The Baseball Theory of Relativity
There was a saying that had come up once before.
That depending on how your favorite baseball team performs, the length of the winter you have to endure is different for every fan.
"Wow! First place! The season ended way too fast! What a shame! Champions! Yeah! Great draft picks! Spring camp, here we go!"
For some teams, time flies by at a hundred kilometers per hour, racing down the highway like there's no tomorrow.
"Sob... another idiotic trade, another idiotic FA signing, a draft day disaster... Argh! Baseball season!"
For others, the winter crawls along like rush hour traffic in Apgujeong, jammed bumper to bumper, while fury builds and builds and builds, suppressed and swallowed and suppressed again.
For the fans whose season only opens at the exact moment their rage hits critical mass, winter is nothing but pure suffering.
And suffering is the most reliable way to make time stand still.
"Damn it. So I have to go to the stadium and watch this dog-poor sport again this year too."
"Our team has no future, and I have to go watch us get beaten by the kid whose future is brightest of all."
As if they'd been hit by some secret art that freezes time itself, there were fans who wanted nothing to do with baseball until the regular season began.
Last year's eighth-place team, Busan, met 'that bastard' in their regular season opener.
The man whose every single word at the previous day's Media Day had been an absolute masterpiece — Noh In-seong.
Noh In-seong's face was sullen.
For starters, being dragged to this idiotic Media Day yet again made him sick to his stomach.
This year the captain hadn't even shown up, so all the firepower had been concentrated on him alone.
"This year... do you have any intention of cutting back on, ah... bench clearings?"
Why is it always me getting these kinds of questions from reporters?
It was the kind of shameless question that shouldn't have left anyone's mouth if they'd so much as glanced at his track record.
"Well... this year I'll probably tone it down a little?"
Oooooh---
From the players of other teams standing around him to the reporters themselves, everyone gasped at Noh In-seong's remarkably mild statement.
"I've been bulking up pretty hard, so if I swung a bat like I used to, you'd probably lose about ten teeth."
A correction — a statement so pleasant it was practically medicine.
Come to think of it... his face looks exactly the same, so I hadn't really noticed, but why is his body like that... murmur murmur...
The teams that had trained with him in the States already knew, but the ones who'd gone elsewhere were late to catch on.
With his weight-to-height ratio finally normalized, plenty of arm-sleeve propellant had been packed into the fist rockets Noh In-seong was now hoisting.
Now that his body had gotten bigger, the propulsion really was different in every possible way.
"...Was the muscle gain for a conversion into a home run hitter?"
"Obviously not. I just wanted to try playing a full season at a hundred percent."
Last season, between all the bench clearings and the long stretches of rest mid-year, he'd barely been able to survive without them.
If he wanted to maintain his numbers and keep performing without any of that, his body would simply have to hold up.
"You can really look forward to this year. The season of the professional Noh In-seong starts now."
Noh In-seong was confident he could post better numbers than last year — as long as nobody picked a fight with him.
"Ah, of course, except for batting average. That one's genuinely the Baseball God loving me too much and raising my odds."
"...There's a god of baseball?"
"Of course. Haven't you heard of BABIP the Almighty?"
By 2052, divine providence had naturally been interpreted by certain players,
and it was true that someone had appeared who could control the sacred realm of pure luck.
"But a .400 average, no — from .400 onward, you need at least one of the two. No way around it."
'The lucky one', or 'the one whose skill level is far above league average'.
Noh In-seong, unsure about the former but fully confident about the latter, saved his last line for the end.
"I'm going to be great this year too, and you'll all probably be too busy dodging me. Knock yourselves out trying."
Then he tossed the microphone aside and walked off, whether anyone else was speaking or not.
A mic drop fit only for a first-class villain — no further questions.
Noh In-seong, who valued his right to eat over other people's right to know, headed straight for the buffet.
"Last year I couldn't even enjoy the buffet properly, and this year it's so quiet. That old man."
It was a muttered remark that would have made Busan's manager burst a blood vessel and die on the spot — the same manager who had actually tried to talk a retiring player out of leaving, terrified he might drop a dead-arm joke about a man who was still alive and well.
Noh In-seong, the opening-day starter. The starter for the season opener, and for the home stadium's first game.
Nobody opposed the pairing outright. They had concerns, though.
"What if that lunatic pulls off the season's first bench clearing in the opener?"
That kind of concern.
"He... he wouldn't, right? Not even with all our foreign players gone?"
"Right, honestly, even a lunatic wouldn't ignore the team's situation like that... actually, he totally would, wouldn't he?"
For a man who occasionally managed three seconds of resolve, would he really get through this without causing an incident?
Every last person in the Doubles organization watched the game trembling.
"Strike! Batter out!"
[A strike — slow, so painfully slow, at 107 kilometers per hour! The designated hitter stares at it blankly — Jin Dong-ha is out!]
