A Man of True Character (Part 1)

"Kghk—!!"

"For the crime of pulling that crap in front of me, you shall accept your punishment gladly!"

The man swinging his fist into the opposing starting pitcher's face was Noh In-seong. And gathering near that player, the Doubles players had all collectively decided — there he goes again — and given up.

"Protect him! Hey! Grab him!"

The players in blue uniforms bunched together to shield their own starting pitcher, who had gone berserk after taking a single punch.

In their fourth meeting of the season with Daegu, the Daegu players were being swept out in utter misery, desperately coming to understand why their ancestors had marked the fourth floors with an F instead of the character for death.

"And you lot — you're just going to stand there and leave that lunatic alone? Get over here!"

With every punch Noh In-seong hurled in his fury, another Daegu player crumpled to the ground.

"Aaagh! Hey! Grab his arms and legs...!! He's hitting me!!"

THWACK—!!

"Guhk...!!"

Daegu catcher Song Ji-young felt stomach acid crawling up his throat from the violent shock he could feel through his chest protector.

It was just another ordinary day in the hell known as Jamsil Ballpark.

Before we get to why Noh In-seong was throwing punches at Daegu, we first need to understand the state of the Doubles.

A firmly established starting rotation. Good hitters. Not-bad outfield defense.

"Of course, excluding this bastard."

Thanks to one catastrophe of a human being, a good defense had been downgraded to a merely-not-bad defense, so the point pretty much made itself.

"Hey, I'm the designated hitter."

"Then stay a designated hitter, damn it — don't come out as my left fielder and try to catch fly balls..."

And with the rock-solid infield defense led by Noh In-seong on top of that, the team was in a state close to perfection.

Amid all this, in early June, after the road trip to Changwon, Jo In-soo had returned against Incheon. If Manager Jeong Im-taek was the one who welcomed Jo In-soo's return the most, backup catcher Lim Jae-min wasn't far behind.

His consecutive-games streak was grinding his stamina down by the minute, and injury loomed around every corner.

"Wow, I almost went to a urologist for the first time in my life this year. There really is a reason teams keep backup catchers around."

It was around the time Lim Jae-min, over a shared meal, was honestly begging — I can't do this anymore! Please, have mercy! — that his draft classmate's filthy war stories started grating on Noh In-seong's nerves as he ate his cold buckwheat noodles.

But what could he do? Catching was a brutal profession. He had no choice but to let it slide. Once.

"Hey, you know what hurts the most when you're applying hemorrhoid ointment? The fing—"

THWACK!

"Aaagh!"

There was no second time. A light calf kick buried itself squarely in his shin.

The completed Doubles, with their starting catcher back in the fold, were a disaster incarnate for every other team in the league.

They had just finished their third meeting of the season with a losing series on the road in Gwangju, but —

"Damn. It's mid-June and we're 50-22?!"

A .694 winning percentage, still hovering right around the .700 line. They'd had only two rain delays with the non-dome teams, and along the way they had inflicted catastrophic damage on virtually every club in the league.

In this way, June was, for the Doubles, a tailwind in its purest form.

Noh In-seong, the team's biggest bomb, had detonated once in May and gone quiet since.

"...What the hell does me being quiet have to do with a tailwind?"

"You absolute lunatic, think about what you did in March, April, and May!"

"I might have to bury a reporter or two over this, you trash teammates."

With this mega problem child at the spearhead, the Doubles had seized the upper hand against every team in the league.

Pitch around him and lose your command? Any runner on base would steal second without fail, so long ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as he himself didn't cause trouble. Challenge him in the zone? The batter behind him was guaranteed to deliver at least a single. In other words, the Noh In-seong nuclear umbrella hung over everyone's heads, and every player's numbers had improved compared to the dark days before.

The clubhouse mood was balmy too. Everyone so soft and relaxed that not a single conflict broke out.

"Haha, two hits for me today."

"I hit a double today, so the fans will surely be pleased with me."

Conversely, their hunger for personal numbers had grown a size larger than their will to win.

'...These clowns have completely lost the plot.'

Just as Noh In-seong was dumbfounded by the realization that he had become a stat amplifier for these maniacs, Gwangju happened to have just beaten their way past them —

and his manager, who hated this atmosphere just as much, found perfect common cause with him and launched a spiritual re-education campaign.

"You bastards, not giving it your all?! Fine — I'll run fungo drills until you drop dead of old age!"

Thus, holding the single best justification imaginable for sending them all to hell, Jeong Im-taek —

"Guhhaaak....!!"

"See?! It was never my fault! It was entirely my teammates' fault for failing to carry me...!!"

spent the first dog days of summer grinding away their softness like 180-grit sandpaper, with fungo drills straight out of hell.

