The Courage Not to Apologize
Before the game, I had to face a swarm of Busan reporters.
Ahh, look at all that venom in their eyes. That's right. Your beloved team became a national punchline the moment I opened my mouth, so of course you're not in a good mood.
"...This is your first visit to Busan. You still have no intention of apologizing to the city, do you?"
"Wow, you people are persistent. Nope. Not while you gentlemen refuse to run corrections on all the articles *you* owe *me* apologies for."
It was going to become an annual event, apparently. This was just how it would be from now on.
"Just because things are going well for you right now, a man shouldn't forget his humility—"
"...? I'm not doing 'okay right now.' I'm on a goddamn tear."
Five games. Thirty and a third innings. Four runs allowed. A 1.19 ERA, fifty strikeouts, sixteen hits, four walks. That was my pitching line.
Eighteen games, sixty-six plate appearances, fifty-one at-bats, twenty-nine hits, nine walks—a .568 average, a .609 on-base percentage, a 1.333 slugging percentage, a 1.941 OPS. Nine home runs, four stolen bases, twenty-five runs batted in. That was my hitting line.
By classic stats alone there was nothing left to dig into. Everyone else's numbers sat at less than half my efficiency.
"Sorry to break it to you, but even if I sit out all three games here against Busan and take the day off for Game 1 of the Daegu road trip... these numbers alone have the monthly MVP locked up, don't they?"
Noh In-seong brandished the cowardly facts known as statistics and grinned at the reporters.
Naturally, the reporters responded with fair and balanced fabrication.
You sons of bitches, do you not remember what happened last time your team's manager opened his mouth at the wrong moment?! I'll carve it back into your bodies one more time.
Just as the fans started weighing in on a monthly MVP that, for all the talk of him "winning" it, did carry the faint whiff of a popularity contest — he got "selected" for two things in a very different sense.
Crrrack—!
"GWAAAAAAGH!!!"
In the bottom of the first, the Doubles' backup left fielder chased a fly ball — the opposing batter, baited by a changeup from Andy, had lifted it toward the spectator foul zone.
He leapt off the wall and hauled it in. Up to that point, everything was fine.
But then came the sickening sensation of the padding giving way beneath him — too far, too deep. The joint connecting the fence panels tore clean out of its housing, the whole section collapsing in an instant, and of course he missed his landing.
The fall dislocated his leg bone straight out of the joint — a gruesome injury — and the game was briefly halted.
It was one of those days: a single play, and from the very start of the game a player was carried off on a stretcher in the blink of an eye.
Rebuilt in the 2030s or not, a stadium needs renovation work every ten years, full stop. Two decades had already passed — more than enough time for the greenbelt designation to be lifted and an apartment complex to rise on the lot.
"Pi Jeong-doo! You're in center field starting now — and you, take right..."
While the coaching staff scrambled to shout reassignments in every direction, Noh In-seong quietly slipped a piece of the torn-out fence hardware into his pocket.
"Honestly... these bastards never change."
He wore a bitter expression as he said it.
The game, suspended for the workers to prop the fence back up and hammer the panels home again, resumed in a somewhat chaotic mood. The starters' shoulders had gone cold, but both Andy and the opposing mercenary pitcher kept erasing innings all the same.
When I got a hit, Song Jin-wook and Jo In-soo would stand in behind me and swing their bats full of nothing but air.
"Goddammit, you insane wind turbines!"
"Hey! So what, you want me to bunt?!"
"I was born a wind turbine, punk! If you're not gonna tip the pitches, then shut your mouth!"
Conversely, when Sung Hyun-tak in front of me — with two outs, mind you — would slap a single and swipe a base...
Swinging strike three! Batter out!
"Goddamn industrial windmill... In-sung. Hey, it's your hyung. Your hyung. Put the fist down and let's use words?"
Which is to say, I had been stranded. Look, it only counts as an RBI and a run when things actually add up. Damn it all.
The opposition's lineup had always been weak, and this year's edition was misery itself. Yes, they'd rushed the rotation — which is how they'd passed on me and taken a starting pitcher first overall. But when your position-player corps was already missing five pieces, drafting a long-term project starter was a failure to understand priorities. The fact that they'd picked an arm that needed years of development was the problem, and the position players they'd filled the holes with came through trades and promotions from Double-A — instant-impact college draftees who were now rotting in the minors.
Weaker than the other teams, in other words. The wall of the Busan first-team roster was simply too high for them, and the rookies were still raw next to the veterans. What good was one decent-OBP leadoff hitter — practically the only human being in the lineup — when he'd already been retired?
"Foul tip! Foul tip!"
—Strike three! Batter out!
"Well, well. So they've got wind turbines over there too."
Both the mercenary hitters and the team's home run leader were the kind of batters who preferred extreme uppercut swings, launching everything into the air.
And this league's robot umpires had long since stopped smiling on players like that.
