Spring Camp (2) — Attacking the Friendlies
Time rewinds to one day before Noh In-seong drove a fastball into his own team's foreign slugger.
"Whew, whew...!!"
Clank...!!
It was the first day of spring camp, and Noh In-seong was eating well and grinding through basic strength training.
The first order of business at spring camp was simple: build the stamina and body capable of carrying a full season next year.
And so, for the final rep of five grueling sets of thrusters — an exercise that punishes upper and lower core muscles with perfect impartiality —
"Hoo-hah... God, that's brutal. How is this harder than back in my day..."
Just as Noh In-seong downed a gulp of water and reached to load the bar again—
Tap.
"Hey, kid. Heard you're gunning for that two-way thing."
His own team's foreign slugger, Dustin Springfield, had struck up a conversation out of nowhere.
Mid-weight-training, no less. Especially mid-heavy-lifting. There are few things more annoying than being chatted up during a set.
'You're slapping my shoulder on top of that? Is this guy insane?'
"...Hoo... Yeah, hi, Springfield. That's right, two-way. In our language we call it tuta-gyeom-eop — pitching and hitting both."
Swallowing his irritation by force, Noh In-seong answered in English — politely.
"Haha. A fresh high school graduate who just walked in the door, trying to be a two-way player..."
At that, the corner of Dustin's mouth twisted into something close to a smirk.
'Right, he was a high schooler once too. Bet those were the glory days...' — that was the look on his face, paired with eyes that screamed pathetic.
'This bastard shows up last year as a hired bat and now he thinks he's a grizzled veteran?'
'Character check: FAILED! Fist check: PASSED!' The guy was practically begging for it.
"Give it your best shot. You've gotta try, right? Tryin'."
Even the tone was loathsome. The mercenary toss off a casual Tryin' and strolled away into the distance.
"Yeah, I got the message, you son of a bitch. You're dead."
English has condescension too, of course it does.
What the guy had actually said wasn't "Work hard!" — it was closer to "Go ahead and bust your ass, genius. Tsk tsk."
Something along the lines of: 'You're planning to throw your youth into the void — well, who am I to stop you? Best of luck, champ!'
I came here last year, put up numbers, and now some rookie punk thinks he can talk back to me? That was the mindset on full display.
"Dustin Springfield. Registered as entry number one on the blacklist of my heart."
Noh In-seong resolved to pay back every ounce of this irritation and humiliation in the intrasquad game.
Creeeak...!! Creee-eak...!!
"Hoo... eight...!! Nine...!!"
And Noh In-seong went back to finishing his set.
An Arizona local boy who had ground it out in Triple-A until the age of twenty-nine, then finally, unable to keep body and soul together, crossed the ocean to Korea.
Now entering his second year in Seoul, Dustin was thinking:
'This cocky little brat is strutting around like he owns the place, without a clue how the world works.'
Physically? Well, sure. Six foot four, 193 centimeters, decent muscle on his frame. Impressive.
He'd heard the kid was the biggest fish of this year's draft, so he could even understand the ego.
But pitching and hitting at the same time? Haha. This arrogant little punk.
Dustin had started 86 games and stepped to the plate nearly 370 times two seasons ago.
A man whose ceiling in Triple-A had been a .260 average — yet in this league, he was the elite slugger.
"But what kind of confidence does a guy fresh out of high school have, pulling this kind of bullshit?"
Worse, the kid didn't even bother hiding how disrespectful his speech was. Not a single honorific to be found. Look at him.
Dustin remembered the old days — bouncing up and down between the majors and the minors, and finally, seeing no future with a club that had bought a left fielder in free agency, giving up and coming to Korea.
His average hadn't climbed all that much, but his slugging had improved dramatically — 33 home runs.
It felt like only yesterday that he'd finally felt like somebody important.
"Ah, right — that disrespectful brat is the starting pitcher today. Get tagged a few times and he'll figure out his place."
Thinking about it, he was reminded all over again: this was a kid who'd barely just turned pro.
The crazy little brat had no idea that what he was saying was a hopeless pipe dream.
