Malice
An hour before one man was laughing at second base and another was being carried off on a stretcher, the manager of the Doubles, Jeong Im-taek, called the whole team together before the game.
"Normally I'd tell you to just play your usual baseball, but I have a feeling today is going to be difficult."
In other words: the opponent had no manners, and every single player was about to have his nerves set on edge from the first pitch.
The infielders—especially the ones covering the bases—would be ground zero for every dirty trick in the book.
"...All of you take care of your bodies. Runs matter, obviously, but keep it firmly in mind that this game is not the last game of your careers."
Mmm, Deok-jang. That's our manager for you—sweating over every player one by one. No wonder he let the guy who can't play defense sit out two games.
"And Noh In-seong. Would it kill you to run even one thing by me before you do it? My hair's going white here."
Mmm, stingy. That's our manager for you—nagging me over every little thing. No wonder he made me buy two boxes of chocolate.
But I was staring at him a little too openly, because I immediately got a second lecture to go with the first. What, you little—?
Ah, damn it. Sharp eyes, as always. And judging by everyone else laughing while looking at me, I've officially been cast as the clown.
Setting aside my ongoing WWE production with the manager, today's designated target was probably me.
Being 'arrogant' is the perfect quality for a target—it doubles as a ready-made excuse. I could already see it in the way they looked at me during interviews: that impatient kid, that disrespectful rookie.
Now, you could argue that having a target picked out for you is a bad thing, since your odds of getting injured skyrocket. But look at it the other way: the plays designed to injure me are incredibly easy to predict, the guys who'll try them are a fixed and known set, and so I already know exactly who to watch out for.
The old master said it best: Know the enemy and know yourself, and you will never be defeated in a hundred battles. If you can do both and still lose, then quit the war entirely, you fool.
A player like me, with experience and reaction speed in the same body, can go beyond prediction—straight into in-play retaliation.
Take this idiot sprawled on the ground right now, the opposing second baseman Song Jeong-woo. Guys who pull this kind of stunt on a regular basis are so painfully predictable.
"Aaargh..."
"You dumb bastard, if you're going to slide with your spikes up, you should've extended your leg a lot higher than that."
Then you'd have actually hurt me or wiped out on your own, genius. What, are spikes just for show when you're too busy worrying about public opinion and the out count?
With a runner on first in an in-play situation, some guys throw violent slides to break up a double play. Under this league's rules, the Neighborhood Play—that is, the fake tag where the fielder never actually touches the bag—doesn't count as an out. So naturally, spike-up murder tackles get ruled as interference too. But there are always loopholes.
Good faith, no deliberate intent to interfere. Vague enough that a certain breed of character-flawed players have taken to honing fast, high-injury-risk slides.
There are two 'abnormal' answers to that kind of slide. Either jump clean over the guy and stomp him like a Goomba in Mario, or block second base the way a catcher blocks home.
Either way, it's a standoff where both men gamble their careers on the outcome.
But both carry a high risk of getting called for obstruction, and both raise enormous character questions, so some players have found a third path. Pretend to dodge, aim for the head that lags behind the feet, and wedge your knee into that gap—crashing into him under the pretense of making the tag. Or feint a jump, 'lose your balance' in midair, and deliberately collapse on top of him.
I like the first one. But not today.
After all, the opposing catcher has a dirty play or two of his own in his highlight reel. Maybe it's time he felt a strange sense of déjà vu.
"Wh...what the—?!"
CRACK!
Whoa, his face got absolutely skewered. It was all smiles when he came in, but the moment my knee entered his field of view, the fear set in fast.
I let his spike slide off the ankle guard on my back foot, then greeted the incoming face with my knee. As far as anyone could tell, he'd caught a full-force knee strike. And yes, my blocking of second base was itself questionable—but his slide was the violation that came first.
Besides, I hadn't sealed the bag completely with my back foot either. There was wiggle room on both sides.
Out at second. And all I had to show for it was one shredded ankle guard. A cheap trade, honestly.
I watched them carry him off on the stretcher and smiled. Good opponent. Come back stronger.
On my walk back to the dugout, the opposing manager, mad clear up to the heavens, came over to lodge a complaint.
"Have you no sense of professional courtesy whatsoever?!"
Of course I have. Are you kidding me? Your player is the one who gambled his career against mine.
"I'd say I have plenty—that's exactly why this ended here, old man."
If I'd truly been lacking in courtesy, that kid would be in a hospital right now, oxygen mask on, getting emergency surgery. And let's be honest—he wanted that double play badly enough that he'd have crippled me if it came to it.
"...Hah. Fine. So that's how we're playing it?"
Your boys have been running wild on your implicit blessing for ages, and now you want to act outraged?
