Chapter 36
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 36
Chapter Title: Mr. Rogers' Friend?
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‘Oh! Right! I remember now! It was Wesley! Poor Wesley! He had turned into a ghost too!’
Just like always, I was practicing my swings against the pitchers Rogers had dueled back in the day when suddenly Rogers started yelling to himself.
‘What the hell are you talking about all of a sudden?’
What’s that? Has this guy finally lost his marbles?
‘That ghost following the girl around! I got confused because he was shedding bloody tears, but who would’ve thought it was my friend Wesley!’
That girl—he had to mean Cheon So-young. She was the only one he ever referred to that way.
‘Yeah, that girl!’
‘But who’s Wesley?’
‘Kids these days... not knowing Rickey. What a tragedy. You really don’t know Wesley Rickey?’
‘So what’s that supposed to mean, you otaku?’
‘What’d you call me?’
‘...Nothing.’
I quickly pulled out my phone and searched Namuwiki—the repository of all the world’s knowledge—for Wesley Rickey.
‘Let’s see... Wesley Rickey. Oh, Hall of Famer, huh? So he played baseball pretty well?’
‘Heh heh. If I had to rate him as a player, he was downright awful.’
‘Then a manager? Like Stengel, some legendary dynasty-builder?’
‘As a manager, he was just mediocre too. He was my manager when I played for the Cardinals, and even with me on the roster, the bum couldn’t win a pennant.’
‘...So then who was he?’
Not a player, not a manager.
‘He was the Cardinals’ GM. He handed me the manager job and moved to GM himself. In the end, it took me pulling double duty as player-manager for the Cardinals’ championship drought to end. Proof that I was far superior as a manager. Keh heh heh ha ha.’
So GM means general manager? They put those guys in the Hall of Fame too? I quickly scrolled through Rickey’s page and immediately figured out who he was.
‘Ah! This is the guy who signed Jackie Robinson!’
The first GM in Major League Baseball—who had barred Black players—to bring in a Black player. Jackie Robinson became MLB’s first Black player, and his number 42 was retired league-wide forever.
‘No wonder. Gotta do something like that to get into the Hall as a GM.’
‘That was his one and only black mark. Bringing those filthy n****rs into the sacred game of baseball. I opposed it fiercely, but the stubborn bastard wouldn’t budge.’
Classic racist Rogers. Now that I knew Rickey was such a famous figure, my curiosity about him grew a bit.
‘Wow, this guy’s impressive. He’s the one who built MLB’s training system? Invented the farm system too. Oh! He was the first to introduce sabermetrics?’
‘Yeah, back then everyone said it was useless, but he brought in some egghead and turned it into stats.’
‘And with the farm system, he developed stars like Stan Musial and Dizzy Dean. Incredible.’
‘True, Wesley had a great eye for talent. He used to brag to me about his player evaluation method.’
‘What was it?’
‘You don’t even know that and you play baseball? The 20-80 scale. Though I never expected a monkey country like this to have anything like it.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean? We use it here too!’
It wasn’t super common in the KBA, but I’d heard MLB scouts sometimes used it to evaluate players.
‘Heh heh, probably some inferior version. It’s not even the real thing we use now anyway.’
‘So what’s the real deal?’
‘Truth be told, even I don’t fully get everything Wesley said. The guy was a genius way ahead of his time. Campanella, who learned under him, simplified it for normal folks—that’s the 20-80 scale. Ah, a dummy like you probably doesn’t even know who Campanella is.’
Rogers acknowledging someone else? Wesley Rickey must really be something. But who’s Campanella?
‘So why’s a guy like that haunting Cheon So-young? Was he a lecher like you, Mr. Rogers?’
‘Lecher? Heh heh. I just loved all women equally. Anyway, never heard he was particularly into women.’
‘Really? Then why’s he following her?’
‘Who knows? That girl seemed to have a bit of money, so maybe that’s it? He was obsessed with cash even in life. Know why he invented sabermetrics and the farm system? All for money, of course you don’t. Sabermetrics slashed player salaries, and homegrown farm talent meant no need to buy overpriced minor leaguers. Heh heh.’
‘Guess even great men have their flaws.’
Made sense why he was crying bloody tears now.
‘He even tried to lowball me, so I slept with the owner’s wife. Never saw my salary cut after that. Keh heh heh ha ha ha!’
Rogers really is insane.
‘Anyway, why’d a guy like that come to this shithole country?’
‘How should I know? Hold on.’
Something suddenly clicked in my head.
‘Maybe he ended up here like you did, Mr. Rogers?’