"That's how everyone grows up, kid — by getting smacked around. Kid. No hard feelings."
The kid would last maybe three innings, one turn through the order. A homer or two, and he'd come to his senses. So Dustin figured.
"I'll personally carve a lesson into this young one."
And the Seoul Doubles' foreign slugger, Dustin Springfield, smiled.
I'm not great with foreign languages. Hispanic tongues especially — Spanish, is it?
"Just a language that's bent all out of shape."
I could barely make out a word of it.
When opposing foreign players started speaking that stuff, we usually needed an interpreter.
"I did catch a few words now and then..."
They were all curses, mind you, so I'd usually respond by raising a middle finger or two of my own.
But English? Different story. I understood it all too well — every condescending syllable.
As if I could possibly miss that Dustin Springfield — biracial, Arizona-born — had just let out a genuine, top-shelf sneer at me.
'You managed it twice, sure, but I watched you rot away endlessly in the bullpen and off the bench, didn't I?' That was the flavor of it.
"Play ball!"
Well, what choice did I have? Nothing for it but to carve the lesson right into his hide.
The intrasquad game — the pros' baptism by fire, mixing the first-team roster with the second team and the rookies.
Time for them to get baptized and find out exactly how wide the gap was between the first team and the fresh meat.
'Ah, so pro ball is really hard. Making a living playing a children's game isn't so easy after all.'
More than a few people expected the rookies' discipline to get set straight this way.
From the manager all the way down to the starters — everyone was rubbing their hands in glee.
Everyone thinking: 'Time for the initiation of that arrogant rookie punk who nearly started a bench-clearing brawl at the rookie introduction ceremony! Let's go~'
All aimed at Noh In-seong — the miracle worker who had united the scattered, factional hearts of the veterans into one.
The leadoff hitter, Sung Hyun-tak, stepped into the box.
"Ah, so it's like... wait, no? Huh?"
Pfft—
'Whatever he does, the best this rookie can do is paint the corners, right?'
Sung Hyun-tak kept up his composure right until the green rookie catcher finally finished relaying the sign through the PitchCom and settled into his crouch.
He was planning to swat a hit, then swagger down to first base with a grin. Instead, the very first pitch came tearing in toward his head — a two-seamer.
"GAAAH--!!"
He flinched away desperately, but the ball tailed wickedly, grazing the very peak of the strike zone before dropping in.
"Strike one!"
Only when he confirmed that the left-hander's inner-half two-seamer had come in at 150 km/h and ducked just off the bat at the last instant did it register.
"...Whoa. I'm screwed."
Only then did Sung Hyun-tak, an established starter, grasp the size of the lunatic standing in front of him.
A colossal snakehead fish had just come face to face with the pond's little crucian carp — and roared in delight.
The intrasquad catcher, Lim Jae-min, was in a complete daze.
"Hey, I said quit throwing at guys' bodies!"
It was exhausting enough having the starting second baseman Sung Hyun-tak breathing pressure down his neck the whole time—
'Is this bastard, shit, not scared at all? Another ball inside?!'
That demon of a pitcher, taking the signs relayed through the PitchCom and calmly overruling them with whatever pitch he felt like throwing, without a flicker of hesitation.
Glance—
The umpire was starting to count — the pitch clock, apparently, twenty-three seconds. Why was there so much to keep track of?
Meanwhile the coach had flashed a "infield in" sign — lefty hitter, no power, play shallow... wait, I'm the last relay on that? One more thing?
Then came the first panicked pitch, and he took a deep inner two-seamer exactly where he'd called it.
"Ah. This guy's the real deal. Fine — I'll just focus on everything else."
Only after the opposing batter nearly collapsed in terror at a two-seamer whizzing past his ear did Lim Jae-min finally calm down.
And once Lim Jae-min's trembling protective gear stopped shaking, the data-sharing between battery partners only got faster.
'Two-seamer! Jam him inside!'
'You idiot, haven't you seen this guy's data? It's the slider away.'
...Whether the pitcher actually obeyed was another matter entirely. But the exchange was fast, and that counted for something.
Bats slashing at empty air, pitches that could only be watched, never touched.
