I Sharpened My Blade
Honestly, Hong Jong-gu was one of the toughest hitters the Stars had. Blink and he was already standing on first with a smile. The guy had to be that fast.
Top of the seventh, leadoff batter Hong Jong-gu steps in.
Kang Hajin needs to be careful here. Hong Jong-gu may lack power and refined contact, but he’s the kind of player who finds a way on base when his team is in trouble.
He’s currently leading the league in infield hits.
That’s right. He’s the type who can beat out a slightly deep infield grounder and reach first safely.
In his first two at-bats I’d gone exclusively with fastballs. Against a guy who just waited on the ball and put the barrel on it, that felt like the best approach—and it had worked. Still, watching him foul off two straight pitches in the second at-bat made me wonder if he was starting to time me up…
Ko Mandeok called for another fastball. Not the low corner like before, though—this one was a high inside pitch that just nicked the zone.
“Stri~ke!”
Strike call on the high inside pitch! Hong Jong-gu had to bail out in a hurry, but the ball still clipped the zone.
Ko Mandeok is crafty. With the stance Hong’s using right now, that location is almost unhittable. He’d been crowding the plate thinking about the earlier at-bats.
Hong Jong-gu glanced back and forth between Ko Mandeok and me, kicked the dirt once for no real reason, then stepped back in.
Second pitch was a curveball that dropped straight into the dirt. The bat that had started forward jerked to a stop, and the home-plate umpire stayed silent. Ko Mandeok immediately pointed at the third-base umpire, but the call didn’t change.
Third pitch: a fastball two balls above the zone. Hong Jong-gu’s bat sliced empty air.
That guy doesn’t usually swing at pitches like that…
A pitch he would never have offered at on a normal day, and he’d just flailed at it. Ko Mandeok called for another high heater—one ball lower this time, just off the top of the zone.
Swing and a miss! Strikeout! Hong Jong-gu goes down swinging again!
He’s rushing it. Really rushing it. Hong Jong-gu has excellent plate discipline, but the situation’s gotten to him. You don’t have to get a hit to reach base, you know.
Exactly. After the first pitch, every offering to him was a ball.
The second batter flied out to left. Then the three-hole hitter, Kim Hyun-sung, stepped in.
“Huh?”
A knuckleball sign—something that hadn’t appeared all day. We hadn’t planned it beforehand, and as the game went on I’d figured the knuckleball was staying in the vault. Yet Ko Mandeok was telling me I had to throw one to Kim Hyun-sung.
For the first time all game I shook my head.
Ko Mandeok put the knuckleball sign down again. I shook him off a second time.
Then I flashed a sign of my own.
The moment Ko Mandeok saw it he shot to his feet, yanked off his mask, and stared straight at me. A second later he stepped forward and started adjusting the defense himself.
……
Ko Mandeok usually handled the pitching lead himself, but everything else he left strictly to the dugout. Until now. For what felt like the first time, he was positioning the fielders on his own—without so much as a glance toward the bench.
Left fielder and center fielder shifted a few steps toward left. Right fielder actually moved a little farther right. Everyone on the infield except the first baseman crept a step or two toward the left side of their positions.
Suddenly the right-center gap looked wide open. A ground ball with any kind of pace would find grass. It was the exact shift from the analysis packet Ho-min had handed us. According to Ho-min, Kim Hyun-sung almost never hit the ball to right-center. He wasn’t even a deliberate pull hitter, yet nearly everything went left or up the middle. What had Ho-min called him? A “push-hitter idiot created by guess-hitting”? The rare balls that did go down the first-base line were almost always mishits.
Ko Mandeok, who had studied that packet with me, was trusting Ho-min’s numbers right here, right now.
Defensive shift is on. How do you see it?
It’s not a radical change—just a little extra weight toward the left side from each position.
Other teams have shown similar shifts against Kim Hyun-sung before, but they never really paid off.
Kim Hyun-sung has legitimate power. You can set the most precise shift in the world and it won’t matter if he just hits it over the wall.
True. And most teams also play their outfielders deeper when he comes up, which opens the gaps between infield and outfield and creates even more hits.
But the Savers outfield hasn’t backed up at all.
Right. Ko Mandeok must be convinced no extra-base hit is coming. He’s thinking if they just cover the lanes, they can catch whatever’s hit.
First pitch: two-seamer. He wanted it jammed in tight—ball was fine as long as it didn’t hit him. I couldn’t bring myself to throw an intentional ball, though. I’d seen a guy stick his gut out and take one for the team before. So instead of missing, I put it in the zone.
“Hup!”
Strike is called. A 154-kilometer fastball boring in on the hands.
That look like a two-seamer? Yes—confirmed two-seamer. Perfect location inside.
Still throwing 154 in the seventh. Kang Hajin. And as soon as he gets the ball back he’s right into the next pitch. Second offering to Kim Hyun-sung!
Crack!
He got it! Where’s it going—left fielder’s on the run! Left fielder! He’s got it!
Oh… that… that’s a successful defensive shift. The ball was absolutely scorched. From a normal position the left fielder never would have reached it, but because he was hugging the line he made the catch.
Savers defense comes through! Kim Hyun-sung walks back shaking his head! Kang Hajin’s bid continues!
“Yes!”
Left fielder Lee Won-jung sprinted, snagged the ball, and rolled over once. He popped up holding the glove high to show the catch, and Ko Mandeok ripped off his mask and roared.