[He must be wondering what that even was. It's quite literally a slow four-seam, after all.]
Noh In-seong mowed down Kim Taek-gyu, Jung Jin-gi, and Jin Dong-ha — the one, two, and three hitters — with three clean strikeouts.
At least in the top of the first, none of their fears came true.
"...Sunbae. Doesn't the ball look even slower than before?"
"...Apparently that's more than enough. Not my call."
Jin Dong-ha — a batter who, despite being a catcher himself, had fancied himself an immovable object, blocked every young pitcher's path, and then transferred to another team, only for that team to sign a free-agent catcher and leave him hanging in the wind. His eyes went blank.
Ugh, for real, just—
He felt the urge to bring his bat down on the head of Jo In-soo, who was already turning away with a cheerful go take your beating—
"Hey! Jin Dong-ha! Why aren't you back in yet?! It's the defensive inning!"
"...Yes! Going!"
The fact that his standing wasn't what it used to be came through loud and clear in a single remark from the bench coach.
On Jin Dong-ha's increasingly frustrated face, anxiety and fury were quietly swelling.
"It's not a day where the ball's sticking to my hand — maybe my lower half just got more solid."
So this was how good it felt to be able to hold the ball in his hand a little longer before releasing it.
Noh In-seong marveled inwardly as he studied his own hand.
His pitching balance wasn't perfectly dialed in yet.
But that final motion — the moment of perfectly 'rolling' the ball off his fingertips — he could now stretch out just a beat longer.
They'd been sitting on his four-seam fastball, so he'd simply served up a slightly 'slower' option, and the sight of them watching it sail by was something else.
"You know that could end up scoring as a wild pitch, right?"
When Jo In-soo caught that last pitch, so much sweat had broken out on his forehead from sheer weirdness of it all.
"I know. But it's fun, isn't it?"
The moment the opponent started thinking 'a breaking ball that didn't break?', he'd get tagged for one — so it wasn't a trick he could use twice.
"Fun? FUUUUN?!"
But before Jo In-soo, eyes spinning, could lay into him—
"Now they've got the 'notion' that I'm deliberately 'reading the batter's timing' and controlling my velocity, don't they?"
As Noh In-seong's intent spilled out in words, Jo In-soo's scowl brightened into a grin.
Of course, nothing of the sort was actually possible, and honestly, this one had been a complete fluke too.
"Heh heh. I'd say we can keep them biting at least until the sixth inning, no?"
"...You really are a terrible human being. You know that?"
The two reprehensible sons of bitches couldn't have cared less.
Busan, having learned that their opener opponent was Noh In-seong, had more or less written off the first game.
"...A head-on battle against a bastard whose worst outing all season was four runs over seven innings?"
Jeong In-woo, coming up after him, at least had a win against the man on his record.
"Damn it. Unless his condition completely fell apart, the guy just didn't give up runs..."
There was no answer to be found here.
Busan's manager, Park Tae-jung, was no fool either.
But if he blatantly avoided the matchup, fan backlash was inevitable.
'Clowning around from opening day? Get over here so I can wring your—' — that kind of fan would show up.
And that was when he remembered a rookie pitcher with a history of being publicly insulted.
Jang 'The Dead-Arm' In-ho.
Up onto the mound walked the man whose bulletin-board haters had slapped his diagnosis on him because it looked cool sandwiched in his name.
It was a matchup of the 2051 rookie class, and you could argue the expectations riding on it were high.
"A perfect fig leaf, isn't it?"
"...And what if the kid's spirit breaks because of it?"
At the pitching coach's concern, Park Tae-jung snorted.
"This is the guy who got homers hit off him last game and lit up when I told him he's starting today."
A customized starting assignment only a man with this much nerve could pull off.
Guys like that don't fold easily. Every star he'd played with in his own career had been the same.
"Strike!"
On the very first pitch — even if his velocity had dropped nearly ten kilometers per hour from the injury he'd only just recovered from.
Even after getting homered off of all spring training long — the man came at him again without hesitation.
145 is plenty for me, he said, hammering the strike zone with aggressive conviction.
Jang In-ho challenged Noh In-seong head-on.
"Wow. A genuinely crazy bastard. Haven't seen one of those in a while."
This punk got homered off of by me last game, and he's still challenging me straight up.
Truthfully, this was the correct approach. Even a .400 hitter makes an out six times out of ten.
Whether he struck out or got fielded out in play, an out was an out.
He was a little different from the idiots who'd let me push my on-base percentage to nearly .500.
"Strike!"
A slider this time. The velocity gap from the four-seam was barely there.
A well-thrown pitch broke late, grazing the edge of the strike zone on its way out.
"Hey, why's the bat so hard to come by today? Something different from last game?"
While he was busy admiring the pitch, the idiot crouched behind him kept needling away.
"Watching your throwing speed, that thing feels like 200. Perception's a funny thing."
