Buy Me a Car
Crack.
"Ah~ a grounder right at the shortstop. First-base runner Kang Hajin is out at second. And the batter-runner is out at first as well, ending the Savers' attack in the bottom of the first."
"He squared it up nicely. Looked like he was sitting on the sinker and got good wood on it, but the location was just a little off."
Shane and I strung together a pair of quick singles and kept the momentum rolling once more.
But Na Seung-won, batting seventh today, sent his ball straight at the shortstop for an easy double play.
A touch disappointing, sure, but the 3–0 score still sat comfortably in my chest.
Helzenberg had already thrown a whopping thirty-three pitches in the first inning alone.
Even if he suddenly rediscovered his stuff and started dealing, getting past five innings looked like a long shot.
Top of the second. Cleanup hitter Heo Yun stepped in.
Heo Yun had always been a little short on polish, but pure power? People called him the best in the league. Especially lethal against inside pitches…
"Stri~ke!"
"Stri~ke!"
Crack.
"Out!"
Two outside heaters and a changeup that just nicked off the zone sent him packing without a fight.
Next up was No Jae-jin. Honestly, I still had no idea why they stacked Heo Yun and No Jae-jin back-to-back.
Two carbon-copy hitters in the four and five holes. No Jae-jin was another power bat people respected—twenty homers a season, easy.
So what? The guy can't even hit .250.
Last year No Jae-jin finished at .235.
Sure, when he connected it left the yard… but first you actually had to connect.
A slider that ran away from the right-handed No Jae-jin produced a foul.
High fastball inside for a swing-and-miss.
Then a big, floating slow curve—whoosh.
"A 110-kilometer slow curve clips the bottom of the zone for a called strike. Kang Hajin freezes No Jae-jin on three pitches for the strikeout!"
"Completely caught him off guard. No Jae-jin never expected the quick putaway."
Two outs. I waited for Kim Jin-tae to step in.
The moment he did, Ko Mandeok stood up and started shifting the defense.
Everyone shaded hard to the left—extreme pull-side positioning for a guy who yanked everything.
Crack.
Kim Jin-tae swung at the first-pitch two-seamer inside.
The ball rocketed down the third-base line.
If the defense had been in its normal spots, Park Jeonghun would have had to dive. But with the shift, he was already hugging the line.
Park calmly fielded the ball right where he stood and casually flipped it to first.
Kim Jin-tae was one of the slowest runners in the league, so the out was never in doubt.
"Man, look at that veteran savvy~"
"Kid, this much is just basic. Heh heh."
Ko Mandeok strutted into the dugout with his chin pointed at the sky, looking ridiculously pleased with himself.
He was due up to lead off the next half-inning, so he stripped off his gear in a hurry, grabbed a bat, and headed straight for the plate.
Did that defensive confidence carry over to his swing?
CRACK!!
"Ko Mandeok turns on one and sends it a mile! Left fielder is racing back but—it's gone! Solo shot for Ko Mandeok and the score is now 4–0. The Savers are pulling away!"
"Every Savers hitter has been sitting on the sinker today. They threw another one and paid for it. The Jaguar battery needs to change the mix, and fast."
"What the hell is he doing right now?"
"H-hearts, I think."
"So he just threw hearts at the stands?"
"Uh, probably…"
"Insane. Why's he being so damn extra?"
I couldn't agree more.
Why's he being so damn extra…
"Helzenberg finally comes out of the game. His line today: 4.2 innings, six runs allowed. He simply couldn't contain the Savers' lineup."
"From the third inning on he was fine. He dialed back the sinkers, leaned on the slider, and got outs. But five runs in the first two innings… that was just too much damage."
"After 106 pitches in 4.2 innings, Helzenberg is done. Taking the mound now is third-year pro Kim Hyeong-jin."
The new pitcher, Kim Hyeong-jin, recorded one out and the bottom of the fifth was over.
Then the top of the sixth began.
Hmm… this is starting to get interesting again.
Through five innings I had faced fifteen batters total.
That's right. Still no hits, no walks, no hit-by-pitches.
I'd chased one of these last year and had a few other chances, but when another opportunity showed up I couldn't help feeling a little greedy.
Last season I'd told myself, If it falls apart, oh well. Today the hunger was back… maybe because I felt too damn good?
Of course I'd only gotten through five innings. Four still remained.
Pitch count's still pretty comfortable…
Sixty-three pitches through five. If I went the distance I'd blow past a hundred, but early in the season that was still doable.
The Jaguars' seventh hitter, So Yeong-seop, stepped in. Ko Mandeok's fingers flickered through signs; I nodded and spun the ball inside my glove, changing grips.
"Stri~ke!"
A two-seamer that clipped the outside edge for strike one.
So Yeong-seop stepped out for a second. Ko Mandeok just stared at him.
Maybe I should brush him back inside right here.
The guy crowded the plate like he owned it. I wanted to move him off a little.
A slider might be better than a heater…
A slider that actually caught the zone could be dangerous, but what I had in mind was one that ran right at his ribs.
And as if he'd read my mind, Ko Mandeok flashed exactly that sign—a slider jammed tight to the body.
This guy… what if he actually hits him? Heh.
Five perfect innings and he was still calling something that bold.
"Ooooh…"
The ball left my hand and broke hard toward the batter right in front of the plate.
So Yeong-seop froze—couldn't even flinch, much less swing.
