Hidden Match After the Ending
While Noh In-seong was busy etching his name into history with a .400 challenge under the 144-game format, over at his home ballpark a very different set of teams was sweating bullets.
"...This wasn't supposed to drag on this long, was it?"
Daegu's manager, Song Jun-ho, wasn't wrong. Neither of these teams exactly lacked firepower, and yet the score sat frozen at 2–2 in a pure pitching duel. Nobody had seen that coming when the day began.
"Sure, the Jamsil walls are high — but I figured they were merely mortal walls."
Watching home-run balls die in midair, drifting gently down to land within arm's reach of the fence, over and over — it left a knot in his stomach, like he'd swallowed something that refused to go down.
"Damn it. I miss our home park so much."
Across the diamond, the Grizzlies weren't doing much better either. If anything, they were simply mournful.
"The chance to lock up third was right there in front of us. Why can't we take that one final step..."
A day of dumb luck, plain and simple. The big Grizzly was bawling its lungs out on its own home soil. While everyone else was working ninth-inning miracles, these two teams were busy stirring a pot of misery in the bottom of the ninth.
"Swing—!! Strike three! Batter out!"
Ah, and with the final batter retired—!! The Grizzlies and Daegu are headed to extra innings!
As if to say, if you're going to drain blood, drain it to the very last drop. Daegu had succeeded in pushing an already-starving bear to the absolute limit.
"...Not that I'm thrilled about it."
They were sacrificing their greatest weakness — a bullpen thin as tissue paper — so it was hardly a joyful situation. But hey, at least they'd shoved someone into hell.
"What? Hey! They're going to extras!"
"Ugh, and we're already down four..."
Gwangju was in full panic mode too. Handing In-seong every record under the sun? That part didn't even scare them anymore — the all-time RBI record (152), the 40-40 season (a first for a Korean player), the .400 average (only the second in history). The problem was In-seong snatching the wins record along with everything else, a .909 winning percentage (20-2) to boot.
"If we lose and they tie, we're locked into fourth!"
"GRAAAH! Stop them! Stop them, I said!"
In a game like this, a man with an ordinary sense of duty would have said this is on me and pitched to the bitter end. But there happened to be a starter of truly legendary gall in this game — a man who flat-out handed the ball back to his manager.
"Am I insane? There's a whole barrel of arms fresher than me sitting right there."
"Take your pick, take any of them. Sidearm, lefty, righty, submarine... we've even got a fifty-year-old mercenary starter in the back..."
Welcome to the pitcher department store — grab whichever you like! A shameless, wholesale release of relievers. "To start you off, may I present our second-best option, Cho Hyo-jin."
"AAARGH, no! Why are you doing this to me!"
"But we can't do a one-out specialist here. We need someone who can face a full three batters."
Korean baseball had adopted the three-batter minimum. What could you do. Jeong Im-taek flashed a bright smile and issued an eviction notice: the game was decided, so the pair of them could go pray somewhere else.
Five minutes later. Whether the prayers simply didn't work, or because everyone stood there with their eyes squeezed shut, Cho Hyo-jin retired all three batters on harmless flies — and the game was over.
"One hundred wins!"
"KYAAAAHOO--!! I've done it all! There is not a soul alive who can tell me what to do anymore!"
"...Was THAT the goal?! Well, either way, I'm happy too!"
There, in someone else's house, they celebrated the first historic team record they had carved with their own hands. One hundred wins, one tie, forty-three losses. A .699 winning percentage.
As Gwangju fans — now catastrophically disadvantaged in the fourth-place fight — wept openly, Noh In-seong watched them and beamed.
Unlike Gwangju, mid-celebration (which, in Gwangju dialect, means "teabagging a rival's ballpark"), Jamsil rang with wailing.
In the top of the tenth, Daegu had scratched across a run against the Grizzlies — come roll around in the fires of hell with us!
Craaack--!!
Game-tying single! Pinch-hitter Jeong Han-sol lines one into center! It's 3–3 again — the walk-off chance is here!
I don't want this? Can't we just end it already? And so, in a daze of half-formed arguments, they stumbled into the eleventh.
"Please... pleaseplease... PLEASE!!!"
The Grizzlies fans' fine hour of faith renewal went on only briefly.
Craaaaack--!!!
And the man who delivers, as always, is this man! The team's captain, Jong Min-soo! Jong Min-soo will settle it!
Jong Min-soo's two-run homerrrr--!! He's about to bring down the curtain on this marathon of a ballgame!
Seong Il-yeom slashed his way aboard, and Jong Min-soo let fly — and in the instant before that two-run homer, the congregation's faith began to waver.
"...They don't have a bullpen either! We could still win this! It ain't over!"
To those reciting baseball's eternal law — it ain't over till it's over — the answer came swiftly.
"...I think it's over."
"...Ugh, those insanely tenacious bastards. That lunatic Manager Song."
Daegu's Song Jun-ho had declared it, loud and clear: everybody get the hell out of here — right now.
"Pitching change! Jo Il-yeong!"
And here comes the team's number-three starter! Jo Il-yeong, the man built to end a season!
No hesitation at all. It's time to call it, once and for all.
At the very least, this was a 180-inning workhorse who had kept his ERA in the low threes even at "that accursed ballpark." One after another, the three batters grilled up lazy flies. Out. Out. Out.
"Nooooooo---!!!"
With the screenshot of a devoutly praying Grizzlies fan mid-scream as the final image, the bottom of the eleventh — the inning every baseball fan in Korea had crowded in to watch — came to an end.
In the end, it was the tiger and the bear who stayed deadlocked to the very last.
"So what do we do now?"
"What else? It's a tiebreaker of love."
"Fuck!"
