The Chatterbox
The whole business with me and Matt Ganucci blew over without further incident.
The other players and the coaches all agreed it wasn't anything that warranted discipline. I'd just been fretting about it on my own.
No matter where I looked, news of Matt Ganucci getting hurt was hard to find. Far more ink was spilled on my own numbers.
Two starts, two wins. One of them a shutout. Zero earned runs. And I'd even stepped in as a hitter and gone deep.
Even I had to admit I was doing pretty damn well all around.
I watched from the dugout as we took the second game against Detroit, 14–5. The bats were cooking. Eun-hyung launched two home runs and Greg added one of his own.
Then came the third game the next day.
4. Gordon Perry (C)
5. Kang Hajin (DH)
The two of us stacked right next to each other in the order. Gordon Perry was batting cleanup because Greg was feeling a little tightness in his lower back. Judging by the way Greg was still parked in the dugout, though, it didn't look like anything to lose sleep over.
Our lineup showed the bottom of the opposing rotation zero mercy. In the first inning Arthur Burgart and Alan Thomas led off with back-to-back singles, and Eun-hyung's sacrifice fly brought a run home. Gordon Perry made an out, but he still managed to push the runner over another base. That left me stepping in with two down and a man on third.
I was rolling my hips loose on the way to the box when Gordon Perry—who'd just been retired and was heading back to the dugout—came straight over to me.
"······ Okay."
That was all he said. He told me the sinker dropped more than it looked from behind, then walked off.
I'd already seen it in the pregame scouting report, so I knew. What surprised me was that Gordon Perry had bothered to come over and say it himself.
Is he seriously trying to bury the hatchet?
Honestly, a fair amount of time had passed since Gordon Perry and I had clashed. We hadn't even thrown hands—just a little verbal sparring. Words like "yellow" and "you're mine" had flown around, but nothing worth dwelling on. Still, it had left the two of us in this weird, awkward limbo. We'd catch each other's eye and both look away. No real leftover bad blood, just… neither here nor there.
And today Gordon Perry had spoken first. Not because he had to. He'd gone out of his way.
If he's basically asking, "Wanna make up?" I wouldn't exactly turn him down.
I smirked and headed for the plate, giving the home-plate umpire a small nod on the way.
"Yes."
No idea why it was a "yes," but he said yes. First umpire in this country who'd ever answered my greeting like that.
Weird day's already off to a strong start.
Maybe because the sinker had worked on the first two hitters, the first pitch that came at me was a sinker—the same one Gordon Perry had personally warned me dropped harder than it looked.
Crack!
I golfed it. The ball sailed high over the left fielder's head.
A little out in front?
The feel in my hands the instant it left the bat told me distance wasn't the issue. The only question was how far that ball, already hooking left, would keep bending.
These guys supposedly lose their minds if you stand there admiring your own contact… but this should be fine, right? I'm watching because it might go foul. They can't get mad about that.
Thud.
The ball that had been drifting left smacked the foul pole and dropped back into fair territory.
Aigoo~ time to get moving~
Foul or home run? Home run. Better start the trot before I overstay my welcome and catch a real one next at-bat.
When I touched home, Alan Thomas—already waiting—stuck out his hand. I thought it was a high-five. Instead the kid grabbed my hand, yanked me in, and wrapped me up in a full hug. That was more than I'd bargained for. He didn't stop there; he threw an arm over my shoulder and walked me all the way into the dugout like we were best friends.
What is this sudden buddy-buddy act? The guy barely ever talks to me…
I got half-dragged into the dugout and immediately took the usual barrage of ass-pats from the butt-slappers.
"Thanks. Hit it because of you."
This time I went over to Gordon Perry first and thanked him for the tip. His eyes widened a fraction, then he just nodded without a word.
Most guys would say "no big deal" or something. This guy, man…
After that first at-bat I didn't do much. Their starter was gone after two innings and the bullpen came in… and those arms just didn't match up well with me. Everyone else, though, had a field day. Batting averages were climbing all around the clubhouse. Crack, crack—they were swinging freely and without mercy.
We had to hit the road again right away for a series in Tampa Bay.
"Man… we have to keep doing this?"
Looking at the schedule made my head spin. Four against Tampa Bay, then back to Boston for a seven-game homestand, then six more on the road. No days off in between.