Look at the old man smiling. Don't do that, you'll make me fond of you.
Perhaps surprisingly, the next controversial play came quite a bit later.
Through six innings, neither team had scored a run—strikeouts swinging at the worst possible moments, harmless pop flies, zero across the board. Just as everyone was thinking this game would be over in a hurry, I laced a double.
Due up behind me: one flyout today, one strikeout, and Choon-sik.
CRACK—!
[He got it! That's a base hit for Dustin! The right fielder scoops it up and fires home—!]
...Well, well. Now this is a first.
A throw home from a right fielder who fields it cleanly is genuinely dangerous. His arm grades out at 60-plus, and this isn't just any arm—the guy won four outfield assists last year. Solid shoulders.
But me? Thirty meters in 3.65 seconds. Base running is a tool I was born with. I used to survive on my instincts alone; these days I can live comfortably on my legs by themselves.
I'm already off from second, rounding third—and the catcher has already begun leaning toward the incoming ball, back foot planted square across home plate?
The right fielder hasn't even made the catch yet. The ball's nowhere near your mitt. And if I slide, you're going to try to block me by wedging your leg in there?
[He's coming home, coming home—! ...AH!!!]
[Collision at the plate! Noh In-seong has flattened the catcher!]
I drove my right shoulder into his solar plexus, converting every ounce of my sprint momentum into forward force. At the same time—purely, of course, to demonstrate that I was in the proper process of executing a legitimate headfirst slide—I extended my left hand toward the plate.
The spear tackle detonated, sending the Astro starting catcher rolling a good three meters off into the distance.
"HAAAAA—!"
I slapped home plate with my hand and came up roaring.
There was no way I'd get called out after a slide that legitimate and that beautiful. Surely...
"Interference! You're out!"
"..."
Surely my ass. Aaargh, damn these rules to hell. Ump! Where on earth did the tradition of giving style points go?!
"You blocked the entire plate before the ball was even in play—what was I supposed to do, NOT run you over and get in anyway?!"
But the umpire declined to judge the aesthetics division. There are batters out there who put triple axels on their swing and get no artistic score for it. Brutal world.
"Then just slide normally and you score automatically. No need to hit him with your body."
Is that supposed to make sense? These clowns have been pulling this exact stunt for years and now suddenly—
"Then factor in MY injury risk. My hand could've ended up between the legs of that idiot flying through the air!"
Then I'd have no pitching career left, sir. An arm comes off faster in a tangle of somebody's feet than from throwing a ball, I promise you.
"...Regardless, the rule is the rule. You're out. Do you intend to keep arguing?"
No, but I have to put on a show of being aggrieved, don't I? Otherwise my teammates, my manager, and the fans have nothing to be convinced by.
So the umpire and I traded wary glances—the ump, for his part, looking like he understood well enough—and I wrapped up our little WWE segment and headed for the dugout.
Rolling my shoulders as I walked in, checking myself for injuries just in case, when the manager hit me with a line.
"Aigo, you little punk. You've never even heard of the home plate collision rule, have you..."
"I've heard of it."
That answer seemed to shock my manager even more. Fair enough—I suppose he can sort of grasp what I am. I do have the pedigree for it.
Now then, go out there and block that old man for me, Manager. I'll be in the dugout.
"What in the hell kind of punk does that?!"
For the Astros' side, this was a bolt from the blue—this was, after all, the team with the proud reputation of being the best in the league at abusing the home plate collision rule.
First their starting second baseman, and now their starting catcher, flattened by that lunatic human missile and carted off complaining he could barely breathe.
And the response wasn't even an ejection—just a stunned "but that was an in-play accident, wasn't it?!"
They were the team that caused more in-play accidents than anyone. But other teams' misfortunes are one thing. When that same misfortune comes home to roost on your own roster? Suddenly it's an outrage.
Noh In-seong's malicious brand of baseball was, without anyone noticing, dismantling manager Jeong Yong-jun's entire season plan piece by piece.
Fine—you can churn through bullpen arms, they're one of the cheapest resources to acquire. But your starting catcher? Oh, dear God.
Everyone had just watched, live, what price a stupid team pays for entering spring training without a single viable starting catcher.
Now the whole organization was condemned to pace the halls in agonized suspense until the hospital's diagnosis came back.
Even his own teammates were stunned. Of course they were—you have a locker room of guys with ten-plus years in professional baseball, and if they can't tell that play was deliberate, they should get their eyes checked.
An answer, delivered in person, to the eternal excuse: It happened during play, didn't it? Accidents during play can happen to anyone.
Well then, return the favor—play him back the same way! Who knew someone would actually take that advice literally.
The teammates thanked the heavens that Noh In-seong was on their team.
