In-seong: Meltdown
Oh Yeon-seok, the Gwangju Tigers' self-proclaimed future domestic ace, had never imagined things would blow up this big.
"Come on, he's just a hotshot rookie. I'm the senior here — am I not even allowed to say a few words to him?"
Technically, true. It's just that the other party happened to be the greatest lunatic in the history of a sport already overrun with lunatics — a man who greeted you with a neck-crack and showed up in your life whether you liked it or not.
Unlike other sports where earnestness wins the day, baseball had churned out every breed of degenerate imaginable, and even in that crowd this man stood in a category of his own.
And getting targeted head-on by that man felt anything but trivial.
He'd been having an excellent month — right up until he opened his mouth and got it handed back to him. His confidence had been sky-high.
Five starts, thirty and two-thirds innings, seven runs allowed. A 1.76 ERA with thirty-six strikeouts. He'd genuinely believed no one in the league was better.
He'd planned to ride his hot start all season, put up monster numbers, and walk onto the WBC roster as a starter. Then some lunatic had dropped out of nowhere and was putting up absurd numbers, so he'd merely fired off a careless shot at him.
It was simply his luck that the frog he'd carelessly pelted with a stone happened to be a poison dart frog — one drop of whose venom could paralyze an entire region.
Meanwhile, one more piece of bad news had landed on Noh In-seong's plate.
"Is this for real?"
The player he'd beaten the living daylights out of... no, pardon — the player whose mental state he had lovingly tended back to health and reborn as a new man. Song Jin-wook had gotten close with Choon-sik. And not gradually, either — best buds practically overnight.
"That bastard isn't human... How do you beat a teammate that hard?"
"In-seong is supposed to mean 'humanity,' no? So he is No-Humanity. Nothing can be done."
Shared suffering is, as always, the fastest bonding agent known to man.
The trash talk that had forged a little solidarity before the Astros series had now come out from behind closed doors into the open.
In-seong's blood pressure spiked, but these were guys he'd already smacked around once, so he had to watch himself. Agh, my fists are crying. But at least this time they didn't do anything worth a beatdown — they're just yapping, so I'll let it slide.
Honestly speaking, though, Song Jin-wook did bolster the team. His hitting, anyway.
His defense was a half-abandoned project — nobody wanted to get strangled again — and his current position was the backup to the backup at first base.
He'd been the designated hitter last game, too. Meanwhile, In-seong's schedule this year was no appearances the day after he pitches.
If that idiot could manage even backup-level defense at first, the lineup would gain some flexibility.
"Alright! Song the Sloth, one more rep!"
"Ah! I'm dying, Coach! Please!"
Which was exactly why the idiot was currently getting chewed out at first base — for failing to catch a single ball despite rolling around in the dirt three times in a row.
Catch the damn ball, for crying out loud. What's his glove made of, concrete?
Word was that from now on, every time Song Jin-wook was penciled in as designated hitter, he'd get defensive drills just like this.
...Will he even get a start at this rate?
The sight of the manager sighing, again and again, at Song Jin-wook crawling on all fours to scoop up grounders, repeated itself several times over.
Before the game, all sorts of storylines were floating around. The biggest were Is In-seong a must-have for the national team? and Are Noh In-seong's numbers a fluke? But even on a normal day, first place at a .739 win rate going head-to-head with fourth place sells itself.
For the Doubles — a club whose name is forever attached to the ignominious reputation of being strong only in the season's opening months — this was a chance to prove otherwise.
And for Gwangju, who'd won it all just last year and then failed to re-sign several core players over contract disputes that winter, it was a chance to prove they were still fine.
Naturally, the two clubs were falling all over each other — watch us, believe in us! — and the matchup practically marketed itself.
The violent history between their two fanbases, each desperate to devour the other, made excellent kindling.
And then there was one mad scientist who doused that blazing pile in gasoline and thermite, and started roasting sweet potatoes over it.
"I hope to receive an even hotter welcome than the one in Suwon last time."
