16. A Catcher... Talking Back?!
[And the game is underway! Wow, Noh In-seong is opening his mouth yet again today.]
[Some fans will ask why an opposing team's player should even care, but plenty of people are actually agreeing with what he said.]
[Honestly, the Superstars should have remained a powerhouse — one capable of chasing a title through the regular season, the playoffs, and beyond — if they'd just held onto more of their players.]
The commentator had it right. They're still not exactly a weak team — not strong enough to be called a powerhouse anymore, but they have enough talent that nobody calls them pushovers.
The problem is that right after their title run, they slammed the reset button and sold everyone off. Even now, their veterans are nowhere to be seen.
Today, my spot in the batting order had been pushed pretty far up. Well, the manager did see quite a bit in me, after all.
Batting first, shortstop. Noh In-seong.
I watched the first pitch. The opposing starter had good stuff, but no command and no control — a textbook thrower.
A guy playing throwing roulette up on the mound with every pitch: when the roulette lands right, he's an ace; when it doesn't, he's that same ace with his belly ripped wide open.
"Ball one!"
A hopelessly low pitch, obviously. I was staring at it blankly, wondering who on earth would swing at garbage like that, when—
"Hey, who the hell do you think you are, talking about our team like that?"
The catcher — an eight-year veteran of the opposing team — decided to strike up a conversation with me.
Frankly, whether it was a catcher, a position player, or a pitcher, anyone with a brain could see this organization's pattern: gather up a core, take a swing at a title, fail, then sell them all off. For a guy to survive eight years as a catcher in a system like that made him pretty memorable, so I did vaguely remember him.
"Oh, you're Kim Soo-ho, right? I think that was your name."
"What, your team doesn't teach you to use respect toward your seniors? Now that's a novel one."
In the middle of all this, the pitcher hurried a pitch trying to throw off my timing — but like I said, the man was playing randomized command defense.
"Ball two!"
[Ah, the command just isn't there today. Jeong Hwi-wook should really be shedding that 'prospect' label about now...]
[Some say a pitcher like him is guaranteed to break out the moment he finds his control — but control is a talent, you know?]
[Exactly. Velocity these days has plenty of proven ways to improve, but command is still up in the air.]
"You do realize the word 'respect' literally contains the meaning of holding someone in esteem... right?"
"...What the hell are you— whoa!"
Another pitch came in, and this time it was a complete opposite miss. Today I was just going to win on talent alone.
[The ball is, ah... yes. Not a single pitch anywhere near the strike zone.]
[In his last start, though, he walked only one batter across six innings — genuinely good pitching.]
"Walk! The runner takes first."
Every single pitch up to the last had sailed at least three feet off. They should give up on this starter sticking around long.
"Now then — go ahead and try to earn my respect. This should be fun."
Kim Soo-ho wasn't a completely useless catcher.
That had been the analytics team's verdict, anyway.
But the fact that he couldn't push out an aging, retirement-bound starting catcher — and let that man cling to the starting job until his very last day — well, what did that tell you?
It meant he was a problem-riddled catcher whose ceiling was backup. Nothing more.
[And another pickoff throw to first. That's the third one, isn't it?]
[Well, in the majors a balk would've been called by now, but this game isn't being played under MLB rules.]
First — when a pitcher's control has completely abandoned him, you need the decisiveness to go out there immediately, slap him across the face or chew him out, whatever it takes to get him throwing strikes. He clearly didn't have that.
Which brings us to the second.
[He's OFF! — slides in comfortably. Noh In-seong. Stolen base!]
[Honestly, the pitcher's delivery from the set position isn't even that slow, but... yeah. The league-average pop time is two seconds.]
2.24 seconds. In the majors, that shoulder would get slapped with a scathing 20 grade on the 20-80 scale — an outright fatal flaw.
The worst mark in the league. Naturally, a catcher like that piles extra weight onto a pitcher's already wormlike mentality.
The pitcher was a classic fastball-heavy power arm who tried to bully hitters. I hadn't even jumped at his off-speed timing.
And even so, I'd slid in with plenty of room to spare. The moment this guy lines up behind the plate, the basepaths become a paradise for anyone with quick legs.
There were more problems besides, but these two alone were already enormous.
CRACK—!
[Base hit over second base! The runner is already rounding third! He's HOME! 1-0, the Doubles take the lead!]
[Sung Hyun-tak lifted that one right over the pitcher's head. A hit after a hit-and-stolen-base — a flawlessly executed run.]
"Still want my respect? After watching that? Right now?"
"......"
There it is. So you do understand, after all. Baseball is a sport where the guy who can't play should keep his mouth shut.
Through the twenty years I'd spent in silence, and all the way until I came back here, that simple truth hadn't changed one bit.
Granted, I'd talked a big game, but our battery hadn't exactly fared any better in the same situation.
"Ah, shit — listen up. Get word to that brat: the next time his finger slips on the PitchCom, I'll cut it off."
The mercenary pitcher took the mound carrying exhaustion, irritation, and a faint haze of distrust toward the rookie catcher making his debut alongside him.
"Ugh... uhhh, why is there so much to do, why is there so much to watch for... and on top of that, their veterans keep yelling at me..."
The rookie catcher was, quite literally, frozen solid.
"Get it together, man. What are you going to do if you're too scared to even fire back when they get in your face?"
