Spring Camp (Batting Practice)
"Whoa... that's insane."
Ko Mandeok could only gape in pure admiration as he watched the batting practice of Shane Williams, the new foreign hitter who'd just joined our team.
Last season Rick Sanchez had done his part well enough, but he'd gone looking for a different path. The front office, as if they'd seen it coming, wasted no time finding a replacement—and that replacement was the man standing right in front of us: Shane Williams.
That wasn't even his full name... I'd heard it once, but it was so long and complicated I gave up trying to memorize it on the spot. His friends called him Shane, so we decided we would too.
Shane was a classic AAAA-level hitter. The kind of guy teams called up the second a big-league roster spot opened. But once he actually got there, he never quite delivered...
He'd bounced from club to club chasing the dream, never quite managed to kick down the door to the majors, and finally given up and come over to the Korean league. That was the story Taeseong-hyung had given us.
"If a guy that good can't stick, how good do you actually have to be?"
"Who knows. Maybe he's got some other weakness. Soft against breaking balls or something like that, right?"
"I don't know about the rest, but the raw power... damn..."
"Look at that frame. How could he not have power?"
Shane was a massive hitter. Well over six-foot-three, every inch of him wrapped in muscle that looked ready to burst.
Most people struggle to grow in just one direction. This guy had grown both up and out without limit.
"He's fast too, right?"
"That's what they say. Back in the States he'd steal bases just for fun."
"With that body? One collision with a fielder and he'd put somebody in the hospital."
"They've got plenty of guys like that over there. You know—football players. Big, strong, fast, and flexible. People who got every gift in the package."
"It's ridiculously unfair. Did Shane play football too?"
"No idea. Probably, though? In the movies they usually play two or three sports and pick one when they graduate."
Crack!
Crack!
Even while we talked, the balls Shane was hitting kept clearing the fence one after another.
"Shit. How am I supposed to practice after watching that..."
"Just do your best. Heh heh."
"...You're not going?"
"Of course I am. But who's gonna yell at me if I suck? You maybe, but not me."
"..."
After putting on that display of overwhelming power, Shane finished his round and stepped out of the box.
Naturally, that meant he was walking straight toward where Mandeok and I were standing.
"Hi~"
Mandeok offered an awkward little greeting.
"Oh! Hi~ @#$#%$%^%@@$#%@$^%@"
Shane flashed a huge smile right back and returned the greeting—then kept talking. The problem was everything that came after the hello.
That rapid-fire, almost rapping cadence unique to some Black players left Mandeok completely frozen. Aside from the greeting itself, he hadn't understood a single word. His eyes were practically vibrating.
I knew that would happen. Heh heh heh.
It had originally been Mandeok's turn, but since he was currently held hostage by Shane, I stepped into the cage first.
Before coming out here—after finishing my pitching work and taking a short break—I'd shown the new swing to the hitting coach. He'd already heard about it, so he was genuinely interested and gave me the green light to join the session.
That didn't mean I was diving into full-scale batting practice. Just getting a look at it. For now.
When I'd trained with Coach Cho Hyun-joon, I never really got to take live swings. Overhauling the form had come first, and the space was limited anyway.
So all I'd done was soft toss and tee work, plus a couple of rounds against the pitching machine at the very end.
In other words, I had never hit a ball thrown by an actual human being.
Today that changed. Even if it was only batting-practice pitches, it still counted. A real person was throwing it.
People say modern high-end machines are actually more useful for training. Still, the feeling is different. The feeling.
I stepped in, settled into my stance, and a comfortably slow pitch came in—slightly up in the zone, right down the middle.
Almost the same location as the home run I'd hit last season.
Crack!
"You're lunging."
I'd swung with confidence, but apparently my body had gone out to meet the ball without me realizing it. The hitting coach watching from behind called it out immediately.
Coach Cho had said the same thing. Soft toss and tee work had been fine, but against the machine my weight kept drifting forward.
I'd spent two solid days getting chewed out while practicing keeping my center of gravity back... and the first live BP session had me so excited I forgot all over again.
"I get that the big swing makes you want to start early, but how are you going to hit breaking balls like that? Right now three sliders and you're looking at a strikeout."
"..."
"The ball doesn't have to go forward. Whiff or foul it off—I don't care. Just see it as long as you can. You understand what I'm saying?"
"Yes."
I understood. Doing it was another story. The second the ball left the hand, the urge to hit it made my body move on its own.
In the end my first real batting session finished with nothing but corrections. Neither the coach nor I managed a single swing we were happy with.
Had I gotten cocky because Cho Hyun-joon had called my learning speed monstrous? The second the results came in, my confidence cratered.
And then...
"Yes! That's it!"
"You prepared well. Much better. Keep riding that feel."
Watching Mandeok, who was training alongside me, get nothing but praise only made the frustration worse.
That evening.
"What the hell are you talking about, you crazy bastard?"
I told Ho-min about it when he called, and the first thing out of his mouth was pure abuse.
