The Baseball Club

"Crazy bastard." If that author was actually standing in front of me, I'd swing a baseball bat at his skull without a second thought, even if it meant staying stuck in this hospital bed as a penalty.

"What a fucking lunatic... huh?"

The moment I swore to kill the writer, a piece of paper that had been behind me slipped and fell to the floor. It was neatly wrapped, clearly a letter.

"That crazy son of a bitch..."

Who the hell asked him to erase my existence? Even as the thought crossed my mind, I felt relieved that my sudden disappearance wouldn't leave my family grieving or hurt.

"Still... he said he'd give me my player—no, my high school-era stats?"

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"How am I supposed to see the actual stats... oh, there it is."

A smaller window had popped up right next to the system interface, displaying the numbers in a clean layout.

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"How am I supposed to understand anything from just these numbers... wait a second?"

These stats looked familiar. 'These are exactly like the stat system from Strike the Show!'

I hadn't even pitched during high school back then, yet the pitcher stats existed too. And they called these my high school numbers? They were more pathetic than I remembered. If I'd stuck purely to hitting, I probably never would have knocked on the door of the pros.

"Is there anything else in the note?!"

Unfortunately, that was the end of it. As I lay back in the hospital bed feeling disappointed...

-Bang!

"Oh my god, my son! Is your head okay?!"

A middle-aged man and woman burst through the door and rushed to my side.

Ah, so these are this body's parents... wait, they're literally Mom and Dad?

Come to think of it, my appearance in this world was identical to my original one. I supposed they were parallel-world versions of my parents. When I looked at them properly, they really did resemble my real mom and dad.

"Mom, I'm fine."

"Who the hell hit our son in the head?!"

"H-honey, calm down. Seojun got hit by a pitch during the game..."

"That rotten little brat! Isn't this exactly why he shouldn't play baseball?! Throwing balls at someone's head like that!"

Mom seemed extremely upset about the whole hit-by-pitch incident that had landed me in the hospital.

"It's okay, Mom. It doesn't even hurt that much... If anything, baseball feels even more fun now."

When I clenched my fist and said that from my hospital bed, my parents looked at me like I'd turned into some kind of masochist. It took a while to calm them down.

"...He said he'd give me a gift, but there's nothing here?"

A week had passed since I'd possessed this body.

During that time, the parents of the kid who'd given me the headshot visited with all sorts of fruit baskets and gift sets. Once I realized that headshot was what allowed me to transmigrate into this world, most of my anger toward the boy had faded.

Before I was discharged, with nothing better to do, I looked up famous baseball games from this world's history. The players I remembered were all there, dominating the highlights.

"Hmm... it's pretty similar... though saying that feels a little shameless."

When I closed my smartphone, I caught my reflection in the window. My face looked a bit more handsome than I remembered, probably thanks to some memory adjustment.

After that, the only memories I had were of eating hospital food until my parents finally dragged me home upon discharge.

...

...

...

My uneventful middle school days flew by. Since the first memory I had after possessing this body was getting hit by a pitch at the plate, I'd assumed I must have been a decent hitter in middle school. Apparently not.

I thought I'd get eliminated early due to the power loss, but we actually made it to the semifinals.

It turned out I was a backup warming the bench. The team had such solid depth that my absence didn't cause any problems, allowing my middle school to finish third in the middle school baseball league—a respectable result.

Well, the first-place school was on another level anyway.

Haneul Middle School was essentially the middle school version of Haneul High School, an elite private school sponsored by the GL Devils. Their players advanced straight into Haneul High. Thanks to that, even first-years could earn starting spots based purely on skill. The school had a clean player pool with no under-the-table deals or corruption.

Graduates had a near-guaranteed chance to be drafted by the GL Devils through the regional draft system, so many Devils players volunteered as instructors at Haneul High. Essentially, it functioned as the Devils' third and fourth string development team.

After I was discharged, I learned quite a bit while playing catch every weekend by the river with my father, who loved baseball enough to join a club team.

My velocity's pretty high.

Before even entering high school, I was already hitting 140 kilometers per hour—roughly 87 miles per hour. My fastball stat was listed at 87, so the system seemed to be converting the speed I could actually throw into miles per hour.

"And then..."

Throwing the ball mindlessly against the wall at the playground near my house apparently counted as pitching practice too.

"My pitching form was three-quarters when I played in the adult recreational league."

-Thwack!

The heavy sound of the softball smacking into the wall echoed.

"I remember 50-60 being high school average, 70 being pro second-team level, 80 being domestic league average, and 90 being MVP or Golden Glove caliber, right?"

Escaping the high school league shouldn't be too difficult. But thinking about the pro level, as a hitter I had decent speed, solid defense, and some power potential. As a pitcher, my stamina was lacking, so I'd probably end up as a reliever or closer.

That was my current situation.

"As expected... the me from back then really had almost no future as a pitcher."

Since what mattered was my ability as a hitter, it didn't really bother me.

"This world is slightly different from the one I knew."

In my original world, there had been countless tournaments—the Blue Dragon Flag, the Phoenix Flag, the Presidential Cup, and more. Here, only three major competitions existed.

First, the Weekend League where schools played each other every weekend ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠during both semesters. Teams with good records in their regions could advance to the Blue Dragon Flag in the first semester and the Phoenix Flag in the second.

Then, the 32 teams that performed well in those two tournaments would gather during winter break for the Presidents Cup, which lasted one to two weeks.

The Presidents Cup was held at the Gocheok Sky Dome, home of the NHK Heroes, and the Cheongna Dome used by the GSS Aliens. Among the three major tournaments held throughout the year, it carried the highest prestige since it let high school players step onto pro stadiums during the off-season.

I want to walk that path to the pros.

I'd given up because of injury last time, but this new opportunity was different. I would become a pro no matter what.

To do that, I needed to enroll in a high school that treated those major tournaments like annual events.

So the strategy I chose was...

"Hey! Mr. Lee, you brought your son again today?"

"Ah, yes! Seojun, say hello."

"Hello, sir."

"Good, good. Our Seojun, go hit another home run today, yeah? Today's game is a big one—we're betting on whether we get a team dinner after this!"

Before the original story even began, I was using my father's serious baseball club connections to build real-game experience.