Spring Training (Part 2)
Hwang Jaehun. Nicknamed "Korea's Cleanup Hitter." After anchoring the lineup for the Busan Titans for seven seasons, he transitioned to Major League Baseball via the posting system, putting together four productive years overseas before returning home. Without question, he was the premier batter in contemporary Korean baseball.
Pundits across the Pacific had widely agreed he still possessed the bat speed and plate discipline to remain in the big leagues for at least another two seasons. Yet he chose to come back for one reason alone: to bring a championship trophy back to Busan.
Born and raised in Busan, falling in love with the Titans had come as naturally as breathing. Throughout his childhood and school days, his singular dream had been to lead his hometown franchise to a title. When the Titans drafted him first overall, he hit the ground running, putting up dominant offensive numbers from his very first year as a pro.
Yet baseball was never a one-man sport. Far from hoisting a championship banner, simply sneaking into October baseball proved to be an uphill battle. Just when it felt as though the team was finally putting the pieces together, disaster inevitably struck.
A marquee free agent brought in on an astronomical contract tore his cruciate ligament on opening week; a prized prospect the organization spent years grooming was permanently expelled over sexual assault charges; and a succession of managers suffocating under front-office pressure ran every viable bullpen arm into the dirt until they wound up on the operating table.
Season after season, they failed to sniff the championship—frequently missing the postseason entirely. Jaehun had intended to spend his prime grinding away in the KBO solely out of devotion to the Titans, but in the end, it was the fans who pushed him toward America.
Don't rot away in this hopeless pit of a franchise. Go chase greatness on the biggest stage while you still can. Faced with the tearful pleas of loyal fans who packed Sajik Baseball Stadium year after year, combined with his agent's relentless persuasion, Jaehun finally relented.
The Titans clubhouse back then had been a toxic swamp: entrenched veterans forming hostile factions based on their alma maters, spineless coaches turning a blind eye, a general manager getting swindled in every trade, and a scouting department that imported foreign players of mind-boggling ineptitude.
It was a total organizational failure. So he departed, and the Titans went right on losing. Yet even amid the grueling grind of a 162-game Major League schedule, Jaehun religiously tuned in to every broadcast from Busan. And eventually, he caught a glimmer of hope.
During the final year of his four-season MLB stint, the old guard who drove factional politics finally aged out and retired. The manager and coaching staff were replaced from top to bottom. A competent general manager took the helm, and the scouting department underwent an aggressive purge.
The team owner's son took over day-to-day operations, announcing sweeping structural reforms that began overhauling the franchise's rotten culture.
Determined to make one last run while his bat was still lethal, Jaehun returned home. Yet in his first year back, the club finished dead last, cementing a humiliating streak of three consecutive seasons in the league basement. Even with a former major leaguer driving in runs in the four-hole, they couldn't claw their way out of tenth place.
Even so, Jaehun genuinely believed the foundation was solid. The foreign imports were productive, the clubhouse infighting had vanished, and young, hungry talent was trickling into the lineup. Even the new manager brought in for the rebuild handled the roster with pragmatic, modern baseball sense.
Last year's cellar finish was largely the work of catastrophic health luck. Among position players, Jaehun was the only everyday starter aside from their foreign hitter who survived the full season healthy. Had the lineup stayed reasonably intact, they easily possessed enough firepower to fight for a playoff berth.
The pitching rotation had fared just as terribly. Their domestic number-four starter blew out his elbow and missed the season following ligament replacement surgery. One foreign ace suffered a severe lat tear midway through the summer, and the emergency replacement tore a hip labrum within weeks of landing at Gimhae Airport.
Fans bitterly joked that they were the Busan Casualties rather than the Busan Titans. They had ridden high in second place through the cool spring months, but an unending wave of injuries, combined with inexperienced youngsters running out of gas down the stretch, sent them tumbling straight to the bottom.
This year was supposed to be the turning point. Jaehun had arrived at camp convinced the team was ready to rise—until their starting third baseman and primary setup man bolted in free agency. Then their closer landed in the hospital following a serious car accident. And to crown it all, their starting catcher ignited an unprecedented national outrage by causing a fatal drunk driving collision.
When things unravelled for this franchise, they didn't just unravel; they detonated. The plan had been to integrate returning healthy players, shore up the rotation, and take flight. Instead, the roster was in shambles.
Things were so dire that the front office held an open winter tryout just to scrape together developmental players. Right now, two positions in the opening-day starting nine were completely vacant. A depth chart that was already paper-thin had evaporated into mist. They were desperate for anyone with a pulse who could contribute on a diamond.