It was a perfectly reasonable question, directed at Lim Jae-min's utterly vacant face.
"...You ungrateful little bastard! I'm only getting cursed out because you're my classmate!"
Wow. Talk about repaying kindness with betrayal. Is this for real?
Caleb hadn't exactly failed at his job today. He'd simply had to pitch differently than in previous outings.
First of all, it wasn't because of Lim Jae-min's ability to throw out runners — his pop time was 1.95 seconds, better than league average.
The problem sprang from the sheer inexperience unique to a player who'd just turned pro this year — a baby-thin résumé.
"Are you insane? The rookie is calling for a ball to my body? He's lost his mind?"
If you got lucky, a verbal warning like that would keep him in line.
"You son of a bitch, tell that lunatic to throw me one more pitch like that and I'll kill him."
The average case was a guy who could no longer speak if not a single word carried any stress.
"Time!"
"...Time!"
And the elite-tier move was calling time at the exact moment the pitcher, fully set and finally beginning his motion, was about to commit — just to make his blood boil.
What infuriated Caleb even more was that the catcher just stood there frozen, when protesting was the bare minimum he should've done.
Honestly, though, enduring even this much was a solid showing for a rookie who'd just been thrown into his first game.
Me? I'm built a little different. Push me around with seniority and I'll wave my middle finger right in your face.
But Lim Jae-min had his own grievances, too.
"You gonna pull that punk act like your classmate over there? You, of all people, think you're safe?"
He'd finally reached base, only to get drilled with a pickoff throw and tagged with unnecessary spite.
"Your classmate uses banmal with me, you know? You want to talk down to me too? Should I start calling myself big brother Jae-min?"
The opposing catcher smugly rubbed it in — your buddy over there just served me a steaming pile of disrespect — and on and on.
As for the opposing mercenary, there wasn't a single floating syllable in anything he said that came without an F, an S, or an M attached.
For a rookie who'd only just become a first-team backup — starting only because the regular catcher had come down with an ailment in a very unfortunate location — it was a brutal ordeal.
And so he'd snapped at Noh In-seong... no, wait. Come to think of it, this bastard had been shackled to him for all of high school, and it had never once gone well.
"So how about this — go out there and get cursed at so I don't have to be! Or, I don't know, DO something to make this damn game end faster! I'm suffering here!"
Thinking about everything he'd endured, Lim Jae-min decided he could, in good conscience, pile his burdens onto Noh In-seong's back without a shred of guilt.
"...And so, from now on, I've decided to take my frustrations out on you instead."
Kim Soo-ho was dumbfounded. Did the kid not remember what he'd said to him in the top of the first inning?
"You feeling confident or something? No, seriously — what the hell is wrong with you?"
Was this guy certifiably insane? Trash-talking his own classmate was fine, but he couldn't take an insult?
"What, you wouldn't be pissed? Some backup catcher who's still a good ten years away from developing a usable caught-stealing game is out here talking trash to a catcher who can actually do it?"
"...Excuse me? You little—!"
Watching the umpire out of the corner of my eye, I worked the PitchCom slowly, deliberately.
"Well then — go ahead. Throw somebody out. Show me."
"Don't see that happening. You're not even making it to first base this at-bat anyway."
Inside. INSIDE! Hardest fastball you've got! Unlike that commandless Jeong Hwi-wook, you can at least find the zone when it counts!
"Pop time of 2.25 seconds? You could pop popcorn with that. What, did you switch to catcher because your arm gave out as a pitcher? If so, my apologies."
"That's enough talking! Oh, and for the record — I've been a catcher my entire career, you cursed little s—"
The first pitch came in toward the inside. Not perfectly located, but close — maybe half a ball's width outside the zone...
CRACK———!!
[Left field! The left-field wall! The left-field wall———!! IT'S GONE! Noh In-seong with a solo home run! 7-6! The Doubles retake the lead in the top of the seventh!]
[It was drifting just off the plate, but he waited on it and hammered it. Heh heh...]
That miserable bastard flipped his bat, raised both hands, split his face into a grin, and began trotting slowly around the bases.
"Haah..."
The pitcher's sorrowful sigh. And our manager's face, absolutely radiating rage. Utterly tragic.
"Hey, I could catch better than you, and I pitch."
But the most tragic moment of the day belonged to this brain-damaged problem child — delivered the moment he finished rounding the bases.
It was, in Kim Soo-ho's eight-year professional career, the single hardest day he had ever known.
[And there it is — bottom of the ninth, and Kim Jin-hong, the new closer, nails down the save! The Doubles escape with a heart-stopping one-run victory!]
[Two straight wins over Daejeon, a three-game sweep of Busan, and now the first win of this series against the Superstars — that's a six-game winning streak.]
[Ah, and Noh In-seong looks absolutely delighted. And why wouldn't he be — he delivered the knockout blow at the end today.]
"Come to think of it, I'm still pissed. I hit you a home run, didn't I?! I avenged you! A catcher... talking BACK?!"
"GAH—!"
And the moment Lim Jae-min saw his first career start end in victory, he delivered a swift kick to the backside of Noh In-seong — the man who'd just homered.
The price, after all, of daring to mouth off to a great batter — a pitcher-slash-shortstop-slash walk-off hero who'd just supplied the game-winning home run.