Bean Powder
I was riding with Ho-min on the way to the training ground.
"Just stop worrying and drive properly, will you?"
Ho-min had been using worry as an excuse to nag me ever since we left the house.
"...Did you ask me to be your translator just so you could make me drive?"
"What are you talking about? It's two birds with one stone."
"You're not going to drive even over here?"
"Well..."
Honestly, the thought of why bother? did cross my mind.
It wasn't as if I was interested in cars the way other guys were...
"Starting today, all the other players are gathering, right?"
"That's what I heard."
"Then today's when it really begins."
After the first day, I'd been working on my chemistry with Danson and had managed to get somewhat acquainted with a few of the players.
Even after the incident with Gordon Perry, they didn't seem to care much about it.
Whether that was because Gordon Perry wasn't around, or because they genuinely didn't care, I couldn't say. Either way, things had gone reasonably well so far.
But starting today, the rest of the players would be joining us.
They had definitely heard about what happened between me and Gordon Perry.
How those players would treat me was still hard to predict.
"Yeah. I have to decide whether I'll be a nice rookie like at the Saviors, or a complete psycho."
"What the hell are you talking about? The guy who used to bean people the second they got on his nerves. You probably even thought about grabbing a bat and charging the mound, didn't you?"
"That was a long time ago. Back when I was a kid."
"...It hasn't even been a year."
"That's not the important part."
"Ha... You're seriously the craziest bastard. I'm scared other people will find out."
Becoming the best in any field is an incredible achievement.
No matter what that field is.
"That doesn't mean you have to be the best at crazy shit too, you insane bastard."
That was just Ho-min talking because he still didn't get it.
"Haven't you ever heard this?"
"What now? What is it?"
"If you go half-crazy, people point fingers at you. But if you go completely crazy, they get scared and stay away."
"...What kind of bullshit is that?"
"If I'm going to be called a psycho, I might as well become a psycho that no one dares to mess with!"
"...Fuck, why is this bastard getting dumber by the day?"
Ho-min seemed to be taking it so seriously that I decided to stop teasing him there.
The conversation had gone this way because Ho-min was taking the whole Gordon Perry incident way too seriously.
Seeing how worried he was, I'd wanted to change the subject a little.
Though it might have gotten a bit too redirected.
Chatting with Ho-min, we arrived at the training ground before I knew it.
"America's nice for this. As a rookie, you don't have to show up early and do all the grunt work like in Korea."
"Even if they told me to, do you think I would have?"
"..."
"I heard it's good that in America, people don't hide their opinions. They say not to worry about reading the room like in Korea."
"Suddenly what the... Ha, whatever. Let's drop it."
I exchanged greetings with the parking lot attendant I'd gotten friendly with over the past few days and headed inside.
Compared to yesterday, there were definitely a lot more unfamiliar faces.
"Kang~ You're here?"
"Eric~ Good morning~"
"We already had lunch."
"So what? The important thing is that we said hello."
Eric stuck by my side as I headed toward the locker room.
"Gordon's here."
"Huh?"
"He came early and is meeting with the other players."
"Really? Is he already fully recovered?"
"No. Doesn't seem like it yet."
Why would an injured guy come to the training ground?
"But it's a little weird. It looks like he's talking about you to a few of the guys he's close with."
"Oh ho~"
"There are a lot of players who follow Gordon. Those players..."
I stopped Eric as he continued.
"Eric. It's fine. I think I know roughly what he's trying to do. But you don't have to worry."
"But..."
"At worst, they'll try to freeze me out. Maybe throw some insults my way so I can overhear them."
"..."
"But I'm actually pretty good at handling that kind of treatment."
I was the one the Dragons' manager himself had led the charge in freezing out.
"Don't worry. I've already prepared something for times like this."
"R-really?"
"Yeah."
Even after hearing me out, Eric still seemed worried. He hesitated a bit longer before heading off first.
"What are you planning?"
"Me? What?"
"You said you prepared something. What is it? Did you do something again without me knowing?"
"It's nothing much. Heh heh heh."
A few players were sitting in the locker room chatting.
When I walked in, their eyes all turned to me at once. Then one of them stood up and held out his hand.
"Kang? Right?"
He was a bit shorter than me and extremely handsome. And I knew who he was.
"Eun-hyung?"
The Red Sox's star slugger. Martin J. Silvers.
The man Korean fans called Eun-hyung.
One of the best hitters in the league, who'd smashed nearly fifty home runs last season.
"What?"
"No, no. Nice to meet you. I know you, hyung."
"Who wouldn't? Calling that a greeting..."
Ho-min's voice came from behind me, but I lightly ignored it and took Silvers's hand.
"I heard you did something interesting?"
"Are you going to get mad?"
"What? Why would I? From what I heard, it wasn't a big deal. He got hurt because he couldn't catch the ball, right?"
"Oh~ Exactly. His catching skills were pretty bad."
"What? Puhahaha."
Silvers laughed so hard the locker room seemed about to explode, then lightly patted my shoulder.
I took that as a sign of approval. He was laughing as if he felt somehow refreshed by it.
This hyung... might be alright.
"You're a two-way player?"
"Yeah."
"So I can see you hit today too?"
"I'll show you."