"Nephew."
"Oh, yes, sir."
"Did ya really pick up a bat again just to bring the Titans a pennant?"
"Ah... Park Jaehyung..."
Yoo Seonghyun, the developmental walk-on standing before him, offered a sheepish grin. Standing even taller than Jaehun's own massive 192-centimeter frame, the kid had extraordinarily long levers and wide shoulders, though his frame carried somewhat less weight than expected.
Even accounting for his slight build, his raw physical profile was startling. Jaehun was fully aware Seonghyun was signed on a bare-bones developmental contract, but his rookie roommate, Park Jaehyung, hadn't stopped barking praise about the kid since day one of camp.
With an arm span and leverage like that, his velocity on the mound was bound to be formidable. Hmph, Titans ballplayers ought to be built like draft horses anyway.
According to Jaehyung, if Seonghyun hadn't quit baseball midway through his youth career, he would have been a surefire first-overall draft pick as a pitcher. Jaehun knew Jaehyung was half out of his mind, but looking at Seonghyun's frame, the hype didn't seem entirely unfounded.
If this kid can soak up innings as a spot starter or long reliever, that'd take a massive load off our bullpen, wouldn't it?
"Can ya throw some heat, nephew?"
"I can throw hard enough, but... I'm a hitter, sir."
"...Huh?"
"Ah. Did Jaehyung tell you I was a pitcher?"
"Aye, he did. But yer a hitter?"
"Yes, sir."
"Mind if I take a look at yer cut?"
"Not at all."
As they strolled toward the indoor cages to take a few cuts, a boisterous figure came sprinting toward them. It was Jaehun's rookie roommate, backup catcher Park Jaehyung.
"Yoo Seonghyun! You finally made it into the cage! That's right! You blazing heat from the mound and me locking it down behind the dish—that is the invincible Titans' blueprint for championship glory! Come on! Let's go bring the trophy back home where it belongs!"
"What are you babbling about? I transitioned to hitting."
"...Huh?"
"Don't give me that stupid look. Go work on your blocking, man. Stop letting wild pitches squeak past your knees like the veterans you're always complaining about."
"I see...! So you're planning on being a two-way sensation!"
"What two-way? You trying to get me killed?"
"Why not, Seonghyun?! Even if your fastball blew clean past my mitt, the sheer movement on that heater was magnificent!"
"Please, just shut up."
Hwang Jaehun's lips twitched upward at the rookies' banter. Regardless of how the kid started, if he was trying to carve out a living at the plate, Jaehun had a decade and a half of elite wisdom to impart. As for Park Jaehyung... to be entirely honest, the kid had stone hands.
He was bound to spend the season catching games in the Futures League. If the starting catcher position hadn't suddenly imploded in disgrace, Jaehyung wouldn't have been allowed within ten miles of the first-team spring camp. Developing a competent backstop took years of blood and chalk.
Yet with their everyday starter permanently banned over a fatal DUI, the front office had scrambled to call up even raw high school grads like Jaehyung to fill out the camp roster. Predictably, he was completely out of his depth. An eighth-round flier was an eighth-round flier.
To make matters worse, the Titans' coaching staff had strong roots in Japanese pitching mechanics, meaning nearly every arm on the staff relied on a biting forkball or splitter as their primary out-pitch. Severe, late downward movement demanded top-tier glove discipline and wall-like blocking—and how much blocking could an eighth-round teenager realistically manage?
He was unplayable at the top level. If he possessed a thunderous bat, they might have considered stashing him on the bench as an emergency pinch-hitter, but his offensive metrics were just as raw.
"Ahem. Nephew. Hop in and take a few swings."
"Yes, sir."
Jaehun mentally dialled down his expectations. Three years completely removed from organized baseball, coupled with a full conversion from the mound to the batter's box.
Coach Kim down on the farm had mentioned that a true gem had walked through the doors during tryouts, but surely he was referring to someone else.
Whoosh!
The bat whipped through the strike zone, slicing the humid air with a violent, rhythmic whistle. The sheer bat speed made Jaehun blink.
"Oh?"
By KBO standards, bat speed like that belonged in the middle of a first-team lineup. What was more, his swing plane and hip rotation were completely dialed in.
Crack!
The ball exploded off the sweet spot, hurtling forward like a guided missile before driving violently into the heavy protective netting. The impact rang through the cages with a sharp, resonant gunshot that made half the nearby players turn their heads in unison.
"Hmm."
Despite blistering the leather with flawless contact, Seonghyun's eyebrows knitted together, looking thoroughly unimpressed with his own work. Jaehun searched his mental database for something to critique, but... Wait, does this kid even need pointers?
