Frontier League Tryout (1)
The day of the tryout had finally come.
The league I'd chosen was the Frontier League—the highest level among America's independent circuits, and the one with the most organized system behind it. An official MLB Partner League, it was a place big-league scouts kept under constant watch. On that stage, where prospects gathered from everywhere, I was going to prove the knuckleball.
After I sent in my application, I spent what time I had left training.
I've got telekinesis. What training could I possibly need?
I'd thought the same thing at first. The preparation turned out to be far more exacting than I'd expected.
The first problem I had to solve was control of release velocity and velocity at the plate. I needed a precise feel for governing the ball's speed with telekinesis. One slip, and a hundred-mile knuckleball might leave my hand. The moment data that unreal showed up on a gun, suspicious eyes would come pouring in.
Showing them the knuckleball matters. Hiding this telekinesis perfectly matters just as much.
The ideal knuckleball lives between sixty-five and seventy-five miles an hour—roughly 105 to 120 kilometers. On top of that, I had to account for the natural decay from air resistance in the flight from my hand to home plate. Producing realistic numbers for both initial and terminal velocity was work that demanded real precision.
The second piece was the body.
Conditioning is obvious for a ballplayer. But I'd gained telekinesis, and I needed a body built to match it. So I abandoned, without hesitation, the training I'd been doing as a baseball player.
A pitcher wrings explosive power out of a single instant, and in that instant he uses fast-twitch muscle—the fibers built for burst. The whole point of the work is to generate tremendous force all at once.
None of that applies to me.
I cut back the excessive upper-body fast-twitch work and put my focus on balance in the delivery, and on lower-half endurance that wouldn't quit.
What I need isn't fast-twitch. It's slow-twitch—the fiber that builds stamina.
Give up some explosiveness, and in return build the endurance to survive 120 pitches, even 130. Lay slow-twitch conditioning over a knuckleball that already spares the arm, and I could live on that mound.
Heh. That's how I show people even more of the knuckleball.
Add flexibility work to keep the injuries away, and the durability would only get better.
I was an iron man to begin with. Four years of heavy volume and not one major injury.
Of course, I'd only been at this new training for a few weeks. Stripping out the old fast-twitch and growing slow-twitch in its place would take longer than that.
Well. I've got time.
I was only eighteen. There would be more than enough years ahead to train, and for facing hitters at today's tryout, the body I already had was plenty.
I stepped into Wintrust Field, where the tryout was being held.
Schaumburg, Illinois. In front of Wintrust Field—home of the Frontier League's Schaumburg Boomers—the grounds were packed from early morning. Doors opened at eight, but hundreds of players from all over the country were already swarming the entrance. Guys cut loose from Division I college baseball. Players run out of rookie ball and Single-A.
These bodies are no joke.
Giants well over six-foot-three were everywhere, and plenty of them had frames that looked ready to split their T-shirts. Among those hulking shapes, I sat sipping a sports drink.
I'm six feet. Tall enough among regular people. Short for a pitcher.
I wasn't anxious. I squeezed the baseball in my hand and pressed the tips of my index and middle fingers gently into it. The leather came through sharp against my fingertips. The moment I set the knuckleball grip, the tension drained out of me all at once—and just as clearly, the image formed in my head. The ball leaving my hand and carving a beautiful path through the air.
I want to throw. Now.
The Frontier League tryout. For the people gathered here, this might be the last chance of their lives. Participants desperate to make it through.
Even so, I'm confident.
I'd essentially been handed a cheat. With this knuckleball, any hitter was going to swing through air and have no say in the matter.
"Next! Participant number 47, Kang Moo-baek!"
A staffer at the registration window raised his voice as he scanned the paperwork.
"Name and ID, please."
I took out my passport and set it on the counter. He checked the name against the pre-registration list, then slid a liability waiver across.
"You're confirmed. Sign the bottom of the waiver, pin your number to your chest, and head in."
"Thank you."
I signed cleanly and walked into Wintrust Field.
The moment I entered the facility, they measured height and weight. A staffer glanced at the numbers on the scale and nodded, indifferent. Then it was straight into warm-ups. I moved onto the grass, loosening up, and let my thoughts drift.
They're having us get ready to throw right away?
While I was shaking out lightly on the field, a scout standing off in the distance flipped through his papers and called a number.
"Participant number 47, Kang Moo-baek!"
"Yes!"