Barely a single batter squared the ball up properly, and five went down in a row on weak contact.
"...Tch. Hey! The kid's got good stuff, sure, but you're striking out without even fouling one off!"
It was such utter domination that Jeong Im-taek was getting angry at his hitters for striking out with so little fight.
The leadoff hitter, Sung Hyun-tak, retired on a third-pitch grounder to third — one out.
Against the two- and three-hole hitters, he threw nothing but two-seamers, seven pitches, two straight strikeouts.
Then in the next inning, facing the cleanup hitter — a righty — he buried two four-seamers inside, back to back.
"Strike three! Batter out!"
"Whoa, this is insane! He's got TWO sliders?!"
Closed out with a slider that dropped off the table.
The five-spot was Jo In-soo. The starting catcher. His average was on the low side, but his slugging percentage was dramatically high — and that told you everything.
A hitter whose batting style was essentially OPS with the on-base stripped out and the slugging nudged up a hair — and to Noh In-seong, he was prime prey.
'A guy who parks his bat's focus on the spot he wants, then swings for the fences when the pitch arrives there.'
If he could ring up a called strike on the first pitch, all it took was two more balls in that neighborhood and the at-bat was over.
Two pitches up out of the zone, then the diving slider for strike three.
"Swing and a strike — batter out!"
No need to consult the analytics team's charts — Noh In-seong felt that thick, classic, whiffing breeze in his bones.
"Struck out by a breaking ball. A classic human wind turbine, through and through."
And a sensation of pure, refreshing satisfaction washed through him, down to his chest.
In the intrasquad game, the number of pitches Noh In-seong needed to complete 1.2 perfect innings: exactly fifteen.
THWACK--!!
"Shit!"
And the number of pitches needed to start a riot: exactly one.
Sixth in the order, Dustin Springfield's at-bat. 160.2 km/h. Four-seam fastball.
The fastest pitch of the day planted itself square in his back.
"You rotten son of a—!!"
Fury incarnate, the half-black slugger flung down his bat and came charging up the mound—
but Noh In-seong calmly watched the man's incoming arm.
Assume a telephone punch — a fist thrown straight at the face.
Duck deep underneath so the arm cuts through empty air, then wrap both arms around the backs of his knees.
"What...?!"
Adrenaline, maybe? Even Lim Jae-min's dumbstruck face, staring blankly from behind the plate, seemed to move in slow motion.
Hoist the bastard straight up, rotate him 90 degrees in midair... and slam him down onto the mound back-first. And voilà.
"Khhgh!"
If you catch the moment all the air blasts out of his lungs — when he can't muster any strength — that's what separates the first-rate from the rest.
Grab both legs, flip the body over. Cross the legs, hook them over your arm, rotate 180 degrees, settle down onto his back in the bent position—
"AAAAAAAH--!!"
A spinebuster flowing straight into a Scorpion Deathlock. A flawless combination. This is what first-class bench-clearing looks like.
The Doubles players, who had poured out of the dugout screaming, "Aaagh, we've gotta save the kid!" — all of them stopped dead and just stared.
"Hey there, Springfield. Feeling like the lesson's finally sinking into that body of yours?"
Well, he understood. Where would anyone have seen this before? Even this was my first attempt since deciding to live life entirely on my own terms.
"AAAGH! It hurts! IT HURTS! Let go, please!"
Dustin squirmed and thrashed, trying everything to escape — but the harder you struggle against this hold, the worse the pain gets.
"Behave from now on. Got it?"
As much as he couldn't stand the guy, they were still teammates. The season hadn't even started yet — far too early to shatter his back and trigger the foreign-player replacement procedure.
Men's world or not, it's eat or be eaten. He'd bared his teeth once; by now, everyone was getting the picture.
"Starting today, your name isn't Springfield. It's Choon-sik."
Try to slam me down, and I'll slam you down. Step out of line again and you're dead.
"Okay! Okay, I got it! Please...!!"
He'd already blown the flow by throwing a guy once anyway, so the intrasquad game was bound to fizzle out.
Inflicting any more pain than this wouldn't buy him anything.