Now I finally understood why every two-way player before me had started gasping for air by midseason, then broken down somewhere and vanished. Even with the system juicing my recovery I was already staring into the abyss. How much worse must it have been for those guys?
At least when I started, one solid night of rest was enough to bounce back…
They said once this month was over the next month's schedule looked a little kinder… but rest was one thing. The flying was another problem entirely.
I'd done plenty of road trips back in Korea. Some of those bus rides had been longer than these flights. Still, every time we got off a plane I felt extra wiped. Something about cabin pressure, they said. I didn't care about the science—I just felt it.
Tampa Bay currently sat third in the AL East, the division we called home. The Red Sox and Yankees were running out front; Tampa was a step behind. Baltimore sat under them, and Toronto had watched their entire starting rotation implode the second the season began.
Toronto had been one of the teams I'd seriously considered right up to the end. Han Song-yi had just said she didn't like them—no real reason—and that was that. They were out.
If she'd randomly taken a shine to them and I'd ended up in Toronto… I'd probably be grinding myself into dust on a collapsing team all by myself.
At least the Red Sox had one of the most feared lineups in the league. Over there the bats were just… okay.
Anyway. For this four-game set in Tampa I was penciled in to start the finale. We were starting with the fifth starter; Rondo, the ace, would go in game two, and game three was being handed to a pitcher who wasn't even in the regular rotation. That one was probably a throwaway.
The tiny tweak to the rotation meant I'd finally get to hit in one of Rondo's starts for the first time.
"Just two homers. That's all I'm asking. Hahaha."
The guy was trying to freeload. He'd gotten plenty of run support in his own outings.
After the Detroit series a small change had settled in around me.
"Hey, Kang~!"
From way across the field, a blond head came charging toward me, yelling my name. Prospect number one—Alan Thomas—had suddenly decided we were tight.
The twenty-four-year-old kid was a serious chatterbox. When I first met him I never would have guessed it. Get a little friendly and the real him came out; his mouth never stopped moving.
The problem was I could barely understand half of what he said. It wasn't even that he talked fast. Something about the cadence was just… off. He claimed it was because he was from Texas. I wasn't so sure. Looked to me like the problem was just him. But both he and Ho-min insisted that was how Texas accents worked, so… whatever.
"How do you hit it like that?"
"Yeah. How do you get that kind of impact so the ball jumps like that?"
"······"
Take the juice. The juice is the real answer.
"Uh, well… I just do what the coaches taught me."
The team already had Eun-hyung, Greg, and Gordon Perry. Why was he coming to me? Or hell, just ask the hitting coach.
"Because you're like me!"
"You and me? In what way?"
The kid was skinny. Wiry, almost. I at least had some muscle on me…
"Just look at whatever you know, okay? Please?"
"······"
I still had no idea why he was latching onto me. But when a skinny kid already looked like a strong breeze could knock him over, and then he used that soft little voice… it got to me a little.
"Haaah…"
Weren't Americans supposed to be all about personal space? Train on your own, figure it out yourself? Coaches didn't even step in unless you asked. So why was this kid like this?
"What's the problem?"
He showed zero signs of peeling off, so I figured I might as well hear him out.
"My bat keeps getting late?"
What?
"Then swing earlier."
He said he was trying and it just wasn't working. Then he grabbed a bat and showed me his swing. The big loop was one thing, but even I could see something was off.
"Hey. Give me that bat."
He handed it over immediately.
Heavy. Dead weight. Felt like one of those pregame practice bats.
"Kid. Your bat is way too—"
Why am I even explaining this piece by piece?
It wasn't that I wanted to coldly send away someone who'd come asking for help. There just wasn't any real reason I needed to spell it all out.
"Here. Use this."
I handed him one of my bats—way lighter than the log he'd been swinging. Simple fix.
Alan Thomas blinked at the bat I'd just given him, looking a little dazed. Then his face split into a huge grin and he said he'd give it a try.
Go for it… hope it works out.
Time passed and the game started.
Crack!
A towering shot that cleared the deepest part of the center-field wall at Tropicana Field by a mile.
"Kaaaaang!!"
And there he was, cradling my bat like a holy relic, screaming my name like a man possessed.
I've got a weird feeling I've lived through this exact scene before…
This isn't about to become a pain in the ass, is it?
What is this uneasy feeling crawling up my spine?