The two co-fourth-place managers, in absolutely flawless synchronization...!!
Noh In-seong, who had collapsed into bed, slept like the dead, woke up, and snickered at the next morning's editorial cartoons.
"Normally this stuff's a snooze, but on days like this? Comedy gold."
The boring days only felt boring because he himself was out there committing one atrocity after another. Which was, frankly, a slanderous thing to say for any webtoon artist whose views tanked on days like this.
In-seong hauled himself out of his seat.
"Nnngh... up we get!"
Every muscle in his body ached. Throwing eight innings yesterday had been brutal enough, but that final home run had been the true limit. Pain rolled through him like his muscles were tying themselves into knots — though he could still walk, at least. Maybe it was thanks to the barbecue team dinner after the game, where they'd celebrated all over again and stuffed themselves silly with grilled meat.
"Good call eating my fill. There's a real difference between sleeping full and sleeping hungry."
The meal had taken a genuine chunk out of the toll of a long day on the mound. From here on out, apart from intrasquad games and training days to keep his competitive edge sharp, every single day was a rest day.
"Love it!"
-- Your reward for grinding through an entire season. Take the top seats and enjoy watching those lower-class plebs bleed it out down below.
Or so the voice in his head seemed to whisper.
At the very top row of the Colosseum, Noh In-seong sipped a sparkling zero-sugar grape soda and waited — waited for the blood-soaked Spartacus who would come to challenge his team.
Even a man forged of steel like Noh In-seong knew that riding out a long rest and recharging was important. But more important than that—
"It starts with watching other people die out there!"
There was a reason his audacity had detonated without warning.
"Front-row seats to two teams killing each other? I simply cannot miss this...!!"
He hated both teams anyway, so in the name of neutrality — and as a blessing meaning die, all of you — he'd gone for the outfield seats. Somehow, against all odds, In-seong had actually managed to score tiebreaker tickets.
"Lucky me. So that's how my pasting of Gwangju comes back around."
Home field for the tiebreaker went to the team with more total runs scored. Gwangju had scored a little more — but conceded vastly more — and so, biting back tears, they set off for Jamsil. With the game landing practically at their own front door, not showing up was never an option.
"Please don't let it be one-sided. Let them suffer in perfect, equal measure..."
In-seong prayed. If God was up there, it was a prayer that deserved a lightning bolt straight to this lunatic's head.
"Huh? Hey, it's Noh In-seong."
"What? No way, he's not even on either of these teams. Why's he here watching someone else's game?"
Into the sightlines of the reporters lying in wait to snag fan interviews, a player walked in. Not a player in today's game, of course — just a guy in a Doubles replica jersey with a bucket of chicken in hand.
"What are you looking at? Never seen chicken before?"
It was Noh In-seong. Chicken for the ballgame, as the saying goes — one bird from the old man's chicken joint down the street. He planned to order another one inside the stadium mid-game, but a man's gotta eat until then.
"Show up loaded with food, then sit back and watch a war of attrition. That's the way it's done."
Because to him, someone else's three-hour brawl was pure, distilled joy. Today was supposed to be a quiet, mockery-free afternoon of baseball, with no one in particular to needle.
"...Ugh, I didn't even come here with an agenda. Why are there reporters?"
Between him and his seat stood a sea of reporters, interview-hungry hands poised and waiting.
"Noh In-seong! Who are you rooting for today?!"
"Couldn't tell you. Both of them play like absolute garbage — why not just settle it with a fistfight?"
He claimed he had no agenda, but the brainless answer came out instantly, and the reporters were thrilled to bits.
The other teams are going to be furious I gave an interview like that. But what do you want from me? You can't play baseball anyway.
"You don't seem to favor either side — so who's got the edge?"
"Well, the guys who just went extra innings are at a disadvantage, for starters. They'll have to squeeze everything they can out of home-field advantage."
Which hurt more — the travel, or the marathon the night before?
"--Both squads are battered and bruised, so wouldn't today's starting pitching be the deciding factor?"
Textbook stuff. The entire interview was conducted through mouthfuls torn from a chicken bucket.
"Swing! Strike three — batter out!"
And that, as it turned out, was exactly right.
Hector! Hector comes off the mound having gone seven innings all by himself! Another wave of zeroes!
Everyone knew how terrifying Hector was when the switch flipped for him — but why did it have to be today, of all days!
"Wow. The guy who normally can't find the zone with a map is playing peekaboo with the corners today."
In-seong, halfway through his second chicken, muttered in genuine admiration. The kind of fluke day every pitcher gets exactly once — and it had chosen to smile on the Grizzlies.
Eight to nothing. The Grizzlies, gleefully beating Gwangju senseless in their own living room.
Home seats, outfield bleachers — every inch of the stands wallpapered in Grizzlies uniforms. And into that tapestry strode one lone man in a Doubles jersey, a drumstick clenched in his teeth, straight onto the videoboard.
Huh? Oh — that's Noh In-seong. The only man in this building wearing a Doubles uniform.
He's raising something up to the camera... ahahaha. Yep. Definitely not here to cheer.
BOOOOOOOO----!!!
Deaf to the boos flooding every corner of the stadium, the next banner went up.
Savoring the even louder boos, In-seong tore into the next drumstick with his free hand.
"Well, at this rate Gwangju's locked into fourth."
Next up, the Wild Card round, then? Bite and claw each other to shreds, by all means. Whatever beast crawls out at the end, we'll mount it on a plaque and take the championship ourselves.
To the booing crowd, In-seong raised his cup of ice like a toast. Soon enough, when this cup became the championship trophy, their boos would be nothing but meaningless noise.
Winner-take-all, this sport of his — and today, Noh In-seong felt better than ever.