No Ill Will (2)
The pride of Seoul!
Se! oul! Lakers!
"Waaaaaaaaaah!"
"For a Daejeon Hawks victory! Whooooo!"
For Koreans accustomed to the cool comfort of air conditioning, the weather outside was nothing short of merciless. And yet they had all come to the ballpark, hearts set on a glorious win for their team.
Both clubs have a long road ahead of them. How do you see today's game?
August hasn't even arrived yet, but every single contest is precious for these two teams. On the mound: right-hander Kwak Hangyu for the Seoul Lakers, left-hander Oh Junsu for the Daejeon Hawks. Both managers will likely approach this as a matter of grinding out five solid innings rather than chasing a complete game.
"Batting first — Lee Hajun!"
Clap! Clap! Clap! Clap! Clap!
"Lee Hajun — hit!"
Top of the first at Jamsil Baseball Stadium. The home team was not the Seoul Grizzlies but the Seoul Lakers, and the home fans cheering for the Lakers wanted at least one thing from the opening frame: hold them. Watching your side get dragged around was pure misery.
"·····"
Well, this is something.
And the player whose job it was to turn that hope into disappointment was none other than himself. Hajun walked slowly toward the batter's box. Then he took off his cap — and instead of looking toward the Hawks fans roaring for him, he turned to face the Lakers' section of the stands.
A murmur rippled through the crowd. Hajun removed his helmet and bowed toward the visiting cheering section.
They'll think I'm overdoing it. No — they'll definitely think that.
What expectations had he ever really carried with the Lakers? What kind of performance had he ever put up? Taking the initiative to do something like this first felt, he had to admit, a little ridiculous.
Lee Hajun's sudden gesture hung in the air.
"A warm round of applause, please, for our Lee Hajun, who worked so hard for this team!"
The man whose role it was to decide the behavior of thousands of people — the Seoul Lakers' cheer captain — made a quick call.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Clap! Clap! Clap! Clap!
For a brief moment, the Lakers' cheer sticks and bare palms turned toward Hajun. Even if his production in a Lakers uniform had been thin, his name recognition had climbed sharply in a short span of time, and any debate over whether the treatment was deserved was quietly set aside.
Yes — Lakers fans are giving Lee Hajun a round of applause.
There will be fans who are genuinely happy to see a player the Lakers developed putting on a performance like this.
"Hit! Lee! Hajun!"
The brief ceremony ended, and the real game began. In a contest between pitcher and batter, the duel only truly starts after the batter has looked the pitcher in the eye. Hajun calmly settled into his usual preparatory routine, then fixed his gaze on the starting pitcher standing on the mound — Kwak Hangyu.
"·····"
Before the game he had greeted his former teammates, most of them seniors. Following his father's advice, he had been especially deferential toward the higher-ups. But once his eyes met the pitcher's —
The fastball isn't particularly threatening. Time up the off-speed stuff.
— Hajun swapped out his mindset for that of the Hawks' leadoff hitter.
He was a long way from superstar status, but Kwak Hangyu had held down a Lakers mound with quiet consistency ever since his debut, and he delivered the pitch with force. A distinctive delivery that hid the ball well — the kind that scrambled a batter's timing.
Whap—!
"Ball!"
A fastball that knifed precisely inside. Velocity: 143 km/h. Compared to the truly overpowering arms Hajun had faced lately, it carried no real threat.
He's not an easy pitcher, though.
Fans always wondered how anyone could fail to crush junk like that, but Kwak Hangyu's command was excellent, and he threw a curveball and changeup that ranked among the best in the league.
Whap—!
"Strike!"
Crack—!
"Foul!"
A slow curve, then a high fastball inside! Kwak Hangyu seizes the advantageous count!
Really smart pitching. Lee Hajun has been showing monstrous hitting ability every time he steps in lately, and Kwak is handling him well.
This is a duel between a pitcher and a hitter who both rank among the most precise in the league. Here comes pitch four!