"Ah, fine. I'll let it slide this once. There's no next time. Do better."
"My back... MY BACK!!"
Noh In-seong released his grip on Dustin's legs and walked off the mound.
And so was born the first baseball player in history whose inaugural bench-clearing brawl targeted his own team.
The Doubles' manager, Jeong Im-taek, had a headache.
"...Good Lord. Same team, and he drills a guy in the back with a beanball."
He'd known the kid was insane from the start — but this was a different order of insanity.
He'd called him in for an explanation, and the motive turned out to be that Dustin had made a snide remark about him wanting to pitch and hit at the same time.
Look, leaving aside whether his English was any good — under normal circumstances, don't you start with words first?
"How exactly are we supposed to discipline him internally, sir? This is going to cause problems with team chemistry!"
The aging pitching coach, demanding an eye for an eye, went so far as to suggest shipping the kid back to his home country.
"What are you going to do about it? Discipline him, and what do you think that lunatic does next?"
Jeong Im-taek shook his head. This was the kind of guy nobody could predict.
—He's pulling this crap because he's got energy to burn. Fine. Simple solution: make him work harder.
The manager tacked extra cardio onto both rookies' schedules and sent down the notice, then grabbed his whistle and went off to supervise, tweet-tweet.
Noh In-seong, who ran every single day anyway without missing one, breezed through the added workout without a care.
"Aargh, you absolute maniac..."
Lim Jae-min, on the other hand, was dying. Running wasn't exactly his hobby at the best of times.
"Hmm... I do feel a little bad about this one, actually?"
A conscience still lingered, faintly, and Noh In-seong glanced over at Lim Jae-min with something like pity.
"But the fact remains: your body is getting healthier. Bottoms up."
"Haah... haah...!! O God, please let that bastard die in the most agonizing way possible..."
And toward his suffering teammate, the needling never stopped.
So there they were: one rookie off doing whatever he pleased after finishing his run, the other lying flat on the floor, sprawled out.
And in the pitching coach Ju Sung-jin's brain, a lightbulb flicked on.
"...Ooh. Now this is perfect. I'll take one of those idiots and fold him into my camp."
He was already furious enough at being passed over for that young manager — and the rookie who'd just come in through the draft was a lunatic to boot.
No matter how sharp-tongued the kid was, he was still a fresh draftee, barely out of high school. He wouldn't dare refuse a coach.
"As it happens, this works out beautifully. I'll take personal responsibility and set him on the path to redemption."
Pass down the forkball he'd thrown so well in his playing days, run the kid through a rewarding curriculum, toughen that shoulder right up — and by the end of it, he'd be a better pitcher.
And at that point, surely, he wouldn't have the gall to refuse his mentor's word.
"I drain that menace's strength, AND I rack up a track record of controlling a player the manager couldn't control!"
If he could control the problem child and the manager couldn't?
That painted the manager as incompetent, too. Three birds with one stone.
Certain he'd finally seized the golden opportunity, Ju Sung-jin knocked on the door of the room where Noh In-seong had gone to rest.
"Huh? No thanks."
His gracious, generous offer — flatly rejected in one second flat, right to his face, without a moment's thought.
"...What?"
"I said no. What part of it didn't you hear?"
Noh In-seong, who needed no one else's fingerprints on his pitching design, was never going to accept such an offer.
A player who wasn't even a full rookie yet — still waiting on his debut date — holding veto power over the pitching coach.
Whether or not Ju Sung-jin noticed his own face flashing through every color of a traffic light, stained with humiliation—
"Oh, and by the way — I hear you're making everyone take infield practice for a while, since I decorated Choon-sik's backside with a new pattern."
—I'll be reporting for fungo drills starting tomorrow. Best of luck with all that hard work, Coach~
SLAM!
With a face-splitting grin plastered across it, the kid slammed the hotel room door shut hard enough to crack it, right in front of him.
The moment the opportunity he'd thought was his golden one slipped away, leaving nothing behind—
"...You... you little shit!! I'll bury you for this!"
Whoosh...
And it seemed Ju Sung-jin's hairline, too, was starting to blow away bit by bit in the wind.