Finishing Camp (Manager Park's Decision)
The dreamlike two days of rest ended the next day.
After morning team practice and lunch, we finally moved into individual training.
I hadn't so much as touched a ball in nearly three weeks. The other players said they'd at least managed some catch, but me...
Jo Sangjun, for instance, I often saw wandering around with a ball wedged between his fingers. Said it was to keep his feel sharp. Me, though...
I'm the type who deliberates when someone tells me to do something — but when they tell me not to, I simply don't. Especially when it involves my body.
Why go looking for something they specifically forbade? Just don't do it.
An earlier season end than everyone else, a week of rest days, then another week of physical training after arriving here. For those reasons, I hadn't so much as looked at a ball in nearly three weeks.
Since it was the first day back on the mound, I decided to wrap things up with nothing more than a light check of my stuff. And it wasn't just for today — they said they wouldn't have anyone throwing at full power until finishing camp was over.
When I asked in mild surprise if that was really okay, the coach looked at me like he didn't understand the question. Wasn't that obvious? He even asked me back why on earth I'd need to throw at full power.
Back with the Dragons, they'd always told me to give everything I had on every pitch... Looks like I still hadn't fully shaken that off.
Pop!
Pop!
Pop!
Pop!
With Ko Mandeok catching and Taeseong hyung watching from the side, I tossed a few light four-seamers.
"Hey~ looking good today?"
"Really?"
Ko Mandeok handed the ball back looking quite satisfied. I, however, couldn't feel any particular difference from during the season.
Four-seam, slider, changeup, curve, splitter. I wrapped up after throwing just a few of each, keeping everything light.
After catching the last pitch, Ko Mandeok nodded and walked over to where Taeseong hyung and I were standing.
"I wasn't sure, but you've definitely changed."
"Huh?"
"You've changed. You."
"...What has?"
"Your pitching form."
"...... Mine?"
"I don't really notice anything?"
At Ko Mandeok's sudden claim that my pitching form had changed, Taeseong hyung and I both tilted our heads at the same time. Not only me — the person throwing — but even Taeseong hyung, who'd caught my pitches longer than anyone, hadn't sensed a difference.
"I'm serious. Your form's a bit different. How do I put it... smoother, maybe?"
"This kid's form was always smooth, though?"
"No. No... well, it was smooth, but there was a wild edge to it, I guess?"
"Huh?"
"But today that part's mostly gone. That's why it looks more stable. Oh! Not that the stuff has dropped off or anything, of course."
"I don't know. Doesn't feel any different from when I was catching..."
Neither of us could make sense of it. Frustrated, Ko Mandeok went and fetched the pitching coach who'd been watching other players on the far side. Then I threw a few more pitches in front of him.
"Ooh... it really has changed? Nice. It's gotten a lot better."
"...Really?"
"Yeah. Your old form is coming out. The form from before you came to our team."
"My pitching form actually changed? How did I not know? I watched myself throw so much."
"The person throwing usually doesn't notice. You don't observe your form that closely."
With the pitching coach agreeing with Ko Mandeok, it seemed it really had changed.
"Then why didn't you fix it?"
Taeseong hyung's question. I felt the same. If the form had gotten worse, he should have said something.
"Why fix it? It got a bit stiffer, sure, but compared to before, the ball got so much better. It changed so much it wasn't even comparable — what reason would there be to change it back?"
"Ah..."
Listening to the pitching coach's explanation, I roughly understood what had happened. To trade for me, they must have watched a fair amount of my footage, so they'd noticed that my form after transferring was different somewhere. But the gap in velocity and stuff between then and now was so massive it wasn't even comparable, so there was no reason to force it back.
Ko Mandeok hadn't paid much attention to my old pitching, so he only knew me after the transfer — and thus thought my form originally had a slightly wild edge.
"Just how was I throwing that he'd call it wild?"
"You didn't watch my games?"
"Huh? Ah... you only came in for short stints at the end anyway. Hard to go looking for them. And I was pretty busy after leaving the team myself."
"Your excuses are a bit half-hearted."
Taeseong hyung, Ko Mandeok, and I got the footage from the club and checked it together.
"Huh? He's right? What's going on with this?"
"......"
"See? From the kick to the arm coming through. It's different from what you threw earlier."
"Huh... Even if it's hard for the person themselves to notice form changes, you really didn't feel this?"
"......"
Looking at the footage, I could tell for sure. It wasn't the pitching form I'd been throwing with for so long.
"Well, at least you know now and you've gone back to the old form. Just pay attention from here on."
"The velocity won't go back to the old days, right?"
"From catching earlier, doesn't seem like that would happen."
"That's a relief, then."
"By the way, it's a miracle you had control throwing like that. No wonder people said the ball would sail on you once in a while — I wondered why a kid who never did that before was doing it. There was a reason."
Back when control was the only thing I could rely on, there were times I'd pitch well and still get hit hard — but almost never cases where the ball slipped out of my hand and caused problems. As this season wound down, though, misses started cropping up once in a while.