"Great. See you later then."
Silvers left the locker room with a smile.
The other players who'd been talking with him also gave me a light greeting and followed after him.
"The atmosphere's weird, isn't it?"
"Yeah. What is this?"
"Are there two factions?"
"Factions? That's a bit much."
"Just looking at them, doesn't it seem like Eun-hyung and that bastard don't get along?"
"True, but..."
"Interesting. Heh heh."
"This is interesting to you? The team atmosphere is a complete mess."
"This is nothing."
I thought it was only this much.
On the first day everyone gathered, the first team practice after I joined began.
It wasn't all that different from Korea. Training was training, after all. Being in America didn't make it particularly special.
At first, I didn't notice.
Everyone was just keeping their mouths shut and doing the drills they were told to do.
But as time passed little by little, it started to become clear.
These guys... this was no ordinary mess.
"Eric. Come over here for a second."
I took Eric, currently the only person on this team I could talk to openly, to a quiet spot with no one around.
"Eric. Why is the team like this?"
"Huh?"
"First, let's talk about Gordon and Eun... no, Silvers."
Eric quickly understood what I meant and started telling me what I wanted to hear.
It wasn't a very long story.
"So... the guys on Gordon's side are the ones who were originally with the Red Sox? And Silvers's side are the ones who transferred in?"
"Not all of them, but roughly yes."
"I see..."
Though Gordon's side had far more numbers, apparently.
No wonder Eun-hyung welcomed me so warmly. Since I transferred in too, was he inviting me to join his side?
I'd thought well of him...
"And the pitchers are separate?"
"Not all of them..."
"Right. The veterans are on Gordon's side, and the rest are neither here nor there. Is that it?"
"Y-yeah."
The pitchers... seemed to just stick together among themselves. Except for the closer and two or three others.
This was the weakest team.
Come to think of it, the pitchers had treated me well too, hadn't they?
The ones who'd joined from the minors had been busy with their own training, but the others had treated me casually enough.
"How does a team even function like this? Last season's results were decent, weren't they?"
Ho-min asked in disbelief, but Eric looked at him like he didn't understand the question.
"What does the record have to do with it? As long as everyone does their own job."
"..."
"We think differently. We think of baseball as a team sport, but these guys seem to think of it as an individual sport."
"Does that even make sense?"
"How would I know?"
How was I supposed to know? It was my first time here too.
"Is that a coach or a player?"
On the way back after throwing some pitches, Ho-min said that while looking at Gordon, who was sitting next to a coach and pointing fingers all over the place.
"Heh. Reminds me of the old days. Why?"
"Huh?"
"At least that guy's sitting next to a coach while doing that. Someone else used to sit next to the manager and pull the same shit."
"...Who?"
"The great captain of the Dragons, Choe Hojung."
"...Just what is wrong with the Dragons?"
"There's a reason they finish tenth every year. Still, at least over there they united under Choe Hojung. Here, well..."
"If uniting still gets you last place, what happens if you don't unite?"
What happens? It just gets worse, of course.
Batting practice was in full swing on the field.
Seeing Eun-hyung waiting in the back, we joined him over there.
"Oh! Perfect timing. Going right in?"
"I'll watch a bit first."
Just then, the batter who'd been practicing stepped out.
Eun-hyung stepped into the box and winked at me.
"That eye of his..."
Maybe because I'd heard Eric's story, the words that came out weren't nice.
"...You should be grateful those guys don't understand Korean."
"Winking and all that bullshit."
"...It's a greeting! A greeting!"
Crack!
Crack!
Crack!
Eun-hyung sent the batting practice balls flying cleanly.
Not the wild swing form you often saw from American players, but a clean, polished batting form.
Even so, the balls that met his bat roared as they shot toward the fence at high speed.
"He's got power to spare."
Even I, after taking the medicine, had often been told I had good power thanks to the long distance relative to my form.
But Eun-hyung was even more so than me.
That meant it was pure power from his own body.
"He's a monster."
The batting of a top-tier Major League hitter could only be described as monstrous.
Eun-hyung's turn ended quickly.
Coming out of the batter's box, he called me over to take my turn.
"You want to see me hit?"
Then I had to show him.
Crack!
"Oh!"
Crack!
"Good!"
Crack!
"$%^@$%^@$%$@%@$"
The first few balls didn't clear the fence.
Maybe because it had been a while since I'd held a bat, they didn't seem to go as far as I expected.
But that only lasted a moment. Soon I started launching the incoming balls over the fence.
Then the dialects started flying from behind. Conversations so rapid I couldn't make them out.
"They say you're better than they expected."
As I finished batting practice and came out, Ho-min relayed what he'd heard earlier.
"Than they expected?"
"Since you're a pitcher, they didn't have high expectations."
"Is that so?"
"Yeah. More importantly, look over there."
Following Ho-min's subtle glance, I saw Gordon staring right at us.
"That bastard was watching you the whole time you were hitting, staring daggers."
"That eye of his..."
"Ah! Enough!"
Ho-min's sudden shout drew the players' attention.
"Ho-min. You've got a lot of anger. You need to learn to control it."
"You son of a bitch..."
Today, too, I gave Ho-min some life advice he needed.
I felt proud.