And the defensive hole—the one sitting on the bench in sunglasses, his face swollen like a berry patch—finally allowed himself to breathe.
Goddamn it. I am never raising my voice in front of that lunatic again.
So he did hold back on me after all. If a psycho like that had genuinely lost his temper and thrown fists, I wouldn't be watching a ballgame right now—I'd be staring at a hospital ceiling.
It was a historic moment in the annals of baseball: Song Jin-wook, the defensive hole, developing a sense of self-preservation.
Now, to be fair, I'd repelled two challenges that each staked their career against my injury odds going forward. But adults, as some great literary masterpiece once put it, will insist on discussing numbers.
Honestly, the only genuinely stupid thing I did today was loft one run straight into the sky while committing obstruction. So sue me.
"In-sung, I'm grateful you launched that idiot into orbit, but I had an RBI incentive clause riding on that play."
"......"
Can't argue with a man when money's on the line. Then again, this is the guy who cries at his wife and baby's photos every single day, so.
And as a bonus, we were down by one. The opposing bullpen had come out early and was slamming the door inning after inning—three runs was all our lineup could muster.
Meanwhile, the human gas leak on their side of things kept groaning out walks, handing out baserunners like party favors, and getting tagged for a hit or two per frame. Trailing 3–4, if my run had counted, they'd be talking about how we could've tied it.
But the comeback chance came around.
[He works the walk!! Seong Hyun-tak!! Bases loaded on a free pass!]
[My, my—he was down to two strikes, but you have to praise him for staying patient and laying off those tough pitches!]
[Though I have to ask—is Astro all right here? They needed to challenge him right there.]
Top of the ninth, two outs, and the bases were stacked for me. A new pitcher took the mound.
Sorry, Choon-sik. A man's got to eat.
"Yeah. Figured you'd say that."
A comeback opportunity belongs to the other team too. If they get me out here, the game ends right there. Backed this far into a corner, they only need to retire one batter for game over—so of course they're going to do whatever they can to make the batter uncomfortable. That's the default assumption.
"A classic corked-bat accusation? Old man, are you sure you haven't misplaced your dentures?"
"...Setting aside this rude, insolent brat—get that bat to the umpires for inspection. Now."
A corked-bat check before I've even stepped into the box. Clever approach, I'll give him that.
But if he was actually trying to rattle me, that's a mind game inside a mind game. Against the wrong guy.
"Sure, take it. Oh, but you do realize what you just did, right? You put your own hands around your neck. Brilliant, old man."
"...What?"
"Umpire—when a team requests an inspection of one bat for corking, is that the only bat that gets checked?"
"...As a rule, only the requested bat is inspected, but at the request of a player or on the umpires' own initiative... we can examine all of them...?"
Perfect. You said it, you own it. Jeong Yong-jun, you senile old fool.
"Great. I formally request a full inspection of every bat. I'd hate to be any more rattled than I already am."
"...? Why... AH, you insane little brat...!"
Well, he is a manager. Sharp as a tack after all.
"What? And by the way—even if you withdraw the protest, I'm going through with it."
Fine, he wanted to shake me up. Understood. But does he honestly think his pitcher's shoulder is one of those always-on ondol boilers that maintains a constant temperature?
By rule, a relief pitcher who enters mid-inning—barring injury—must face a minimum of three batters.
"Let's take aaaaall the time in the world. Slooooooow, careful, and thorough—bring out the machines if we have to, old man."
It was a decent gambit, I'll admit. A one-to-two-minute bat inspection is a legitimately good way to disrupt a hitter.
Who could've guessed it would blow up in his face? Enjoy the meal you ordered.
And so, thirteen minutes later, the exhaustive inspection of Noh In-seong's entire bat bag concluded—during which, incidentally, I carried the bat bag out to the check station walking on my hands—and the results were as follows:
A pitcher's shoulder, left to cool for exactly as long as the inspection took. The aftermath was carnage.
[Ball four!! Ball four, run scores! Noh In-seong drives in a run on a bases-loaded walk!]
[Ah, that bat inspection simply took too long. A pitcher is an absurdly sensitive position. Ten minutes is... ten minutes is far too long.]
CRACK!
The walk. And then Dustin's grand slam.
[And now, taking the mound—Jeong In-hong, who blew a save just recently on a walk-off error.]
With the trash talk flying and the corpse of their bullpen on the mound, the curtain came down on a filthy, petulant brand of baseball.
"WOO-HOO! In-sung! I think I can buy the good formula for my baby now!"
"You were lecturing the whole locker room about the benefits of breastfeeding last week, you lunatic."
One father's joy,
CRACK—!!
and one manager's despair, packed together into a single inning.