“That crazy bastard Ho-min… that guy’s the real deal… haah… I’m losing my mind. Heh.”
It had been a pure base hit. In a normal alignment, anyway. An amateur analyst named Ho-min and catcher Ko Mandeok had just stolen it from him.
Goosebumps raced across my skin, and something inside me trembled.
Score is 4–0. Top of the ninth, final regulation at-bat for the Stars. Seventh hitter Jo Sang-hyun steps in.
Kang Hajin retired the side on eight pitches in the eighth. He still looks strong.
Jamsil Stadium is completely silent. Even the visiting fans have gone quiet, watching every pitch Kang Hajin throws.
I was a little nervous, honestly. I never thought it would actually go this far. I’d decided to throw with everything I had, sure… but for it to unfold this cleanly…
“Hoo…”
Ko Mandeok looked like he was dying too. After the eighth he’d come into the dugout and couldn’t even get a proper sip of water down. Not just him—every teammate. Especially the ones who still had to take the field. You could see them not knowing what to do with themselves.
“Haah… I’m going crazy.”
I tried to settle the shaking in my chest, and then something behind Ko Mandeok caught my eye.
The front row of the seats behind home plate.
Standing there in clothes that made zero sense for the weather—that person. No, that woman.
“Pfft. Insane. What’s she doing here? And she showed up in a hoodie in this weather? Heh heh heh.”
It was so ridiculous I actually laughed out loud. Arms crossed, planted in the very front row, staring straight at me—the sheer absurdity of it.
Why she was here, how long she’d been watching, and why that same outfit never changed no matter if it was winter or summer—I still had no idea. The Hooded Woman was watching me.
And somehow it looked like she was smiling at me. Even though there was no way I could make out her expression from this distance, it felt like she was looking right at me and saying, Go on. Show me.
“Ha. Fine. I’ll show you.”
Kang… Hajin is smiling. Haha…
What mental strength. In this situation, in this entire stadium, the only person smiling is the pitcher standing on the mound—Kang Hajin.
Facing the leadoff batter of the ninth: four-seam. Then four-seam. Then four-seam again.
163 kilometers!!! Kang Hajin punches out the leadoff man of the ninth with a 163-kilometer four-seamer!
I… I have no words left. The kind of pitching you only see from the absolute elite of Major League Baseball—Kang Hajin is showing it to us right now.
Only two outs remain. Two outs from a record that will live forever in KBO history.
Ko Mandeok put down another four-seam sign. Another four-seam.
Four-seam fastball again! Two straight four-seamers clocking 160 and 161. Since the ninth began, Kang Hajin’s velocity hasn’t dropped below 160.
This might just…
Kang Hajin delivers! Swing and a miss! Splitter freezes him! Two outs! Two outs!
Heh. Heh heh heh. This… this is the exact same pitch sequence as the first inning.
Wait—oh! Oh my god, it really is! It really is!
After the second out Ko Mandeok pulled off his mask and gave me a sly grin, like he was asking if I got it. Of course I got it. From here on, signs didn’t even matter.
Will the first-inning sequence continue all the way? The Stars send up a pinch hitter. Hwang Min. Hwang Min steps into the box.
Looks like the Stars dugout knows what’s coming too. They’re sending up a guy who crushes fastballs.
The batter settled in. I went straight into the windup with no sign exchange.
160-kilometer heater. Hwang Min takes the first pitch.
Painted the outside corner. Location was perfect. Wait… right now…
Kang Hajin takes the ball and goes right into the next pitch. No signs.
He’s saying it doesn’t matter if they know. He’s throwing four-seams.
Kang Hajin, second pitch!
Tick.
Foul. Back to the screen. Two strikes, no balls. Hwang Min is in a hole.
……
Again with no signs. Kang Hajin winds up. Third pitch!! Oh!!!! Ohhhhh!!!! He did it!! Kang Hajin did it!
……
“Woooooooooooooo!!!”
“Kang Hajin! Kang Hajin! Kang Hajin!”
I watched the last pitch leave my hand, watched the bat cut nothing but air, watched Ko Mandeok’s mitt explode with sound—and I threw both arms into the sky.
At the same instant every single person in the stadium rose to their feet. Applause and raw screaming filled the park until it shook.
“You crazy bastard!!”
Ko Mandeok flung his mask away and charged the mound.
“Holy shit, you actually did it! Aaaaaah!!”
Jo Chang-jun, Choi Min-gi, and Kim Tae-sung piled onto me too. The three outfielders sprinted in like madmen. Everyone from the dugout followed.
“You did it. You really did it. You showed them everything.”
Seo Gyeongmin kept praising me with eyes that had gone suspiciously shiny.
And the Hooded Woman who had been standing in the weather-inappropriate outfit behind home plate… was already gone.
9 innings · 0 hits · 0 walks · 16 strikeouts
My final line for the day.
“Today we sit down with Kang Hajin, the first pitcher in the history of Korean professional baseball to throw a perfect game!”
The interview. The announcer and the entire broadcast crew were so fired up they fired questions at me without pause, and I answered just as frantically, still riding the high.
I thought it was finally wrapping up when—
“Kang Hajin, one last question.”
“Yes.”
“Kwon Jong-jin is out of the Olympics with an injury. You’ve never really chased an Olympic roster spot before, have you?”
On a day this good… you really have to ask that…
“You didn’t make the final roster, but another chance could still open up.”
I hesitated for a second, then answered.
And just like that, the responsible boy head-of-household turned back into a complete madman.