Know Your Role, and Shut Your Mouth
The interview went off without a hitch today. After all, I hadn't said much bad about Changwon in the first place.
[Yes, then here's our final question—and it comes from a viewer at home!]
"Mm, wonderful. A final question. Great, I was getting tired anyway."
[How come, unlike the other teams you've gone absolutely feral against, you've been so quiet during this three-game series with Changwon?]
"I don't exactly have any built-up karma with them, do I? It's not like I've ever thrown the first punch at them outright."
It's not that I harbored some grudge against Changwon. Sure, the organization isn't exactly incident-free, but calling them a bunch of dirty-trade bastards feels a little harsh when the poor sap on the receiving end was the real dumbass. Even if there was some backdoor deal, honestly, the karma weighs heavier on the guys I'd already met face-to-face and thrown punches at.
It's not for nothing that people call them the team that'll trade anyone for a fistful of cash—I mean, I pitched the very next day, didn't I?
"Busan passed on me, Daejeon's Jung In-woong picked a fight with me, and the Superstars threw at my body."
Not that I never strike first. The Grizzlys insulted me back when I wasn't even a rookie yet, after all.
"Fine. In the interest of treating all fans equally, I suppose I'll have to attack Changwon too."
But I wasn't going to trash the franchise itself. Let's save that for when we've piled up a little more mutual hatred.
"Thinking about your parent company—instead of Changwon Dinosaurs, how about a rename? Changwon Gamblers, or Changwon Dogmeats?"
In exchange, I'll go pound on your sponsor instead. There, your wish came true.
"They used to be a major corporation, and these days they're basically a corner-shop operation. The generations turned over, the games stopped selling entirely, so they pivoted into the AI industry, right?"
You asked me to roast them, so roast them I shall. This is the equality you wanted—endure it through hell or high water!
"...Are you going to be okay with this?"
"Those are the hardcore fans who used to stand at the stadium's front gate wielding welding torches. Pull one more stunt and the franchise will get physically dismantled."
And sure, most of those guys have retired or vanished into legend by now, but do you think fan culture changes that easily?
"Generations of inherited mad dogs... er, combative... hmm. Let's say 'aggressive.' Aggressive fan tendencies keeping the front office under constant surveillance?"
Yeah, the odds of them collapsing the season after a good one are high, but they don't get completely steamrolled. If fans are standing in front of the front office door with welding torches, demanding they admit their mistakes and overhaul the system, then improvement is the only option.
"The results? Well, you have to accept the random box sometimes. It's like following the sponsor's fortune, isn't it?"
The Marines, thanks to theirs, transferred their performance straight down to a pineapple house at the bottom of the deep dark sea. Anything's better than that, so it's fine.
So this was Noh In-seong, instigating a scandal of historic proportions by attacking a sponsor outright—and yet, surprisingly, the public's mood didn't sour much. Of course, people who actually worked for that company hated it.
"See, and here I thought you'd be getting a lawsuit."
That was Lim Jae-min, who'd barely scraped together an appearance in the ninth inning today, badmouthing me. This little—?!
"Hey, everything I do is calculated."
Think about it: the karma of the morons who spent over forty years quietly changing the dog meat content of their game. One insolent, violence-flavored rookie opening his mouth about it is nothing. It'd gotten to the point where roasting them was practically a folk tradition.
"And you're fine with having told the Grizzlys they gave you alcoholic gout?"
Sung Hyun-tak delivered a devastatingly precise critique right then and there. Why you little—not, hyung? Damn it! Hyun-tak, you ticking time bomb, I hate you. You just had to say it, didn't you... Although, come to think of it, it's not like it's off-limits.
"They're a rival team anyway. Shouldn't you be able to talk about them however you want?"
"Ah... you insane bastard. Incheon was one thing, but our real rival now is Daejeon, and I'm already terrified of what you're going to say about them..."
Well, you should be afraid now. And how would these people react if I told them I was planning to go nearly all-out against Incheon?
Eh, let it be. When have I ever announced my moves in advance?
Game three against Changwon—and of course, I didn't play.
Apparently the player development guidelines had been set so that anyone who pitched the day before sat out the next day entirely.
Fine by me. Eight innings isn't the neighbor's dog's name, and if I'm appearing the day after a start, it should be as designated hitter anyway...
"Fielding coach, you're off the hook. From this moment, Song Jin-wook is yours alone."
"...Yes, understood, sir."
Baseball's great high-blood-pressure therapy had worked another miracle: driving the living to death by bursting their blood pressure, and raising the dead right out of their coffins.
One man could make even the mildest-mannered manager flush scarlet with rage and kick a water cooler like a tiger.
Yes—Song Jin-wook, freshly certified by his own manager as a live defensive grenade, had let yet another ball slip behind him.
Me, the designated hitter in that situation? Not a chance.
Can he not even field a throw to first properly? How on earth did this guy make it to the pros?
Back when Song Jin-wook was rotting away in the minors at the start of the season, he'd thought to himself:
Wait, they won't use me—the guy who spent all of last year in the minors—but they'll hand shortstop to a rookie?
His offense didn't seem that bad by any reasonable standard, did it? A .400 average with 21 home runs—wasn't he good enough? Give him third base too!
And it was a fair point. Sure, minor league schedules were shorter and games got rained out left and right, but if a guy hit .400 with 21 homers, calling him up mid-season last year wouldn't have been strange at all. His resentment wasn't unreasonable.
In truth, if he'd given up just one thing, he'd have been in the majors—er, the first team—ages ago.
