The Bet (2)
Crack!
Crack!
A full week into spring camp, I stepped off the mound after another satisfying bullpen session. Outside the pen, the crack of bats from the position players in free batting practice rang out without pause.
CRACK!
"Whoa~"
A monstrous drive off Kwak Daehwi's bat cleared the right-field fence by a mile and vanished into the brush beyond the stadium, drawing gasps of admiration from every corner. Watching him, I found myself thinking back to the bet we'd made the week before.
"Forget that. How about this instead. If you can't get a strikeout, you train exactly the way I tell you for the rest of camp."
"…All right."
The terms themselves were simple. One strikeout against a certain batter in a practice game, and it was over. The problem was that "certain batter" was Japan's monster hitter — Shimamura Kenta.
At the time, Kwak Daehwi had hyped Shimamura so hard that my competitive streak kicked in, and I'd boldly declared I'd strike him out without a second thought. But once my head cooled and I looked the guy up, it was clear he was no ordinary opponent.
The numbers alone said enough. A power hitter who had cleared forty home runs three seasons running in the Japanese league — a circuit widely considered a step above Korea's. I'd simply never paid much attention to overseas baseball, but Major League scouts were already watching him, and he was being ranked the number-one prospect to watch in the upcoming international tournament. The more I read, the more he became the kind of giant you both desperately want to face as a pitcher and quietly dread at the same time.
Come to think of it, they should be naming the practice-game starters soon. Wonder when they'll let me know…
So for a full week I'd been pitching in the bullpen like my entire body was screaming, I'm ready. Put me in the practice game. But even with the game only three days away, the manager still hadn't said a word. I'd casually asked a few of the other pitchers, too — no one had heard anything about starters being set.
Haa… Do I actually have to show him 160 just once?
I was heading back to the dorms, debating whether I needed to leave an even stronger impression on the manager, when a voice I'd been waiting for all week called out behind me.
"Han Doyoon."
"Yes, Manager."
"You've really built yourself up well. Good work."
He clapped me on the shoulder with the praise. He'd been watching from behind me during every bullpen session these past few days — so even he could see I'd come into camp in proper shape.
"What was your top velocity today?"
"One fifty-eight."
"Still early in camp and you're already throwing harder than last regular season. At this rate, you'll be hitting 160 once the season starts, won't you?"
"Ahaha…"
I laughed it off awkwardly, treating the half-joke as a joke. I'd already cleared 161 after finishing Velocity Increase — Hard, but I had no intention of showing that number this early. From the second day of bullpen work with the radar gun running, I'd deliberately turned off Full-Power Pitching and been managing my pace — so when the manager casually dropped 160, it hit a little too close to home.
"And your stamina? How many pitches can you handle?"
"Hmm…"
I thought for a moment. With the game against the Fukuoka Seiryuu only three days out, he was asking about my pitch-count ceiling. Hope stirred whether I wanted it to or not. I checked my body as coldly as I could, then answered.
"I should be able to throw about fifty without any trouble."
A satisfied smile crossed the manager's face. He held out a file.
"Here. Scouting reports on the Fukuoka Seiryuu hitters."
The team name on the cover brought Shimamura Kenta's face to mind at once.
"As you know, they're our practice-game opponent next week. You're starting."
"Yes, sir."
And there it was — the words I'd been waiting for.
"We'll cut you around forty to fifty pitches. You won't go past three innings. Be ready."
With that, he clapped my shoulder once more, turned without lingering, and headed off toward the position players still in batting practice.
FUKUOKA SEIRYUU
3rd Batter: Shimamura Kenta, L
The moment the manager left and I opened the file, the first name that jumped out was Shimamura Kenta. Buoyed by anticipation, I flipped through until I found the pages on him.
"Let's see…"
"Hello, Flyers TV subscribers. I'm Kang Seungwon, your caster for today's Wonju Flyers spring camp practice game."
