You Can't Sweat the Eggs When You're Making an Omelet
Facility problems are the kind of thing every ballpark has.
Whether a club outsources to contractors or keeps its own maintenance crew, the manpower shortage never ends, and the grueling grunt work never goes away. No matter how far technology advances, there will always be jobs where grinding human beings into the gears is still the cheaper option.
"Speaking of which — is it really the 2050s that a so-called state-of-the-art ballpark gets relocated and *still* pulls this kind of crap?"
That's what Noh In-seong said after being pulled from today's game for hitting the decisive home run — holding up a component that had fallen off the outfield fence, pulled straight from his pocket, and tossing it at the feet of the assembled reporters.
"If this is how you're going to 'maintain' things, maybe you ought to give some serious thought to selling the club outright?"
Say he only said it because his own teammate got hurt — fine. Say he barely remembers the reporters' names and would do little more than nod at them if they crossed paths — also fine.
But to a fellow business operator — one whose entire body *is* the business — a neighboring business suddenly collapsing in an act of God is the kind of thing that makes your words run a little sharp.
The Marine-favoring press corps fell silent. Their club had, after all, done something undeniably stupid.
The rookie's scowl practically shouted, You finally crawled out of that flooded-drain hellhole of a ballpark — maybe you should've maintained the new one properly? And yet no one could retort, because the arrogant punk who had tormented and humiliated their team a hundred times over had, for exactly one day, been speaking the truth.
"Well, I guess the kids playing over half their season in this stadium have more to fear than I do. Not really my place to say, huh."
He drawled it out with zero intent to mock, and somehow that made it land even harder in their ears.
If anything, the *absence* of insult was the most humiliating part.
The next day, with everyone's nerves a little loosened, the team gradually drifted back to its usual behavior. Truthfully, with how injury-prone our club was, yesterday's game had ended with everyone's hackles still raised — and today's faces weren't exactly all smiles either.
It took a rookie like me, or a recent hire like a mercenary who hadn't gotten close to the injured guys yet, to manage a perfectly neutral expression.
"Is *that* why none of them survive? Or barely any rookies do?"
"Huh... why?"
Still, we'd relaxed enough that teammates could crack jokes while taking batting practice swings together.
"They'll get hurt and end up flat on their backs. At a higher rate than us, even."
"Ah, so *that's* why our defensive metrics have been historically terrible? No continuity in the lineup?"
Whoa, this bastard is attacking harder than I do? I was just kidding around.
Lim Jae-min had earned a starting nod for today's game — the cause being Cho In-soo's back-to-back-to-back starts draining his stamina into the ground.
"I've been thinking — honestly, I figured as long as In-soo-hyung kept holding down the starting job, I'd never get my shot."
"W-well, fair? Your batting average and OBP are basically the same as his, except the guy you'd replace is swinging a full-speed ceiling fan up there?"
Better defense, better experience, better arm. But when he connects, that ball sails clear into the stratosphere.
"...The way you said that, it sounded like you just called me a slap hitter. Anyway, that's why I figured I'd spend a year just grinding for experience and maybe get spot starts late in the season."
And I figured *you'd* spend a whole year rolling around in the minors like a dog, only getting called up when somebody went down. Who could've guessed, right? Who could've guessed that the idiot who tried to bully me with seniority would get shipped out in a trade?
Come to think of it, if he'd stayed, I might be suspended by the club right now and unable to play at all.
As I watched Lim Jae-min swinging his bat with desperate passion, In-woo-hyung — today's starter — stalked over, grabbed him by the ear, and hauled him off.
"Hey! I'm starting today and the rookie catcher doesn't show up to the pitchers' meeting?! This is what I get for going easy on you, telling everyone you're the sane one of that lunatic's class!"
"Agh! Ah!! That hurts, hyung-nim! Ah!!"
Ugh, poor Jae-min. If *that* guy is our second catcher, no wonder comedy shows keep going under.