He genuinely believed his defense would climb its way back into normal range.
Quoting a Doubles baseball fan who faithfully watched even the minor league games and loved following the team's prospects: 'The day this bastard scores above 30 on the 20-80 scouting scale for defense will never come' was the established consensus.
Whether it was him or his agent who decided a defensive position was the ticket to his market value was anyone's guess.
But if the agent had spouted that garbage, Jung Im-taek wanted to tear him apart. More than ten times. In a single game.
He'd made life miserable enough for his teammates and coaching staff that it was time to fold—but he just couldn't.
"No, sir, I simply haven't finished adjusting yet."
Shamelessly, he'd begged to at least be played at first if third wasn't working, then—without even the excuse of a razor-thin timing—rushed the catch and let the ball pop loose. Second baseman Sung Hyun-tak, stretching his already-limited range to its absolute maximum, managed to at least get a glove near the ball,
"Uh, uh?!"
and instead of catching the ball as it bounced away and rolled, the guy dove flat onto the ground himself—it nearly became the meme of the day.
The peak came in the top of the ninth. Kim Jin-hong, fully rested the day before and back in form, was protecting a one-run save. He'd given up a single and a walk, but after that he'd dispatched all two outs with infield pop-ups and a strikeout—the situation was handled.
Then, with runners on first and third and what should have been the final batter, Kim Jun-soo chased desperately after a deep grounder between third and short and caught it barehanded. His direction toward first was perfect—
—but the throw arrived on the bounce.
[Kim Jun-soo! Barehanded catch! Minimizing the delay and firing to first—!!]
[The ball's through! The ball gets through! The runner from third is already home! And first base—first base—!]
By the time the right fielder, not exactly a speedster, gathered it and fired home, it was already too late.
[And that's the ballgame! Changwon takes the winning series against the Doubles!]
[Ah... Kim Jin-hong's eyes have gone completely blank. I don't think he's ever been walk-off'd quite this creatively...]
Jung Im-taek, finally at the end of his rope, had ordered the team to report to his room after waking up, once they'd relocated to Incheon for the road trip.
His plan was simple: if the kid opened his mouth one more time about demanding a defensive position, he was getting buried in the minors.
Before that, the players were summoned—all except a few veterans with family obligations and the old-timer who had somewhere to be.
"So. What exactly is it you want to say right now."
"No—I mean, I apologize for the errors, but saying all this in front of everyone like this..."
Sure, this was an era where players operated individually, but they were still creatures of the collective at heart.
In other words, when something serious happened, everyone gathered and dealt with it together—and this organization was no exception.
Three errors in a single game. Song Jin-wook, already a towering blame-totem among the fans, now stood at the center of the room.
Truthfully, the lack of talent was the secondary issue. This guy simply had no situational awareness.
Caleb aside, Andy, me, and the two Jung brothers had each and every one of us tasted it. That dogshit defense.
And the starting rotation all thought the same thing: Ah. This guy's useless unless he's the DH.
The bullpen watched the first three games and thought the same: Ah. This guy's useless unless he's the DH.
The position players? You must be joking. If you think defense looks easy just because you see guys standing out there every day, you've got another thing coming.
The moment tension enters the picture, the stress the human body absorbs starts climbing into the stratosphere.
And this guy was handing that already-stressed position-player corps a free extra serving of tension?
In one word: he was one step away from becoming public enemy number one. Fail to read the room today, and he was dead.
"Song sunbae, I think you might be misreading the atmosphere right now..."
Sigh. Even a moron like this could hit, at least—useful enough that I put up with him. As long as he doesn't spout any more nonsense, I'll let him live...
"You, step back. Just because a rookie gets a few starts, some people lose all perspectiv—"
Has this bastard lost his mind?! I'm opening a door for you to survive, and this crazy tin-glove lunatic—?! So this is why he had to die!
WHAM—!!
"Hey! Somebody stop him!"
"Aigo, In-seong! Use your words! Words! Don't kill him!"
"Damn it, In-seong! You're doing great! Hit him harder!"
Caleb, you insane bastard... shut up and pull me off—! Hey! Not the face...!
And so, once again—but this time for the sake of a teammate rather than an opponent—Noh In-seong administered his patented mental realignment therapy.
Impressive as it sounds, it just means he beat the crap out of him. He did ease off on the power at the end, at least.
"...I'm sorry, sir. I agree with everything you said, Manager."
"...No, that's—that's good and all, but what in God's name happened to your face?"
Eleven a.m.—early by baseball folk's standards. Jung Im-taek had called Song Jin-wook in to let yesterday's fury cool, and the kid had walked into his office with his face thoroughly obliterated.
It was nice that the arrogant loudmouth who'd stubbornly demanded a defensive position had suddenly, meekly surrendered... but
No... this kid can't play the rest of the week. His cornea and cheek both swollen up like balloons, his lip split... what on earth happened to him?
Jung Im-taek, bewitched by the monkey's paw, felt his feelings grow complicated.
Pat, pat—!
"...Mmmh..."
"Good work. That's exactly how it's done. Sunbae."
Lightly slapping the back of his neck like applying a chocolate face pack, In-seong praised the man as he emerged from the manager's office.
"Know your role, and shut your mouth. A truly excellent saying, don't you think?"
Mm. A spine-tingling gem of wisdom. If you ever want to smell my fist again, be sure to repeat the performance.
Noh In-seong grinned at the sight of Song Jin-wook's face now swelled to one-and-a-half times its original size, and walked into the manager's office.