I walked over, still loosening up. The scout stared a hole through the profile on his sheet, then spoke.
"Knuckleball? You've only got the knuckleball listed under pitches?"
"Yes, sir. I only throw the knuckleball."
At that flat answer he went quiet for a beat, looking at me as if he couldn't believe what he'd heard. A moment later he spoke again.
"Uh—what's your max on the four-seam? The velocity written here looks like a knuckleball number."
"Oh. About eighty-seven."
Roughly 140 kilometers an hour. The scout's face darkened. There was no expectation left in it.
"All right. Throw fifteen, then."
Not a shred of hope in that disappointed voice. I climbed the bullpen mound as if it didn't matter.
Several catchers were already settled in, and four pitchers, myself included, had taken their mounds. Behind them, managers, coaches, and scouts from every club stood packed shoulder to shoulder, watching every throw.
I tucked my pitching hand into the glove and dug the tips of my index and middle fingers into the leather. Knuckleball grip. The instant it set, a feeling of connection ran from my fingertips through my whole body.
All right. Let's start.
No windup. Just a compact delivery—the kind of motion that, to anyone else, would look halfhearted, like I was lobbing it.
A compact motion is all I need to throw the knuckleball.
A play possible only because telekinesis moved the ball. I'd copied the delivery of Tim Wakefield, the legendary knuckleballer who had once ruled the major leagues.
Before the telekinesis, I tried every delivery I could find, chasing a knuckleball.
I hadn't been using this one back then. The ball wouldn't carry, and the movement never came out the way I wanted.
But now that I can throw with telekinesis, any delivery works.
The one I'd chosen was Wakefield's. A compact form meant less stress on the body, and an advantage when it came time to field.
The baseball left my hand. It flew with almost no spin, the seams sitting so still you could read them.
"Uh—uh?"
The catcher, flustered, jerked his mitt all over the place. Seventy miles an hour, lazy on the gun—but it fluttered through the air like a butterfly.
Thwack!
"Ghk?!"
The bullpen catcher never got the mitt on it clean. The ball broke in on his chest and slammed straight into the protector.
"Khh—!"
He ripped the mask off and gasped, fighting for air.
Slow knuckleball or not, take one square and it hurts.
I felt a pang of sympathy watching him suffer, and by the time he'd barely gotten set again, I didn't hesitate. Second pitch.
Whsssh—
This one traced another beautiful path. Again the catcher flailed his mitt. This time the ball got past him entirely, skipped on back, and cracked the fence.
"Holy Jesus…."
I heard a scout behind me mutter it without meaning to. The catcher just stood there, stunned, watching the ball roll away. Blank-eyed, he followed it off the fence, then shuffled after it.
And the third.
When he got back into his crouch looking dazed, I finished my set and threw at once.
Whsssh—
Again, almost no spin. The seams hung so still you could count them, and the flight broke twice in the air.
Thud!
"Damn!"
This time he threw his body at it and somehow stabbed the ball into the mitt. The dull impact rang through the bullpen. He'd caught it clean, and still his wrist was shaking.
I'd love to see the TrackMan spin rate.
From the mound I couldn't see the screen, but the coaching staffs and scouts sitting behind the catcher would all be looking. I could picture them staring at the numbers.
A knuckleball's average spin sits around 100 to 250 RPM. For weeks I had practiced every single day to hold that range steady.
Throwing a true zero is too unreal, no matter how you look at it.
So I'd trained to steer it into a spin rate that wouldn't look impossible to hitters or scouts. Data perched right on the edge of human limits—and more than enough to handle a batter.
I threw all fifteen the scout had asked for, rolled a shoulder loose, and strolled off the mound. My steps were light. The bullpen was not. The catcher clutched his wrist, soul halfway out of his body. I felt a little bad for him.
Number pinned to his chest. He's a tryout hopeful, same as me.
A catcher who needed to impress scouts had just strung together passed ball after passed ball. His guts had to be burning black.
Still. It's a knuckleball.
A pitch that flies on a path nobody can predict. The scouts, managers, and coaches watching from behind would surely factor that in.
The scout who'd been watching my session kept looking from the monitor to me and back. I wasn't worried in the slightest.
They've seen a knuckleball with a path this perfect. There's no way I wash out of the first round.
No scout looks at a knuckleball this finished and decides not to see it live. If only to watch me face real hitters, I was through the first cut. No question.
The second test was live pitching.