Truth be told, Rogers wasn’t the type to haunt this place either. Same for this Wesley Rickey ghost he claimed. Maybe he went to America like me and picked up a ghost there?
‘Could be. I could ask him myself, but in that state? Nah. You figure out why he’s like that.’
Tch, so I’m the errand boy after all? Still, I was curious too. If that ghost was like Rogers, then Cheon So-young might have some ability too. Like sharing senses with ghosts, for example. Or maybe not.
‘But that girl’s kinda hard to approach.’
I’d asked if she had a boyfriend and got chewed out like a dog. Ah! Good idea.
‘That Rickey guy. You said he’s shedding bloody tears, chained up?’
‘Yeah.’
‘How about I offer to exorcise him?’
‘You lunatic. You gonna kill my friend?’
‘Oh, so you do have friends, Mr. Rogers. But it’s not like he’d disappear. And isn’t he already dead anyway? He’s a ghost...’
Asking that brought up a fundamental question. Why did these guys become ghosts in the first place?
‘Wanna know?’
‘Yeah. Gotta know something to deal with it. You vanishing on me like that scared the shit out of me. You’re sticking around till I quit baseball, right?’
Rogers’ pitch breakdowns were like a drug. Didn’t need it before, but once you taste it, you can’t quit.
‘Oh, you’ve done drugs too?’
‘Hell no? Korea’s a drug-free country.’
News lately made it seem iffy, but yeah, pretty much drug-free. And I’d never touch that crap.
‘Good. Stay off it. Seen too many guys ruined by that poison.’
‘What’s this, actual sane advice? Don’t tell me you’re building up to sober sex being best or some crap.’
Predictable as ever.
‘Stupid monkey bastard! If you’d seen guys coming back from war, doping on drugs while playing ball, and dying horribly, you wouldn’t joke like that.’
‘....... Sorry.’
Weird to have a serious talk for once...
‘Ahem. How I became a ghost...’
Rogers couldn’t handle the awkward vibe either and spoke first.
‘Don’t know the details myself. But right before I died, there was something I desperately wanted.’
‘What?’
‘The greatest right-handed hitter in history—me—and in my era, there was this monster Babe Ruth. What I wanted more than anything was to surpass him. If I had, I could’ve bedded even more women. If only that bastard wasn’t around, I could’ve had so many more...’
To me, the reason Rogers couldn’t bed more women was his personality, not his skill—but he blamed his talent.
‘Feels like if this grudge is settled, I could move on.’
So that’s why he kept pushing me to become MLB’s greatest second baseman? Anyway, if that’s Rogers’ reason, maybe Rickey had something similar.
‘But isn’t Rickey considered MLB’s greatest GM? Namuwiki says so.’
‘He had his own inferiority complex, like me.’
This expression on his face... Rogers looked oddly sentimental, unlike his usual self.
‘So we don’t know for now? Guess we’ll find out eventually.’
Still, knowing Cheon So-young and I had something in common made me think we could get closer.
“Maeng-ho. You heading to train there again today?”
“Yeah. The team approved it, and the facilities are way better than at school.”
“Can’t be helped.”
For elite athletes prepping since elementary school, Korean Physical Education High School—Hanchego—is the dream. Sure, the baseball team was weak since it was new, but everything else made it solidly number one in the country.
Aside from the few academic track kids who washed out of the competition, Hanchego grads went on to industrial leagues, pro leagues, or college sports teams—continuing life as athletes.
And the school accommodated that: if your path was set, you could submit an employment notice and skip classes to train with pro or industrial teams. Especially in individual sports.
I didn’t know about other schools, but Hanchego did it.
Not everyone submitted one, though. Most stuck it out through their final tournaments with teammates they’d suffered alongside for three years. The ones who did were rookies the teams wanted special care for.
...Like me right now.
Training where facilities beat the school’s was obviously more efficient, and solo PT beat matching pace with mismatched teammates.
“You still do team training with us, though.”
“Yeah, train hard and come back safe.”
“Will do.”
A week after getting drafted, with the school’s permission, I was training mornings at the SY Agency’s facility. Vacation meant no morning classes anyway, but sports teams at Hanchego had no real break.
And indoor AC beat the blazing sun.
After saying bye to the coach, the usual SY Agency car waited out front.
“Huh? Today...”
But riding in it wasn’t the usual SY staffer—it was Cheon So-young.
“It’s the weekend, and I wanted to see how our first-round pick trains. That okay?”
“...Of course.”
Riding with a girl beats some stuffy guy dude, right?