The live stream kicked on with Kang Seungwon's cheerful voice, and the broadcast was underway. Flanking him sat Kwak Daehwi with a serious expression, and Cheon Sojin — still clearly tense and unused to the camera — side by side.
Chat messages began racing up the bottom of the screen.
Kang Seungwon glanced at the chat, fighting back a laugh.
"Chat's already heating up. A lot of you are wondering — today, color commentator Kwak Daehwi will not be playing."
"Well, I'm getting on in years, you know. Practice games like this are for the young guys~"
Fourteen years of veteran polish let Kwak Daehwi field the caster's setup with shameless ease.
"And we have a very special guest with us today — none other than Wonju Flyers Operations Team Leader, Cheon Sojin!"
The camera swung to Cheon Sojin. She looked briefly startled, then bowed her head in greeting.
"Ah — hello. I'm Cheon Sojin, Operations Team Leader for the Wonju Flyers. Since this is the club's official channel… I'll be calling it just a little — no, a lot — biased today. Please take care of me…"
Kwak Daehwi glanced at the chat and cracked a grin.
"Wow, Team Leader. The reaction's pretty intense, huh?"
"Ahaha…"
Cheon Sojin couldn't manage a proper reply and just laughed awkwardly. Kang Seungwon couldn't hold his own laughter back as he jumped in.
"Chat is going absolutely wild. The moment the Team Leader appeared, the scroll speed doubled."
"Ahem. Hmm."
Cheon Sojin snuck a look at the chat and cleared her throat for no particular reason.
"We should, um, talk about baseball too. There are a lot of people who came to watch the game."
"That's right."
Kang Seungwon nodded and smoothly reeled the conversation back in.
"All right, back to the game. Today's Flyers starting pitcher is—"
The camera cut to the mound. Han Doyoon, uniform adjusted, was working through his warm-up pitches as he slapped the rosin bag.
"Han Doyoon."
The laughter dropped clean out of Kwak Daehwi's voice as he watched the screen and spoke evenly.
"Before camp, I took four rookies plus Senior Junseong — six of us total — on a private training trip."
"Wow, really?"
"Yeah. And the player who left the strongest impression on that trip was Han Doyoon."
Kang Seungwon threw up an exaggerated gesture of shock as he followed up.
"What exactly did our Kwak Daehwi see that surprised him that much?"
"Honestly, I packed the schedule pretty hard. The other rookies were struggling quite a bit — but Han Doyoon was the only one who barely showed it. No, he didn't show it at all. Watching him keep up with every single session perfectly… I was genuinely impressed."
"Wow… Hearing that from Kwak Daehwi really builds the anticipation."
Cheon Sojin had been fidgeting, unable to find an opening in their back-and-forth. Kang Seungwon glanced at her and smoothly handed the topic over.
"So, Team Leader — from a front-office perspective, what kind of player is our Han Doyoon?"
Caught off guard by the sudden question, Cheon Sojin hesitated a beat before answering.
"Uh… um… a g-good player?"
"Aww, our Team Leader seems a little camera-shy. We'll hear more from her as we go!"
Kang Seungwon breezed past her underwhelming answer with practiced charm. On screen, the opposing batter was already stepping into the box — the game was seconds from starting.
Kang Seungwon hurriedly reset and shifted into full broadcast mode, locking onto the game. Chat followed suit almost at once.
"The game's underway, so let's dive straight in. On the mound, the Flyers' starter, Han Doyoon. And his first pitch of the day is——"
THWACK!
It was only a makeshift booth set up on one side of the practice field, so the soundproofing was nonexistent — the raw crack of Han Doyoon's pitch burying itself in the mitt blasted straight into the microphones. Chat lit up instantly.
A beat later, the velocity finally flashed onto the broadcast feed.
159 km/h
And with it, chat exploded.
Kang Seungwon lost his words for a moment, then caught up.
"First pitch… first pitch is one fifty-nine."
Kwak Daehwi said nothing. Arms folded, he simply refused to look away from the screen.
On the mound, Han Doyoon took the ball back as if nothing at all had happened.