The Lakers battery exchanged signs. Catcher Lee Jeongseok planted his mitt against Hajun's inner half.
The fastball will still be sitting in his head.
The reason Kwak Hangyu could survive with modest velocity: the changeup that formed a perfect pair with that fastball. He hid the ball until the last legal instant, then let it go.
"·····"
Crack—!
Huh?
Lee Jeongseok was stunned. It had not been a mistake pitch. And yet the swing came out as if Hajun had been waiting for exactly that ball — and the pure, ringing sound of contact that followed was something else entirely.
The ball left the bat so fast the broadcast camera itself seemed to flinch. The bullet fired from Lee Hajun's bat sent Lakers right fielder Im Hyeseong into a full sprint. But—
The moment the crack of the bat reached him he had whipped his head around, and it made no difference at all.
"Hey, hey — watch out!"
"Whoa—!"
He had originally wanted a seat in the Daejeon Hawks cheering section but couldn't get a ticket. Still, it was the outfield, so he had brought a glove. A line drive rocketing straight toward him. The young man in the orange uniform hauled it in cleanly.
For a split second both sets of fans held their breath, waiting to confirm the result. That moment was vanishingly short — and once the outcome was clear, the reactions split clean down the middle.
"·····"
Hajun had taken off the instant he made contact, thinking triple. But there was no longer any need to burn stamina racing around the bases for nothing.
The changeup, just like I thought.
The pitch Hajun had been hunting from the start was the inside changeup. Anything away, he had planned to cut foul. By his own standards Kwak Hangyu had made a reasonable choice and thrown a good pitch — but baseball was relative.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang bang!
"Lee Hajun! Lee Hajun! Lee Hajun!"
Only as Hajun was about to touch third did the fans snap out of it and start chanting his name. The ball had been that sudden, that thunderous — and no one had been expecting a home run from him in the first place. But Hajun, with almost cheerful irreverence, made a mockery of every one of those assumptions.
Lee Hajun, who swapped a Lakers uniform for a Hawks one. His first at-bat back in this familiar place — a home run. Season home run number two!
Didn't this guy have zero career home runs in the pros until just recently? What on earth is going on?
"Nice batting, bro."
"·····Thanks."
Hajun high-fived Jays, who was batting second in the lineup. Today was Jays's first at-bat of his debut. Something about the slant of his stance, the way the uniform hung loosely on him — if you didn't know better, he looked like a hip-hop artist who'd put on a baseball uniform and picked up a bat.
Jays making his Korean debut. Curious to see what he shows us.
His Triple-A hitting numbers were excellent, and more than anything, his outfield defense has a real reputation. Can he solve the Hawks' center-field weakness? That's the question.
The fans expressed their skepticism. If you were bringing in a foreign player, shouldn't you just be looking at the bat? Professional baseball ultimately came down to the foreign-player arms race. Giving a foreigner a spot was the natural order of things. Filling an empty hole with one was a genuine gamble.
"Hmm·····"
Having conserved his energy with the home run, Hajun sipped a drink and calmly watched Jays's at-bat unfold.
Kwak Hangyu threw to the unknown hitter. A big-breaking curveball meant to steal a first-pitch strike.
Putting that in the zone carelessly is dangerous.
Hajun thought it — not out of any lingering affection for his old teammates or his former club. Just a personal observation.
Crack—!
Left-handed Jays put an uppercut swing on the curveball coming in low through the middle. One of the things that had personally surprised Hajun when Jays first arrived was the sheer power packed into that frame relative to his size.
Jays took his first swing on Korean soil — and the moment he connected, he flipped the bat.
Heading to right-center!
Ohhhhh! That's deep!
Kim Gwangjae, the Lakers' center fielder renowned for his elite defense, ran with desperate urgency — and it made no difference.
An enormous distance that casually cleared Jamsil — the graveyard of home-run hitters. Jays admired the flight of the ball at his leisure, then began his trot around the bases.