The Man Who Fields With His Feet
Ordinarily, there was no telling whether the Doubles were a good defensive team or a bad one.
Today, at least, the defense was running like a well-oiled machine.
Tzak—!
"Mine!!"
First, the hole that opened up whenever Noh In-seong pitched and Kim Jun-su drifted toward covering short—the third base gap—got plugged.
"Today, the Doubles aren't showing that signature, well... how do I put this nicely—catastrophic defensive dead zone."
"Ji Hak-seong went straight to third the moment he came off the injured list, you know? There were real questions about how well his rehab had gone..."
"He's swallowing everything that comes his way. And Noh In-seong knows it, which is why he's not afraid to let the ball stay in play."
At the plate, he'd been ordinary through six innings—one single in four at-bats—but.
"Jun-su!"
"Hyun-tak hyung!"
"Brat!"
"...Why am I 'Brat'? I have a perfectly good name! Jae-min!"
"A 5-6-4-3! Ji Hak-seong snags the liner once again, and!! Busan's first-and-second, one-out rally is dead in the water!!"
"Falling over and still making a clean catch is impressive enough, but the presence of mind to toss it off his glove to second? Phenomenal!"
Determined to leave his name in that day's defensive highlight reel, Ji Hak-seong conjured a jaw-dropping double play in the fifth.
And then there was the other one. Song Joo-in, the rookie who'd done some time in the minors.
"Fly ball, high and deep! Song Joo-in! Song Joo-in! Song Joo-in leaps without even looking and hauls it in!"
"It's not like he has eyes in the back of his head! He just threw his arm out thinking, 'well, it'll probably come to me'—and it's caught!"
"Wow. He catches like a retriever launching itself at a frisbee."
"...Hey, you don't talk about a senior like— actually, fine. Just don't say it about me."
Noh In-seong applauded as he praised Song Joo-in's defensive showcase.
Jo In-soo, who'd overheard it, did toss in one word of scolding—but it was a compliment, so it slid.
Song Joo-in had succeeded in flaunting not-quite-human, animal-instinct defense with that impossible catch, but.
Tip—!
"Ground ball to third... yes. Out. Three up, three down. The Doubles' half of the sixth ends with the side retired in order."
Conversely, at the plate, Song Joo-in had a gift for making people think of animals, too.
The fans swooned over their new rookie's exploits, faces split like the cast of a melodrama between delight and despair—while from Jung Im-taek's perspective, it was fine either way, since Song Jin-wook had slid over to designated hitter.
"Feels like I've gained about five years of lifespan."
Carrying a variable he absolutely could not manage was one thing; lottery-tier hitting was quite another. The lottery was better.
Meanwhile, that "human variable" was busy chatting with Noh In-seong.
"Hey, am I really such garbage in the field that you'd—"
"You sorry bastard."
"...It's that bad?!"
Correction: it was Noh In-seong cursing Song Jin-wook out.
"Who on earth likes a position player who fields like his hands and feet got swapped at birth?"
"Hey! At least I fielded with my hands! Don't exaggerate!"
Noh In-seong pressed a hand to his forehead and fired back at him.
"I could field with my feet and still rack up more career dWAR than your entire defensive résumé, hyung."
At that offhand remark, Song Jin-wook blustered that there was no way in hell—
But who could have known? That the day would come when it became the truth.
Before taking the field for the top of the eighth, Noh In-seong's pitch count stood at 81, after a game full of balls put back in play.
Seven scoreless innings was usually where even In-seong called it a day, satisfied.
"Today... I could probably go a little longer, don't you think? No point burning the winning-relief corps for nothing..."
"...Just be honest and say you want to pad your stats against those guys, you shameless bastard."
Today was a little different. Noh In-seong got greedy.
The opposition, having seen their stall-and-survive strategy fail, seemed to have lost their appetite—swinging from the heels, laying down bunts, throwing out every shake-up in the book. None of it worked.
"Huaaagh!!"
"He panicked thinking it was coming at his head and bailed on the bunt—but the pitch was actually a ball, one inch off the body!"
"Trying to bunt against that slider today is going to be rough. Better than bunting against the two-seamer, maybe, but..."
Through seven innings he'd refused to dance to the opponent's tune at all, grinding their strategy into the dirt.
Confidence was overflowing... Was that the price of greed, then? Or just a plain mistake?
He'd handled the first hitter cleanly with a strikeout, but the very next batter got plunked.
"Oooh... that's gotta sting. 155 km/h. Two-seamer."
"And of all people, it's pinch hitter Jin Dong-ha, hit by the very first pitch he sees."
"Ghh-hkk...!!"
Hit in the exact spot he'd been hit before, Jin Dong-ha jogged to first, sniffling in a way that didn't suit his bulk at all.
Busan's manager, Park Tae-jung, flew into a rage and stormed the umpires claiming it was intentional—but the protest went nowhere.
With one out and a runner on first, Noh In-seong shoved a two-seamer into the zone against the next hitter.
The batter realized it was catching the plate and swung—
Tziik--!!
"Off the bottom of the bat, toward the pitcher--!!"