Nearly a month had passed, but the man who'd monopolized the top five slots on every sports news interview ranking — Noh In-seong — had opened his mouth yet again.
"First time since the nineties, they say. A fire lit inside a ballpark."
"You folks and us — we're the parties involved here, aren't we? You know what to do? Let's handle it ourselves, hm? I'm counting on you."
Noh In-seong had bared his own club's dirty laundry for the world. Naturally, while dragging every other team into it like a drowning ghost pulling swimmers under.
But if he'd stopped at that, he wouldn't be Noh In-seong. He went and dropped a "Teacher, are you also familiar with Hammurabi?" right into the middle of humanity's guaranteed top-three worst fans, and watched the collision.
"Now, first things first — naturally you'll be booking seats in the opposing club's home section, and of course you'll want to wave plenty of merchandise around while you're at it..."
"Uniforms are standard attire, and if the heat doesn't bother you, do put on a glossy windbreaker, please. What's that? You'll get flagged as an instigator if you wear it?"
"And make sure the cheering squad's amplifiers are cranked to maximum. Don't turn them off during the opposing team's defense, either. If anyone complains, just shove them."
...Naturally, if you do shove them, you alone will bear any and all consequences beyond that. Said the man with a smile on his face, engineering a mass collision between thousands of people.
Obviously, the league association wasn't going to sit still. A politely gift-wrapped "Please stop encouraging this and just be quiet!" arrived on his desk.
"Eh? There's no law against any of that, is there? There wasn't? Then legally, you have no means of stopping me. Correct?"
And in an era blinded by popularity and gate revenue, where the tools to stop such things had never been codified into rules, it meant exactly nothing.
Having witnessed the savage beauty of Suwon, Noh In-seong — eager to witness the beauty of Gwangju — had kicked over the hornet's nest. The law of primal beauty was the most beautiful law of all, and fans with long-smoldering grudges began to move.
But just because In-seong belonged to the Doubles, did that mean the Doubles came out of this clean? Of course not.
Dirt the whole league had been stockpiling on the Doubles came pouring out too.
A Seoul club in a big market, easy for new fans to drift into — which meant the Doubles' fanbase was extraordinarily diverse. And per the sage's wisdom that one in every five people is garbage, a full twenty percent of them were lunatics.
Twenty percent of the whole, per the statistics? You couldn't write that off as a fringe minority. Obviously it was a problem.
Both clubs were successor franchises to founding-era teams, living institutions of Korean baseball history. Their accumulated scandals had long since blown past double digits and were eyeing triple — and naturally, neither side could slink away from this controversy untouched.
The hidden powerhouses of the internet had begun taking shots, and —
Meanwhile, some cheering fan club that failed to read the room and tried to get cute ended up getting painted as a public enemy in return.
And the man who'd blown this fire up to this size —
"What is the meaning of this?! Are you out of your mind?!"
He was on the phone with the league association. Fair enough — it was only natural.
"You will give an interview to the press, immediately! It was all a misunderstanding — a mere collision of perspectives, nothing more!"
"Me, you say?"
Why should I? Did I write the rulebook? Or was it me who kept declining to intervene every time this blew up, calling it a matter between the parties involved?
You handed me a full campfire kit, a mountain of kindling, and a lighter, and lit it yourself — how is that my responsibility? It's yours.
"...Are you mocking me right now?! The commissioner is extremely displeased, I'll have you—"
Even if the commissioner came crawling to apologize to me personally, I'd be weighing whether to accept — and a mid-level staffer dares threaten me?
Oh, you're in for it, pal. We'll be having a nice long chat after the game.
"Bring me someone with actual authority, you moron! What's the point of a league that never even wrote proper rules in the first place?!"
He hung up without ceremony. Blocked.
Naturally, in a situation like this, no proper separation of fans was going to happen at the ballpark.
Cheering-related brawls had been a chronic issue for every club since time immemorial — and the clash between these two clubs, the ones who'd suffered the most infamous crowd incidents even after the dawn of the smartphone era?
They reacted faster than a groin kick to an already-tender spot.
"Whew. So this is that half-and-half ice cream thing, huh."