"In-sung, the high fastball is working really well. They've got no eye at all for the ball up and in."
"Still, watch out for the guys with good OBPs — they don't go for those big loopy swings."
"BOONG-BOONG? Ah! You mean greedy, right?"
That's it, my man. Watching you actually comprehend things, I can see the value of shoving spicy chicken into your mouth to motivate your Korean studies.
In the days since, he'd learned enough to read a menu. Life really is about practical experience.
Andy's outing stretched on impressively long. It took seven innings and 109 pitches before he finally came out, and while he'd given up his share of hits, every run he surrendered came off the long ball.
"Huh. So even a wind turbine connects if you spin it enough."
"...In-sung, isn't Hong basically the entire bullpen we've got holding this score?"
4–2. Aside from the two solo shots, he hadn't given up a thing — a performance that deserved real praise.
"Aw, come on. Even if they tie it up, we'll just hit more homers—"
"No. My win bonus, In-sung."
"......"
Why is it that every single mercenary on our team is chronically desperate for money? Choon-sik, and now this Andy bastard too — I'd heard family troubles light a fire under people, but this guy is just a pure money miser.
Andy's grim premonition began to come true.
The next pitcher out of the pen was Yeom Dong-goo, fresh off his recent first-team debut. In exchange for recording two outs, he managed to give up a single and a homer, successfully demolishing Andy's win bonus.
"Andy, from now on, don't open your mouth after you get pulled. You got absolutely shafted."
"Ssi-bal... So unfair."
He looked genuinely crushed. Just how much had that incentive been worth?
The one silver lining was that, mess or no mess, he'd at least finished off the inning after giving up the runs.
Love them or hate them, maybe the opposition knew that if they wanted their last chance, they had to lock the back door shut and come in. Or maybe it was simply because my turn at the plate led off the inning. Either way, they brought in their closer.
A right-hander with a three-quarter delivery, throwing four-seamers, cutters, and splitters. His top velocity sat at 150 km/h, but the cutter and splitter came in at nearly the same speed. His command was shaky... or was it? I'd heard Kim Jin-hong, who'd come over to our team, had locked down the ninth last season after working as this guy's setup man in the second half.
I was running the opposing pitcher through my head, thinking about what to hunt for, halfway through my pre-at-bat routine, when—
"Hey. Quit strutting around."
Oh? What now. There are still catchers alive who'll talk to me?
Look at the face — it's the catcher who got traded out during spring camp and packed his bags. Jin... Jin... what was his name again?
Huh. He'd come in as a pinch hitter earlier. So this was that guy.
"...Sorry, what was your name again? Something like a ramen brand, wasn't it? You know, with the face that wrinkles up like a bulldog."
"...You little bastard? You can't even be bothered to memorize your own teammates' names? Wow, you are seriously spoiled rotten—"
"Ump? This trade chip who isn't even my team's senior anymore keeps trying to chat with me?"
Go ahead — give me one reason I should remember your name. We're not exactly close.
"...Noh In-seong, watch your... ah, keep it civil. And Jin Dong-ha — it's the year 2051. Why are you pulling the seniority card?"
"......Haaack—ptoo."
Apparently even he knows that pushing it further gets a warning on the spot.
Ugh, disgusting bastard. What decade does he think this is, spitting phlegm near the mound?
The pitches came in just ambiguous enough to swing at, and the fouls kept stacking up.
"Hey, aren't you sick of this yet? Just swing through one and walk already, punk!"
"Aw, that's rough. Must be hard trying to make something happen with a pitcher who can't throw a single real breaking ball and just has to cram fastballs in there."
He shut his mouth. I must have hit the nail on the head.
He was a legitimate top-tier pitcher in this league — a four-seamer plus an almost indistinguishable splitter and cutter, two "fastballs" breaking in opposite directions at 140 km/h, designed to scramble a hitter's recognition.
"But you're way too easy for me, pal. Hey. You planning to do this all day?"
Pitch ten was inside the zone too. At this point he had to know that whether it was a splitter or a cutter no longer mattered.
In the end, unable to hold back — whether it was Song Jung-ho's pride, Jin Dong-ha's game-calling, or just a mistake pitch—
the four-seamer came screaming in at his best velocity of the day.
CRACK—!!
"That ball's GONE! Gone like your manager's remaining contract days!"
Once again — not off the wall, but clean out of the ballpark — the hardest-hit ball of the day sailed into the night.
And the final inning belonged to Jin-hong hyung, newly armed with a save situation, who proceeded to dunk his former team straight into the deep fryer.
"Hey, I've been thinking — I feel like I deserve a higher evaluation than this."
"...You mean the numbers you put up without ever having to face your old team?"
Stop winking at me, you maniac.
"I honestly cannot fathom how the bastards who maintain a ballpark like this still have their heads attached."
And so, thanks to Noh In-seong's positively monstrous grudge, Busan found itself under fresh waves of criticism.
It was scheduled to happen.