...Hold on. Did he just call me the lunatic? Oh, if only he weren't starting today, I'd plant one right in his sternum...
Noh In-seong's prejudice against Jeong In-woo — the groundball-hitting homebody home-field devotee — grew a little stronger that day.
Was it truly Jae-min's fault? Or the fault of In-woo, whose game lived and died by whether balls stayed inside the park and by the dimensions of the stadium itself?
Or maybe these bastards simply had no idea what was happening — because we lost game two.
Whether out of loyalty to their home-field traditions or not, even the newly built stadium was heavily hitter-friendly. In-woo did his best to avoid giving up fly balls, but the trade-off was a flood of hard contact and unpredictable bad hops off the turf.
He still gutted out six innings. But today, misfortune piled on misfortune, hard hits on hard hits — and then Mr. Song let yet another ball slip through his glove.
In the end, he walked off the mound having allowed six runs (four earned).
"...Why are you looking at me? You infield-hitting factory of a man?"
"Hey! You should've hit a homer or a triple and bailed me out!"
Oh my god, this lunatic home-field romantic. I gave you a double and a single. If I'd driven in even one run, I'd have done my whole damn job!
I clenched my fist and held it up right in front of his face — and his eyes went instantly docile. Yep. This is always the answer.
Anyway, come the seventh inning it was 7–3, and we were still thinking, Hey, that's within reach, isn't it?
But the opposing team emptied its entire bullpen down to the closer, and while they did leak a few chase runs, they ultimately slammed the door shut.
Their manager burned through his relief corps like that classic meme of the white dog saying 'then die' — no bullpen arm left unthrown.
"That little punk was remarkably quiet today. Good outing, too. I hope he keeps behaving himself like that going forward."
"...And what are your thoughts on yesterday's unfortunate incident, sir?"
"It was closer to a freak accident, so I don't know why that boy is blaming us. He should worry about his own club."
And it's not as if we injured anyone *on purpose*, is it? — and with that, the opposing manager Park Tae-jung ended his interview.
Yesterday the mood was somber and everyone was planning to quietly let this series slide by — and then this bastard goes and does *that*?
You're dead now. I'm going to have to do something — anything — to watch the bus you're riding in physically flip over.
On the morning of game three, reporters eager to wring an interview out of me had set up a defensive line in front of the bus, mouths watering over what the Busan manager might have just said.
"Let's watch today's game, and then we'll see whether the opposing bus stays safe."
Yesterday, furious as I'd been, I'd done absolutely nothing that would wreck my own condition.
Instead I just kept thinking: What's the odds today's starter throws a first-pitch strike? How will they handle our wearing down their setup men? What's the probability that closer-happy Park Tae-jung brings his closer in *just* to get me out? That kind of thing, on loop.
I ate a protein-heavy late-night snack, burritoed myself in blankets, and slept ten hours alone in a room held at the perfect humidity.
Woke up at exactly 10:30 in the morning, opened my eyes, and I could feel it immediately.
"Man, my condition today is *insane!* — and that's what I said."
"...And why, exactly, does that mean I have to get kicked around by you doing yoga?"
Because, apparently, a guy who went zero-for-every yesterday needs to shut his mouth in front of a guy who collected two hits.
"A stiff board like you doesn't hit singles. You need a loose, flexible body to find hits. Heh heh, come on down!"
"Grrrraaah...!!"
Only after I'd flattened Lim Jae-min face-down onto the floor did yesterday's bottled-up frustration finally begin to drain away.
"Hey! I almost touched it... I *touched* it, I swear...!! Agh...!"
Do eggs go into a face-down hold? Couldn't tell you.
Today, unlike yesterday, I wasn't hitting second — I was the leadoff man, first to the plate.
I went through my usual routine of cocking the bat back, and the Ramyun Man — the guy who'd picked a fight with me two days ago and gotten himself thoroughly handles turned — spoke up.
"Hey, yesterday was pretty uneventful for you, huh? Well, how much sparkle can a rookie have anyway?"