The stadium was packed to the rafters — and that wasn't even the half of it. Every uniform imaginable, and was that guy wearing an NBA jersey? And there it was — a Unicorn uniform from a franchise that no longer even existed.
The only vaguely color-coordinated zones were the areas around the home and away cheering sections.
Both sides were screaming their fight songs at full blast, the sounds colliding mid-air until nobody could tell what song was what.
The Honam chant...? Ah, that one. That one I can make out. It's famous.
"...I've decided to stop being surprised by anything you do."
Oh, come on, In-su hyung. Getting worked up over this much already?
"And I'm saying that knowing there's more coming, aren't I?"
In-su hyung rested a hand on my shoulder and spoke.
"Just please — for the love of god — don't end up on the nine o'clock news for a crime. Because if you do, I'm pretty sure the club will cease to exist."
What does this man take me for? I don't commit 'crimes.'
The game itself, in stark contrast to the inferno in the stands, was absurdly composed.
Every hitter's swing had packed its bags for the afterlife. And the two pitchers locked in the duel were, of all people, the foreign aces.
The Tigers' import, Jeremy, against our own import ace, Caleb — seven scoreless innings each. Two hits apiece. One walk apiece.
I hadn't gotten a hit either. Wow — I was squaring the ball up solidly, launching it a mile, and it just kept flying in the worst possible directions.
[My, did he spend all his hitting touch yesterday? Noh In-seong's bat is silent today, folks.]
[No, the contact was excellent? It's just that everything went right at someone, or got hauled in on a line.]
[But I will say one thing... ahaha, those placards are getting rather aggressive.]
I can't speak for the others, but they only seem to switch the amps on when I'm making an out. They've made up their minds about me.
Good for them. At least they've got the courage to be hated. Beats cowering like they used to — far better.
The turning point came in the eighth. Top of the eighth, Jeremy finally exhausted after his hundred-and-tenth pitch, and Lim Jin-hong took the mound in his place.
A young bullpen arm with a four-something ERA last year. But after the championship, one core reliever declared free agency and the lockdown closer was shipped out in a sign-and-trade.
To plug those holes, Gwangju had gutted their setup corps to forge a bullpen ace and a closer out of what remained — and it was that tearful gamble which had turned this pitcher into a high-leverage arm.
And on our side, a pinch hitter stepped in as well.
Song Jin-wook — who I'd figured couldn't possibly play today, after something of his popped out of joint before the game — strode to the plate, batting ahead of me.
[And now batting, Song Jin-wook. He'd been sidelined for a few games recently, but looked sharp in the last series.]
[That's right. He's primarily the designated hitter now — aside from occasionally shifting to first base in the late innings, it seems settled that he won't play the field.]
[First pitch — swung on! Right fielder... just inside the right field foul line! It drops for a hit!]
[Oh — off the wall in foul territory, and while the right fielder is still fumbling for it, he's chugging into second! Song Jin-wook pulls up at second! Safe!]
"Wow. He is genuinely, breathtakingly slow. Outside of hitting for average and power, the man does not have a single tool."
And behind me came Dustin... right, Dustin had a hit today too. Great, now I'm getting compared.
I was getting ready to head to the plate when Choon-sik sidled up and said his piece.
"In-seong. Today, you are below me and Song."
...These bastards?!
Crack—!!
[Over the right fielder's head! Noh In-seong is already through first base! Contest at second—! Safe!]
[And this time, the ball caromed off the wall, was fielded cleanly, and the throw was right on target — yet he's still safe at second. Remarkable, really...]
"You see that, you bastard Choon-sik?!"
Fine, I didn't even barrel it up — but the game-winning RBI is still mine, thank you very much.
And when Choon-sik followed with another single and came around to score, that made it two runs — the only inning in which either team put anything on the board.
Two to nothing. The Tigers began their series in humiliation, shut out entirely.
And the two jackasses who had declared — not once, but twice — that "the two of us combined are three of you," spent the night shuffling around the team hotel clutching their sides.
Once would have been enough. Honestly.