Meanwhile, the secret to how Gwangju had taken a winning series at home was simple.

"We concede the days Noh In-seong starts! We throw our ace the day before and hunt for the day after him!"

It was the very principle the Doubles had established: the rest day after a starting pitcher's outing. To keep players from collapsing come autumn, Noh In-seong, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in principle, always took a day off after pitching as a starter.

Starting was heavy labor that devoured every calorie in the body, so the whole team accepted it — but.

"Damn... come to think of it, that pushes Song Jin-wook outside the umbrella."

Noh In-seong resting meant, in other words, that Noh In-seong would not be in the ballpark.

Not some smooth politician's rhetorical flourish — the tactical nuke kept in emergency reserve had, quite literally, gone home for the day.

In that situation, Gwangju could filter out Song Jin-wook and take on the remaining hitters.

No matter how good a hitter was, he topped out at .300 — and with two outs, even the human ceiling fan Jo In-soo came up first anyway.

"A .246 hitter, huh... That's a gamble worth taking."

The Gwangju manager could now afford an even bolder strategy: isolating a single batter.

Meanwhile, the rotation shuffling — rewriting the pitching schedule specifically to hunt the games without pitcher Noh In-seong — drew plenty of criticism.

"Seriously? You're going to wreck your own team's rotation just to take down the Doubles?"

Deliberately throwing a sacrificial pitcher in Game 2 to guarantee wins in Games 1 and 3 did gum up the rotation, but —

"But we won, didn't we?"

In a neighborhood where good results were always strategy and bad results were always manager-brain, that kind of talk didn't stick.

"Damn, what is this mindset! The wins... the wins are copy-pasting themselves! Ah-hahahaha!"

"We never truly understood the strategy of the great Sun Bin... How magnificent, General!"

Sports, where victory justifies everything. And sports, where the fastest path to glory is plagiarizing whoever pioneers it first.

Every team facing the Doubles began, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠one by one, to adopt this strategy. Dark clouds were steadily rolling into a smooth June.

In the meantime, Busan — quite unfairly(...) — swallowed its tears as Noh In-seong appeared as a hitter only, for three straight games.

"Damn it. There's no answer to a situation like this."

If he wasn't pitching, there was no rest day to exploit — so in cases like this, they had no choice but to collide head-on with batter Noh In-seong. Unfair, sure, but what could you do.

These were the very people who had mastered the art of pitching around him. They couldn't do that, either.

Doubles lineup, slots one through four — Noh In-seong, Song Jin-wook, Jo In-soo, Sung Hyun-tak — beat them half to death with a beautifully engineered batting order, and Busan dropped the first game. In the second game, the Doubles' number-five starter Jeong In-young once again spewed walks by the fistful, and Busan snatched the win almost off the ground, easy as picking up loose change.

But the next day, their own starter So Dong-jin treated everyone to the aesthetics of a day when nothing goes right —

and began spraying walks and base hits in every direction.

A historic slugfest of a series, twenty-six hits in a single game. Great fun for the spectators; a stomach-churning ordeal for everyone involved. And just when it seemed the day had finally arrived — the first time any team would deploy the Tiger Method, against ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the Grizzlies —

instead of aggressively feeding Noh In-seong junk, the Grizzlies brought in a flyball pitcher, trusting the spacious Jamsil fences. Registered name: Levi's. True name: James Levi-Strauss.

The pitcher sent to greet them came straight from Philadelphia's Triple-A farm, Lehigh Valley.

His mediocre changeup graded out at 30, his prematurely-biting slider at 35.

The reason he could still attack the zone with such confidence, armed with garbage like that, was simple.

"So tell me — how many pitchers in Korean baseball throw a 160 km/h fastball?"

"...Damn. Not many."

A power pitcher forcing opponents to fight a weapon they'd never trained against. A 'bullpen arm' who had once cracked Philadelphia's 40-man roster was now appearing in Korea as a starter. And aside from Noh In-seong teeing off on the fastballs and hammering them into next week, he succeeded against the opposing lineup.

Final line: eight innings, one run allowed. He took the decisive win over Noh In-seong and banked a precious victory for the Grizzlies.

In-seong hadn't been sharp, and it was thanks to Jeong Han-sol reaching base and Jang Ji-seong's bolt-from-the-blue hit that he'd been tagged with it.

And when In-seong duly took his rest day after the start, the Grizzlies emptied their entire bullpen — every last pitcher, in a bullpen day — and clinched the series win. A one-sided beatdown of a victory, achieved while denying Song Jin-wook a single meaningful at-bat.

The next day was a coin flip, and after one final slugfest the Doubles escaped the sweep — but.

