swing form to that of a user named Pi Anta through side-by-side video.
"Who the fuck is Pi Anta."
Obviously it wasn't him. And the reasoning for the accusation was absurd on its face.
"Frequently plays National Mode…? No shit, my team is a National Mode team. Is that not the most obvious thing in the world?"
And somehow nobody had pointed that out. But it wasn't solely because his team played National Mode that he'd been fingered.
"The swing form… okay, it is similar."
But hers was far sharper. His own at-bats always carried the feel of a pitcher fulfilling an obligation — whereas this hitter whipped the bat with real precision, and the hip rotation at the moment of contact was quick and lively. Even without raw power, she generated quality contact through natural core weight transfer. A hitter with talent of a different caliber.
"But she's in Iron…?"
Anyone with eyes could tell she didn't belong in Iron, so even he had to admit the smurf suspicion made sense. Getting caught in the crossfire of baseless accusations wasn't a great look, but clearing his name wouldn't be hard. Eokpal and Pi Anta were fundamentally different people, after all.
All they had to do was go one-on-one.
And Eokpal himself had grown a little curious about this Iron-ranked user called Pi Anta. How well could she really hit? Could she put together a swing this clean even against a current pro team's number-two starter?
Decision made, Eokpal messaged Pi Anta immediately.
A pro player reaching out, and barely a flicker of interest.
Even someone with a casual interest in baseball would have a hard time not knowing who I am.
It stung his pride a little, but he was the one who needed the favor, so he decided to stay humble.
Duel Mode. A game mode favored by people who found full games too long and tedious, or who needed a one-on-one for any number of reasons. Under the assumption that defense and every other variable would be handled by the AI, pitcher and batter faced off on pure skill — a baseball version of an open challenge.
Given that the misunderstanding had arisen because of her, helping clear it up if a method existed was the right thing to do — and Pi Anta was prepared to do exactly that.
If she tries to use this as an excuse to meet offline, that's going to be a problem. Female fans are always so intense.
A little smile crept onto Eokpal's face as he jumped several steps ahead of himself — and that was when she replied.
She was worried about an entirely different point.