The Contract
Major League Baseball has a total of thirty teams.
From what I heard, every single one of them had reached out. About fifteen of those teams had put concrete terms on the table and even negotiated with Jack—nearly half the league. The other half had just been fishing around without much to say.
Among the teams that actually made offers were a few I had zero interest in, which left me wondering why Jack bothered meeting them all. The Colorado Rockies, for instance—playing at Coors Field… ugh. I had never pitched there myself, but just hearing about it was enough to make my skin crawl. Forget the home runs flying out or whatever else people said; they claimed it was hard to even breathe. Who would want to play in a place like that?
Jack, though, had run himself ragged meeting every last one. When he finally finished and came back, he spread a stack of documents in front of me.
"Seven teams in total."
"Seven…"
"Yes. These are the ones left after we cut the teams whose terms didn't fit and the ones that wanted long-term deals."
I went through the papers one by one. LA Dodgers, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, Toronto Blue Jays, Washington Nationals, Philadelphia Phillies, San Francisco Giants.
"…Huh?"
Something felt off. Teams I had assumed would be there were missing.
"No Yankees or Rangers?"
"Correct. Those two wanted long-term contracts."
"How long are we talking…"
"Rangers wanted six years. Yankees wanted at least four."
Four years didn't sound that bad to me. The moment the words left my mouth, Jack shook his head hard. There was no reason, he said, to play four whole years for that kind of money—even if it was in the hundreds of millions.
I was too stunned to reply, and he must have taken my silence for dissatisfaction, because he launched into a long explanation of his reasoning. The short version: put up two years of real production, then cash in for the absolute maximum. Hadn't that once been nearly a trillion over ten years?
After listening to him for a while, I finally started flipping through the papers in front of me. Seven teams. Most of the offers looked roughly the same. There were small differences in the bonus structures, but nothing major.
"Which ones look good to you, Jack?"
"Personally… I like the Red Sox and the Cubs."
"Because neither has a clear ace?"
"That's one of the reasons."
"What else?"
"The rosters are strong. Both teams have a real shot at contending for a title within two years."
Jack walked me through the strengths and weaknesses of every club—where I would fit in the rotation and lineup, how the organization would treat me, the temperament of the fans, the culture of the front office, all of it.
Late that night, after Jack left, I sat on the sofa next to Han Song-yi, who had been waiting for me the whole time.
"Where do you think would be good?"
Her opinion mattered. Whichever team I joined, we would have to set up a house there, and she would be the one living in it and adapting. I would spend half the year on the road for road games; I couldn't ignore the person who would be left behind. Ho-min would be there too, of course, but that guy could adapt or not—his problem.
"I'm fine with anywhere, really."
Even as she said it, she casually nudged the Phillies and Blue Jays folders off to the side. When I stared at her, she gave a sheepish little grin and stuck her tongue out, but she made no move to pull those papers back.
"Didn't you talk with that Barnett guy? About the Cubs…?"
"I did. But I can't go just because of that."
"Jack said the Cubs looked good too, right?"
"He did…"
"You're not feeling it?"
"I don't know…"
I wondered if I had left too much of the decision to Jack. Now that I actually had to pick one, locking onto a single choice felt strangely difficult. Having just heard every pro and con, the moment I leaned toward one team the drawbacks would pop back up and make me second-guess myself.
The indecision stretched through the night and into lunch the next day. By then I was down to three teams.
The Phillies were out because Song-yi fretted that the fans were too intense. The Nationals went the opposite way—too quiet, too dull—and got cut. Toronto got the boot purely on Song-yi's "I just don't like them." I still don't know why. Maybe she had something against the maple-leaf country. The LA Dodgers were eliminated because their lineup already looked complete.
That left the Red Sox, the Cubs, and the Giants. All three offers were nearly identical: roughly two years and forty-five million dollars, plus performance bonuses, a commitment to support me as a Two-way Player as much as possible, and various personal perks on top.
I was still sitting there with a headache, unable to decide, when the phone rang.