"Ball."
Luckily it never touched him and settled cleanly into the mitt.
So Yeong-seop glared at me and edged off the plate just a hair.
Immediately the sign for an outside changeup.
Crack.
So Yeong-seop cut at the changeup running away from him, hips flying open, and managed to foul it off.
High fastball right here.
Once again Ko Mandeok and I were on the same wavelength.
POP!
"Swing and a miss, strike three! Kang Hajin's 157-kilometer high fastball freezes him for the ninth strikeout of the day."
"The high heater was nasty, sure, but that changeup right before it was even more impressive. The way it ran away… almost like the old screwball trajectory."
"You're saying the break was that big?"
"Exactly. We'll have to ask him later, but this is different from any changeup he's shown before. You can't just chalk this up to 'feeling good.'"
I retired So Yeong-seop and got the eighth hitter, Park Du-man, on a first-pitch grounder to short.
Then the ninth hitter, Gwak Jae-min.
Crack!
My third-pitch slider didn't break quite enough and caught too much of the zone. Gwak Jae-min squared it up and drove it the other way.
"Wooooah!"
"Out!"
The ball was screaming down the first-base line, about to sneak past.
Then our captain's massive frame launched into the air.
He snagged the ball on a short hop right in front of the bag, scrambled to his feet, and tagged the base first.
A clean double if it got through—erased by the captain.
"Woooah… nice one, Cap."
"Eh, no big deal. Heh."
He shrugged like it was nothing and headed for the dugout.
Classic former Gold Glove third baseman. That play was pure magic.
"Hey, you keep this up and you're gonna make history."
"Wouldn't be the first time."
"This one doesn't just slide by, you know that, right?"
"Ah… don't worry. I'll take care of it properly."
If you throw a perfect game, the pitcher buys the catcher a watch, right?
A really, really expensive watch.
Why a watch specifically? No idea. But that was the tradition in the majors.
Last year I never got to give Ko Mandeok one.
Reason? What reason did I need? I was broke.
I'd been thrilled about the nine-figure salary… then taxes and everything else ate it alive and nothing was left.
So I'd brushed it off, and Ko Mandeok had let it go…
But now that I was actually making decent money, he was starting to talk like this.
I'd buy it. If I actually pulled it off.
"When you go up to hit, don't even think about swinging. Just stand there and come back. Got it?"
"……Yes."
Both the pitching coach and the hitting coach came over and ordered me not to even dream of swinging, so I stood in the box like a statue and walked back to the dugout.
Looks like those two were starting to wonder "what if" themselves.
No runs in the bottom of the sixth, but we had baserunners, and the hitters deliberately fouled off pitch after pitch, chewing up time.
I got a nice long rest because of it.
"Strikeout again! That's the tenth of the day, this one against Jo Jung-geun. A fastball that just barely nicks the outside corner. Jo looks pretty frustrated."
Against lefties—heaters.
"Back-to-back strikeouts! A changeup inside freezes right-handed Cheon Gang-woo for swing-and-miss number eleven!"
Against righties—changeups.
"Peterson puts the ball in play, but it's a soft grounder right at the second baseman. Easy flip to first. Out."
"First cutter of the day. Completely caught him looking the wrong way."
I induced a grounder with the cutter against the next hitter and closed out the seventh.
Most of the day I'd been living off two different sliders and the changeup.
In the eighth I mixed in cutters and curves I almost never threw, blending them with the fastball.
Crack.
"Out!"
Crack.
"Out!"
Crack.
"Third out of the eighth. Center fielder makes the catch, and now Kang Hajin is just three outs away from history."
"Ah… this is really something. Even I'm this nervous just calling the game—imagine what those guys on the field are feeling."
"Kang Hajin is… smiling. He's chatting with Ko Mandeok and looking completely relaxed. Haha."
"What a mental giant this kid is."
Meanwhile, in the dugout:
"Hey. Instead of a watch, can you just buy me something else?"
"……Like what?"
"A car!"
"What?"
"Come on, the money's the same either way, right?"
"How expensive a car are we talking?"
"Those watches usually run tens of millions of won, don't they?"
"……Th-they cost that much?"
"You're making bank now! You cheap or something? You cheap?"
Ko Mandeok asking for a multi-million-won car with a completely straight face was so absurd I burst out laughing.
"You little shit. Buy me a car! A car! So I can take my baby on a drive!"
"Ugh. 'My baby.' Ah… hearing that weird crap just killed my whole vibe. Perfect game's gone, damn it…"
"Hey! Don't say that out loud!"
"What's the big deal? Heh heh heh."
Whatever pressure and tension had started creeping in while I talked with Ko Mandeok just melted away.
Only the two of us were cackling like idiots. Everyone else in the dugout looked carved out of stone.
"Haa…"
"What now?"
"Everyone's so stiff… if somebody boots one they're gonna spiral into a slump."
"Crazy bastard. That better not happen. Just get three more strikeouts. Stop torturing people."
He said "get three strikeouts" like he was telling me to pick up a pebble on the sidewalk.
But it was weird. Why was this guy so completely unfazed?
"Aren't you nervous at all, hyung?"
"Me? Why?"
"You could mess up and blow my perfect game."
"Hmm… I'd rather think about the car I'm about to get than negative crap like that."
"……Wait, you were serious? You actually want a car?"
"Yep!"
What kind of human being was this?