The ball caught the handle of the bat, thudded into the dirt, and popped up awkwardly.
Noh In-seong registered it coming at his feet.
His body was still bent forward from the follow-through of his delivery—scooping it up with his hands was out of the question.
The only free part of him was his foot. His right foot, specifically.
"...Tch—here goes!"
In a flash, Noh In-seong kicked the ball the way a cow flicks its tail at flies—a sharp, forceful sweep off the sole of his foot.
Whoosh—
And the trajectory of that right sole pointed straight at the glove of Sung Hyun-tak, covering second base.
"Uh... huh?!"
Sung Hyun-tak was a man who played second base on the strength of his bat more than his glove—but a middle infielder is still an infielder.
It wasn't even a liner; it was a ball punted backward by the pitcher's heel. No way he was dropping it.
The arc wobbled a touch off line, but Sung Hyun-tak swallowed it up.
"The pitcher kicks it with his back foot—to second! Relayed to first by Sung Hyun-tak--!! Out! Double play! Three up, three down!"
"Did he... just kick the ball into a double play?! Noh In-seong unveils a monstrosity of a play!"
Trailing by a mere 3-0.
Every single runner was precious kindling for the Marines' last flicker of hope—and Noh In-seong stomped it out, quite literally, with his foot.
Grinning ear to ear as he trotted off the mound toward the dugout, In-seong said,
"See that? That one play alone beats your career dWAR, hyung."
"I mean, 'fielding with your feet' was just an expression... you actually fielded with your foot. You vicious son of a bitch."
Song Jin-wook got a confirmation kill, as if to say: remember our conversation from earlier?
"That was pure luck and you know it."
"......"
But somebody always has to state the facts.
Jo In-soo, who'd watched In-seong check the ball's trajectory and only then relax, murmured under his breath.
As if a play like that could be aimed. It was a product of pure, dumb chance.
"Ugh, this guy has zero tact...!!"
Furious, Noh In-seong punted a baseball at the clubhouse wall, kicking it over and over to vent.
After that defensive sequence, the Marines never sent another runner to base.
101 pitches. Noh In-seong wrung a complete game shutout out of the Marines by force.
"Rest up today, and in Game 3 I'll pay you back with my bat."
It already galled that the guy who'd gone off to rest was now the one talking about dominating Game 3—but.
If that had been all, they could at least have held their tongues. They'd lost to superior play, fair and square.
A play that hurt their image in an entirely different way.
The whole "I could out-field you with my feet" bit—it was just talk, the kind of thing that never actually happens.
But faced with the outlandish reality of being double-played by a kicked ball, a whole horde of Busan players caught hell from their own fans.
One game couldn't decide the fate of a series, of course.
Still, it was more than enough time for Noh In-seong to obliterate the Busan Marines' collective morale.
Whether it was fear of the fury and threats of countless enraged Busan fans—
The next day, in Game 2, Busan clung on tooth and nail, and after extra innings the Doubles took it 11-9.
It stung that Incheon had won the day before and sat just one game back.
But Incheon lost that same day, and the gap stretched back to two.
Crack—!!
In Game 3, he smashed a walk-off, come-from-behind three-run homer, and the gap narrowed back to a single game.
Noh In-seong stripped the shoes right off Busan's feet—shoes with ninety thousand li still left to travel—and punted them into the distance.
After the Marines series came a homestand against Changwon.
Another 2 wins, 1 loss. Having secured the winning series, the Doubles closed out a satisfying week.
Given the past bench-clearing incident, this was a matchup that could have sparked friction with Noh In-seong—but.
"The only people with a problem are that damned bastard of ours and our resident drunk. Leave it alone."
Changwon's manager, Kim Chang-soo, wanted no part of another collision.
His mercenary bats were already falling apart and autumn baseball was a distant dream.
A successful rebuild meant cherishing your rookies—not serving them up to a starved beast like that.
Then, standing in the path of the Doubles as they kept stacking up wins in the standings, was—
"Whatever it takes, we HAVE to take a win off those guys before the All-Star break!"
A man who understood perfectly well that in a pennant race, what you need is to beat the team in first and cut the gap.
In a league slowly crystallizing into one powerhouse, four contenders, and five also-rans, this was the team of a manager, Song Jun-ho, sick to death of rebuilding.
The Daegu Lions.
"Daegu? In THIS weather?"
It was almost July, and they were expected to travel to Daegu for a road series?
Even within this fireball peninsula, where summer asphalt can fry an egg for free, Daegu was something special.
Considering that open-air ballparks simply don't get built in places where the heat is truly lethal, Daegu Stadium was, by the standard of places where baseball actually gets played, the hottest spot in the league.
"Pretty sure Seoul's been hotter lately?"
Sung Hyun-tak whipped out his weather app to argue—but weren't they the ones playing in a stadium immune to such trivialities?
"Our home park's a dome, and domes have the air conditioning cranked to full blast."
"...Can't argue with that."
The club with such exquisite manners that it graciously yields the sunny side of the field to its opponents—a paragon of sportsmanship—
And Noh In-seong began nursing a grudge against the Daegu Lions.