I'd just thought they were wild pitches from throwing hard... but Taeseong hyung saw it as a problem stemming from the pitching form itself.
"Things like that happen because of pitching form?"
"What are you talking about? You pitchers are such sensitive creatures. A changed pitching form is obviously a huge problem. Nothing would be strange if something went wrong."
"Hmm... My control seemed fine, though."
"That's the amazing part. Anyway, next year the wild pitches should go down some."
Taeseong hyung was speaking with considerable confidence, but I still felt like, Is it really that big a deal?
After checking the footage, we each went our separate ways. Taeseong hyung left to watch other players, and Ko Mandeok left for his own training.
I headed to a quiet corner where no one was around — I needed some time alone to sort out my thoughts. Honestly, my head was a bit of a mess.
The me in the footage was using my body as big as possible to throw a strong ball. An unexpected change in pitching form. The fact that I hadn't known until the season ended was just surprising.
Did I get greedy for velocity and end up like this? Or is there another reason? Don't tell me it was the pills? Nah... that's definitely not it.
Lately, whenever anything happens, I find myself thinking, Was it because of the pills? Proof of how much I'd been relying on them. But after this meeting with the Hooded Woman, I learned I shouldn't be that way. I know now that to grow beyond this, my own effort has to follow.
That's why I've been training even harder lately.
I need to know myself better. Spending a whole season without knowing something like this is ridiculous.
Simply increasing training time isn't everything. Not just training blindly, but analyzing myself — grasping my strengths and weaknesses more accurately and developing them in the best direction possible.
Come to think of it, that bastard Ho-min... Calling himself a manager and saying he'd take care of me, and he didn't even know this? You're dead.
Thinking of a message full of curses to send Ho-min, I headed back toward the training field.
After all training ended, I was on my way back to the dorms after a shower. Somehow the atmosphere around the dorms seemed a bit unsettled. The mood looked heavy, too.
"Something going on?"
When I asked Ko Mandeok, who'd gotten to the room before me, he flapped his hand for me to come over quick.
"It's chaos outside, right?"
For all the question, he himself looked pretty excited.
"Huh? No. Not that bad. Just a bit chaotic?"
"Really? Tch. You don't know yet, I guess."
He pouted and clicked his tongue. Why's this guy been acting like this lately... It's not like he's trying to act cute with me. Before it was "heung," now it's "tch."
"What's going on?"
"Yeah. There is something."
"What is it?"
"Well. The manager started holding meetings. Heh heh."
Huh? So what about that?
"...... And?"
Why is this such a big deal that there's this much fuss? Manager meetings are common, aren't they? Especially our manager — he often called people in when he had something to say. I heard about converting to a starter that way myself. Once you're in, the atmosphere is stiff and bleak, sure, but the meeting itself wasn't anything special.
"Here's the thing. The manager called in a few players for meetings, and..."
He's drawing it out. If this were Ho-min, my hand would already be up.
"Called them? Ah, what is it! Can't you just tell me already? I'm dying of curiosity."
"This punk? Look at him talking to his hyung like that? Not telling! I'm not telling!"
This time my hand really almost went up. Almost a real disaster.
"Ha... Hyung. Could you please just tell me?"
"You want to hear?"
"Desperately."
"The Drinking Seven. He only called those bastards. Heh heh."
I could tell why he was so excited on his own. Even when we talked yesterday, Ko Mandeok had been openly showing how much he hated those guys, so hearing the manager had summoned them must have put him in a good mood. Because the reason for calling them was obvious.
"Huh? Really?"
"Yeah. I saw one of them coming out of the manager's office earlier. Face completely rotten, haha. Definitely didn't hear anything good."
Up to that point, I didn't think much of it. Ko Mandeok was making a fuss, but I figured some light disciplinary action had been handed down. I thought maybe a mild warning at most. That's usually how these things end.
Of course, major discipline could come down. I was one of the cases where something like that happened — I had the experience of getting kicked straight back to Korea for not doing what the manager ordered.
But... not one or two people. A full seven. And over drinking that, while excessive, had been permitted? If problems had arisen from it, that would be one thing, but that wasn't the case either. They'd made it back to the dorms, late as it was.
So I thought nothing too serious would happen.
But the next day.
Something was off from morning team practice. The number of people at training had dropped. And not by one or two.
First, Seo Gyeongmin and Jo Sangjun were nowhere to be seen — and on top of that, the Drinking Seven. Those people weren't there.
"Hey! All hell's broken loose!"
After lunch, Ko Mandeok — who'd told me to go rest in the room first — came bursting into the room, slamming the door like he was trying to break it.
"That door's going to break at that rate."
"Those bastards got kicked out! Sent back to Korea!"
What the...
"Who?"
"All of them! Every last one! All seven!"
"Huh..."
Our manager was a far more decisive man than I'd thought.