"You seriously thought you'd start crushing home runs like it was nothing from day one? You're out of your mind."
"...That's not what I—"
"A guy who hadn't swung a bat in four years as a pro—whose only at-bat was last season—thought he'd be better than Mandeok-hyung, who's been swinging his whole life?"
"That's not what I meant."
"Everyone keeps telling you you're good so you actually start believing you're something special... You already forgot you were a complete nobody half a year ago?"
"I-I wasn't a complete nobody..."
"Ugh. Pathetic. You really think you're some kind of genius. Even if you were a genius, this is ridiculous. Your form looks a little like Lee Gijun's so now you think you are Lee Gijun?"
"...It's not like that. That's not what I was saying."
"Just quit. With that attitude, what's the point? You should be practicing until you drop and instead you're getting jealous... Ugh."
"..."
"Hang up, you asshole."
He unloaded a full magazine of insults and hung up first. Everything he said was so dead-on I couldn't even argue.
The way he kept throwing "genius" around hit a little too close to home. Honestly it wasn't that at all—I was just half-joking, half-sulking—but still.
I was still thrashing around in self-loathing when Hwang Chan-young walked into the room. The second he came in he changed clothes and started getting ready to head back out.
"Where are you going?"
"Thinking of going for a run."
"...Aren't you tired?"
"Still gotta do what I gotta do."
"...I'm coming with you."
"Yes, sir!"
I left the room with Hwang Chan-young, bat in hand.
Manager Park was replaying the day's batting session in his head.
Some players had looked solid. Others had fallen short of expectations. But it was still early in camp, so he wasn't particularly worried.
The reason he couldn't stop replaying those swings, though, came down to one player.
"He's a natural. Came prepared, too. Fix a couple things in camp and he'll produce in a big way! No—we have to put that kid in the lineup no matter what!"
He remembered the hitting coach practically vibrating with excitement, trying to sell him on the idea. The same coach who'd been nitpicking every swing during the session had sprinted over the second Kang Hajin walked off looking dejected.
Had the hitting coach ever gotten that fired up last season? Manager Park couldn't remember a single time.
"Kang Hajin, huh..."
Manager Park had watched the session from a distance himself.
The big, aggressive swing that matched that sturdy frame had looked anything but ordinary even to his eye. Even granting that he'd learned it from Cho Hyun-joon, the best hitting coach in the country, it was hard to believe the kid had only been working on it for two weeks.
Sure, there were things to clean up. Especially the complete lack of adjustment against breaking balls. But that didn't matter. Practice and experience would take care of it.
Even so, Manager Park kept shaking his head.
"No way."
He'd been certain after the first pitching session of camp. Kang Hajin was ready to start.
Starting and relieving were completely different ways of managing a game, and after years of only coming out of the pen there had been a little concern—but that worry had been baseless.
Thinking about it carefully made it obvious.
Even when his velocity and stuff weren't what they were now, Kang Hajin had always been a pitcher who won with command and pitch sequencing. He'd gone pure max-effort after becoming a closer, but as a kid he'd started, and as a pro he'd worked long relief. He already knew how to navigate long outings.
The old "thirty-pitch limit" rumor had already been proven false. The pitch-count concerns that had made him hesitate about converting him to a starter weren't really a problem either.
And the repertoire?
Most people said three or four usable pitches were enough to start. Kang Hajin blew right past that.
Every pitch had real teeth. Even the curve—the one people called his weakest—was only weak relative to his other stuff. Honestly, there weren't many Korean pitchers who threw a better curve than him.
"Using a pitcher who could be an ace as a hitter..."
Of course the hitting coach wasn't saying to make him a pure position player. He was talking about making him a two-way player, the way a few guys had started doing after that Japanese star opened the door.
Manager Park had been tempted for a second. He'd been turning it over ever since. But his head kept shaking no.
"The stamina... It's his first season as a starter. There's no way his body holds up."
Even if they only used him as a designated hitter on his off days, it still didn't feel right.
Look at the guys who'd tried two-way work in the majors. Starters who also DHed two or three times between starts.
Early on it looked promising, but as the season wore on the physical toll piled up, and by the end of the year most of them—no, all of them—ended up with mediocre numbers on both sides of the ball.
All of them except one.
"Ha... Too good at everything and now it's a problem. Unbelievable."
In the end all he could do was let out a hollow laugh.
He roughly sorted his thoughts, left the office, and headed for the dorms—then something caught his eye. A silhouette in a dark corner of the grounds.
As he quietly approached he heard the soft whoosh of a bat cutting air. Someone was taking swings.
And then Manager Park saw them.
Kang Hajin, drenched in sweat, swinging a bat in the dark. And right beside him, Hwang Chan-young, towel in hand, swinging his arms just as hard.
"Heh heh... This is going to drive me crazy. I'd just managed to put the dilemma down..."
Manager Park's feet turned around and carried him straight back to the office.