"So you're saying you've never managed a single spark in your entire career? Figures — that's why In-soo-hyung plays full-time and you don't."
Maybe I shouldn't be saying this, but no matter what position I've played, my defense has always been more than serviceable. That's exactly what he *can't* do, which is why he's stuck. If it stings, by all means — refute me.
"......"
Can't do it, huh. Adorable.
"Hey, why pick a fight when you can't even get a full sentence out?"
-----CRACK!
Game three opened with Noh In-seong's patented 'Hello-There Hitting Technique.'
1–0. This all happened before five seconds had passed since the broadcast began.
When I'd said my condition was good today, that usually only referred to the pitching side on days I took the mound. But—
"Nope. Not today."
Today was different. Everything — simply *everything* — felt light.
I'd tested my full arsenal before the game: the breaking balls were all in perfectly average shape. But—
"In-seong, lean on the four-seamer and two-seamer today—"
"I know. Let's just shove it down their throats all game and bury them."
At least today, my fastball command was sharp enough to paint both corners at will —
"Agh, seriously... my hand is killing me. I'd add another layer but it dulls the feel, so I won't."
— everything from raw velocity to movement was operating at elite level.
In-soo-hyung must have felt it too. I could tell just from watching him pull his hand out of the catcher's mitt even now, huffing on it like he was trying to blow out birthday candles.
My condition today was, frankly, borderline abnormal.
I wasn't worried about pitching — these guys were one of the teams that had basically sacrificed offense for defense. The real concern was hitting. When I pitch, my focus takes a massive hit, so on mound days my hitting was a coin flip unless the condition was exceptional.
"Say, Mr. Song, why has your mouth been stapled shut in a straight line for the past minute?"
"...Ugh... I'm losing my mind. Why does this punk get more annoying every time he opens his mouth? The little..."
But today there wasn't the slightest hint of my focus slipping. Even while riling up their catcher, the ball stayed crystal clear in my vision.
Two runners on. Lim Jae-min — a man who had all but forgotten the concept of the extra-base hit — was starting at first so he could at least play his defense. And then Jun-su-hyung, who the manager had half given up on under the logic of well, he's got some speed at least — somehow, inexplicably, reached base too.
"Come on, Mr. Song. You know what happens if you throw — I get drilled, the ball goes over the wall, and Park Tae-jung blows a gasket and goes over the railing backward. So hurry it up."
"Don't you have a single senior around to teach you manners? Where do you get off talking down to me?"
I did, actually — he's currently listed on something called the disabled list over at another club?
Two balls. And when their starter desperately tried to shove in a limp forkball, I ignored it entirely — it didn't finish dropping, and the ump punched it a strike.
Look, even if I loaded the bases, the man standing behind me happens to be Mr. Song, whose one true calling is hitting.
When he's fielding, he's Song the Clumsy Bastard. When he's dropping throws, he's Song the Butterfingers. But when he steps into the batter's box? He is Mr. Song, sir.
It's just that my numbers are freakish — the man's been swinging a hot bat lately too.
From my vantage point: a high strike hugging my side of the zone, two fingers from the pitcher's hand as he gripped it. Four-seamer...?
---CRAAACK!
Read it, swing, watch it sail — all while idly twirling the bat in slow circles before delivering it. The opposing manager's contorted face looked positively beautiful. Beautiful enough that I couldn't help catching his eye and grinning back at him.
And then Mr. Song, batting behind me, launched a homer of his own — and I could tell this game was going to be lopsided from the very start.
"Hyung, how come you only count as 'hyung' when you're standing in the batter's box? The second you step off it I just want to cuss you out?"
"What is wrong with you?! Hey! So I only register as a human being to you when I'm at the plate?!"
Indeed, human. A first baseman who books at least one error per game — what on earth would I ever need *that* for?
And so Noh In-seong, roasting Song Jin-wook the whole way, strolled back into the dugout in perfect harmony with his teammate.