"Damn it. Another losing series."

Those two beatdowns were already fatal. From now on, it was obvious every team would come at the Doubles with this strategy.

Whether by throwing their aces at them, or by sacrificing games to the Noh-less days.

The weak were fighting the absolutely strong in the weak's own way.

Korean baseball, with every team now taking down the first-place club by their own methods. By late June, all teams had met three times, and the All-Star voting had just closed. At this juncture, the reason for the collision with Daegu was simple.

The team's central pillar, its franchise player — and its captain, all rolled into one.

Jong Min-soo had finally been traded, bound for Busan.

"Thank you for everything, all these years. I can only offer my infinite gratitude for every ounce of love and support you have given me."

Daegu had reached a verdict: they would not be playing fall baseball this year. And so they resolved to sell off every asset they owned and look to the future instead.

"One month left on the calendar. About time we started liquidating."

There were limits to how high you could pump a price. The auction war with the Doubles — oldest brother first, then the younger ones — had run its course.

"Raise it one won more and we walk! Even madmen have their limits!"

"...What?!"

With the buyers' stomachs in open revolt, they had no choice but to slowly release inventory. From the Busan fans' perspective, it was 'You lunatics, if you were going to bring him in, you should have done it sooner!' —

but a half-season rental won at auction beat losing the bidding war outright, didn't it? And a half-year rental meant the price stayed cheap.

"Flip Jeong Jin-gi to designated hitter, slot Jong Min-soo at third — and now we've got a nuke lineup of our own."

With the Jeong Jin-gi–Jong Min-soo cleanup duo secured, Busan stood firm in second place. They had given up on chasing the Doubles, who had long since sprinted miles ahead —

but they were desperate to widen the gap over third-place Daejeon. By surrendering future draft picks and two prospects growing in the minors, they had chosen to sprint for it.

"...And to think even after all this, a championship this year is still a long shot. It's just too sad."

With a man sitting above their heads whose winning percentage ran a full seat ahead of everyone else's, all that came out was tears. When, oh when, would they ever win the regular season?

The sigh of the Marines' general manager deepened.

Daegu, on the other hand, was now selling off even its captain and staring into the future.

Setting aside the weakened roster, there would soon be fewer players who weren't for sale than ones who were. With the three pillars — Seong Il-yeom, Jo Il-yeong, and Song Ji-young — being prepped for sale, second-team players were getting called up.

Naturally, the results were not going to be pretty. And the rookie pitchers, thoroughly terrified after studying Noh In-seong's numbers, simply walked him over and over.

"Ball four! Runner takes first!"

For the first time in an age, facing a team that refused to challenge him, Noh In-seong strolled to first base.

Forty-six attempts, zero failures — the going rate for his preposterous mind games on the bases.

And just as In-seong was about to get pitched around yet again, the one hitter on this team stepped to the plate — the one man who could give Daegu the single most ironclad reason why they absolutely, under no circumstances, could not.

"You do NOT pitch around me!"

Pitch around Noh, and Song is a no-go — the number-two hitter was swinging his bat in raw fury.

CRRAAACK---!!

Watching the ball sail out of the ballpark, Daegu manager Song Jun-ho understood at last.

'Damn it. Even that madman has to work for it against a team this fragile — fragile past the point of weak.'

Another madman, in an entirely different sense, had been added to the ranks.

Behind Noh In-seong now stood a second Noh In-seong, an offense-only model.

"Bring me Song Jin-wook's data. Just the last twenty games!"

The data the analytics staffer brought back was truly horrifying.

"...Purely on hitting, he's actually outhit Noh In-seong this month?!"

Nineteen hits in thirty-six at-bats. A .528 average with eleven home runs.

Try to sneak in a pitch on the outer half, and you were left staring dumbly skyward — or watching the ball vanish into the heavens. He was, comparatively, weaker on pitches in toward his body.

"...But that's still .300, isn't it? Is that 'weak,' or is he on something?"

That weak zone still burned red, like a strip of litmus paper dipped in dilute hydrochloric acid. Exactly like last month's Noh In-seong, every corner of the strike zone glowed red, redder still.

A raving red equalizer — a hitter for whom all zones were equal, though some zones were a little more equal than others.

And there lay the dilemma itself: they couldn't pitch around both Noh In-seong and Song Jin-wook.

Noh In-seong's comparatively modest production existed only because intentional HBPs and free passes carried such low value.

If they restarted a head-on battle, there was no telling what might happen.

"Our only real option is to send them inside. Pass the word down. Pitch him in."

That judgment — ordering his pitchers, against all instinct, to challenge Song Jin-wook in the zone where he was weakest, inside —

would come back to haunt Daegu as a catastrophe of historic proportions.