At Kim Soo-ho's single remark, Noh In-seong's face twisted in deep injury as he pressed the PitchCom button again and again.
Pitch three — a curveball dropping away came into Noh In-seong's sight.
And before it could fall any further, Noh In-seong snapped his bat around and yanked it out of the air.
Craaaack---!!!
[High, so hiiiiigh----!!! The Doubles' Noh In-seong, first at-bat of the season — it clears the fence! A solo home run!]
[The exit velocity is... quite different from last year, isn't it. Last season, balls hit down there rarely turned into home runs...]
Even the broadcast crew was stunned — contact well below the strike zone.
A swing usually delivers its power cleanly only to pitches it can properly reach.
In other words, the further from the heart of the strike zone, the lower the odds of a home run. That's how it normally works.
Naturally, Noh In-seong had always been able to make contact on dropped pitches or balls above the zone — the swing was there, the power simply wasn't.
"Last season's data says home runs were impossible down there...!!"
The trajectory of the ball, arrowing dead straight toward the fence, was enough to erase Kim Soo-ho's sanity entirely.
'...The bulk-up did THAT much? So throwing a ball out of the zone as a decoy is now a guaranteed beating too?'
In an age where no true king existed, a lunatic had built a throne for himself and sat down on it — and this was the announcement of his growth.
Hurling his bat high into the sky, strolling toward first as if out for a walk, Noh In-seong swept his gaze across his fans.
Then turned his eyes to the pitcher on the mound.
'Oh. This punk's going to challenge me to the very end.'
Jang In-ho, the light in his eyes undimmed even after surrendering the home run, stared straight back at Noh In-seong.
"Tch. That counts as a homer too, huh."
He kicked uselessly at the mound, reset himself, and started recalling the next hitter's data.
The eyes of a young pitcher who hadn't given up the fight.
Jang In-ho battled the Doubles lineup for his life.
First, against Song Jin-wook — the most feared bat after Noh In-seong — a full count, finished off with a slider strikeout.
Jo In-soo went down on three straight pitches.
"Argh, this punk really is a ceiling fan every damn time. He swings without a clue what's coming in."
"Coach. No, seriously, listen, the ball's just GOOD, damn it?!"
But since it happened all the time, the coaches, the manager, and the players all let it slide.
Against the bulked-up Sung Hyun-tak, he attacked according to last year's data and nearly got obliterated for it—
[He swings! This ball — the right field wall! At the very edge of the right field wall--!! He caught it--!!]
[At the last moment! The very last moment he hauls it in! The rookie who chased it all the way, Ju Hyeong-min, does it!]
Busan's first-round draft pick this year, Ju Hyeong-min, sprinted after it with everything he had and hauled it down for good.
"WAAAAAAH!!!"
A roar that washed away everything at once — the pride of having done it, the recklessness of youth, the despair of his injury.
Jang In-ho walked off the mound feeling good.
Then, in the bottom of the third, the Doubles' second turn at bat began.
"Swing! Strike three, batter out!"
"Huh. Look at this punk. He threw that curveball planning to land it in the zone from pitch one."
When he stole a strikeout even from Noh In-seong with a blindsiding curveball, the fans began to stir.
With hope suddenly flickering on the horizon, the fans' morale was lifting — right up until Jang In-ho, who had stubbornly held Busan to two runs through the top of the eighth, finally came off the mound having thrown his hundredth pitch.
Craaaack---!!!
[Yes! Noh In-seong does NOT wait around for this! He clears the fence yet again!]
[Three-for-four today! Two home runs! A giant steps back into the MVP race!]
The bullpen's added arson made it 5–0, and the game ended with Noh In-seong's shutout in hand.
But the Busan fans, having watched the fighting spirit of one young player,
perhaps feeling an echo of a fighting soul from long, long ago, cut back on the profanity and the thrown trash.
"We lost today, but tomorrow will be different. I'll keep pitching until we win."
And through Jang In-ho's stout-hearted interview, they found a measure of comfort.
And so the people of Busan grew a little less regretful about their draft picks.
As a bonus, they carved a knife straight into the hearts of Daejeon's fans — but then, baseball fans have never gotten along anyway.
"Anyway! As long as our team's doing well, I'm happy!"
It ended at roughly that level of reflection.
"Honestly, I don't regret getting roasted, but it wasn't bad."
When Noh In-seong's follow-up interview aired, the mood grew even more triumphant.
'Last year's MVP graciously admitting his mistake — and a rookie worth watching!'
The feeling that their own mistakes were being compensated for sent dopamine flooding through the Busan fans' brains.
"That's right, keep challenging me like that. I need my chances to hit home runs too, you know."
Like force-feeding a goose, prying its beak open and shoveling food down its throat, fattening the liver.
Unaware that they were the livestock in Noh In-seong's foie gras operation,
"From now on, I'll keep praising the ones with a future, and roast the show-offs even harder."
They gleefully swallowed the feed pouring into their mouths.