"Hey~ How's life in America treating you? Good?"
A call from Ko Mandeok. Song-yi had been on the phone with someone earlier; it must have been his girlfriend, Yoon Jia.
"How's the car?"
"Man! It's incredible! Heh heh heh."
Before the wedding I had finally bought him the car I had been putting off. I hadn't covered the whole thing, but I had paid roughly two-thirds.
"Anyway, I hear you're stressed because every team is throwing way too much money at you?"
"…What kind of nonsense is that?"
"Heh heh heh. Still haven't decided?"
"Yeah. It's not easy."
"What's there to worry about? Just go to a team that has a catcher like me."
"…"
"You hate thinking during games. You just sit there overthinking for no reason. Go somewhere that has a catcher who takes care of it for you like I do."
"…!!!!"
I completed the medical and put my signature on a contract with the Boston Red Sox.
Korea, I was told, went completely crazy—over the short two-year term and the enormous sum relative to that length. Things were just as loud on this side of the ocean. Most of the talk was that the club had spent far too much on a player with no international experience. Sure, I had put up absurd numbers back home, but at the end of the day it was "just Korean baseball." A few articles noted that the Red Sox had won a free-agent free-for-all every team had chased, but those pieces were quiet compared with the criticism.
"I don't care. The second I start pitching well, all that noise disappears."
"True. You do have a special talent for getting roasted."
"…"
A few days after the ink dried, Song-yi, Ho-min, and I moved into the house the Red Sox organization had arranged for us.
"Whoa… what even is this?"
Ho-min's grandma-style outburst came the moment he saw the place, but I couldn't laugh. I was just as stunned. The Seoul apartment I had gotten thanks to him had already blown me away, yet the house the club prepared was something else entirely—a full mansion with more rooms than I could count and a huge yard.
"Cleaning this place is gonna be a nightmare."
The second Ho-min said it, Song-yi's expression twisted a little.
"W-we can just hire people."
"That so?"
"You're helping too."
This was the house the three of us would share. Song-yi had been the one to suggest Ho-min live with us, and that was that.
"M-me?"
"What else are you going to do around the house?"
"Analysis, and…"
"Then you can clean in your free time."
"…"
I had barely settled into the new house before I had to leave again. It was time to start getting my body ready, and I already had a plan mapped out.
"I'm here!"
"Hello, senior~"
"Hajin~ Long time no see, hahaha!"
Players from Korea had come over—guys who had trained with me around this time of year for the past few seasons, Ko Mandeok among them, plus Coach Cho Hyun-joon.
And that wasn't all. After winning the championship, the Savers had announced Barnett's retirement. A few days later another headline dropped.
Michael Len, who had left the team because of injury, was coming back to the Savers. He joined our group as well.
With the help of a physical trainer Jack had lined up—someone with a solid reputation among major leaguers—we started building our bodies. It was clearly more systematic than the pure running and weight work we used to do on our own.
At the same time I had Coach Cho check over my swing.
"If you were staying in Korea it wouldn't be an issue, but now you're going to be facing major-league pitching. You need a little more bat speed than you have right now."
We adjusted the form. The good news was that, unlike last year, we didn't have to tear everything down and rebuild from scratch.
And then there was this guy.
"Barnett!"
"Hahaha! How've you all been?"
Barnett, who had said he was heading to the Cubs as a scout. Instead of signing with them right away, he had taken some time off and then come over to join us. From what I gathered, the Savers side had put something on the table…
"Jin. This has nothing to do with your contract."
"…"
The way he said it somehow made me feel like it absolutely did have something to do with me.
Through systematic training and rest we slowly brought our bodies up to speed. A month passed…
Then it was time to split up for our respective spring camps. The Savers headed to Arizona. I stopped by the house briefly, then flew to Florida.
And on the very first day I joined the club, I finally met the player who had made me choose the Red Sox.
"You the one? The cocky, expensive rookie who supposedly came to our team because of me?"