"Somethin' feel off, nephew?"
"Ah. The bat doesn't feel right in my hands."
"The bat? What's wrong with it?"
"I'd prefer a slightly different model... but I'm broke."
"A different bat?"
"Yes, sir. I prefer using something an inch or so longer."
"Wouldn't that leave ya wide open on the outer half? Especially against a southpaw slingin' sweeping sliders away from ya—you'll be fishin' for air all night."
"Ah, I'm a switch hitter, so that's not an issue."
"A switch hitter? Hop over to the right side and let's have a look."
Jaehun chuckled silently to himself. A former pitcher turned hitter claiming to hit from both sides of the plate? The kid had likely cooked up the switch-hitting angle just to stand out during the tryouts. From the right-hand batter's box, his mechanics were bound to fall apart.
They had to... so why did his lower half look so absurdly balanced?
"Phew."
Catching my breath, I lowered the lumber and glanced over at Hwang Jaehun. I had probably taken around thirty cuts off the tee. Noticing my gaze, the stunned, blank expression gradually melted from his features.
"Well, uh... ya swing it well. Real well. Uh..."
"May I move on to my next defensive drills, then?"
"Damn it, Yoo Seonghyun! When on earth did you practice hitting like that?! You're making better contact than I am!"
"That's just because you're awful, Jaehyung. Please, stop screaming at the top of your lungs..."
"Urgh! I'm not going to lose to you!"
"Sigh..."
Whether I sighed or not, Park Jaehyung aggressively hopped into the neighboring cage and started hacking wildly at incoming balls. Good grief. How many times did I have to explain basic physics to this guy? Did he possess the working memory of a goldfish?
"Hey, how many times do I have to tell you? An inside-out swing path is the absolute foundation. Stop dragging the barrel from the outside in!"
"A-Ah. S-Sorry..."
"Keep your rear elbow tucked closer to your ribcage. Stop flying your front shoulder open before your hips fire! You haven't fixed a single bad habit in three years. That panicked, slap-contact swing is only for when you're choking up with two strikes."
"Like this?"
"Yeah, exactly like that. You take your own violent swing until you're backed into an 0-2 count, don't you?"
Hwang Jaehun quietly watched from the perimeter as I lectured Jaehyung on hitting mechanics. Did I come across as too presumptuous in front of a franchise icon?
"Say, nephew."
"Yes, sir?"
"Call me uncle, will ya? Or if uncle makes ya feel awkward, just call me hyung."
"Understood, Jaehun-hyung."
"Did ya... go study abroad at some baseball academy in the States while ya took those three years off?"
"No, sir. I just went to a regular academic high school and studied."
"Haha..."
Jaehun let out an incredulous, breathy laugh. Honestly, who could blame him? The man had played multiple seasons in Major League Baseball. He had walked the very clubhouses where generational phenoms from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and American collegiate powerhouses gathered in numbers Korea couldn't fathom.
He had witnessed every tier of natural-born genius with his own eyes. So when a nineteen-year-old developmental walk-on plucked straight off the street displayed bat control and weight transfer that rivaled a twenty-year veteran, an incredulous laugh was the only sane response.
"Developmental players can get promoted to the active roster startin' in June, right? But ya can still suit up for exhibition games?"
"That's my understanding, yes. June for the first-team roster, but I can participate in spring training exhibitions."
"I'll be lookin' forward to the preseason, then. Keep grindin', kid."
Offering a genuine grin, Hwang Jaehun stepped away toward the dugout racks and returned a moment later carrying a pristine black maple bat.
"Here, nephew. This one's about an inch longer than the standard issue yer swingin'. It was part of a custom batch sent by my sponsor, but I don't care for this particular cut. Want to take it for a spin?"
"Oh. Thank you very much, hyung."
"Put it to good use. I expect to see ya up in the first team come June."
As expected of someone who spent years grinding in the big leagues, he had an eye for talent. When he handed the lumber over with a broad smile, I accepted it gratefully. Free high-grade wood was a massive win.
A professional-grade maple bat easily cost north of two hundred thousand won apiece. The club only covered a fraction of equipment expenses, leaving the rest to be purchased out of pocket. For someone scraping by on a developmental player's minimum wage, breaking a bat during live batting practice was an agonizing financial blow.
"What are you going to do if I tell the manager I want to play first base, hyung?"
"What else? I'll march right into the skipper's office, lay flat on the floor, and throw a fit until he names me the full-time designated hitter."
Hwang Jaehun boomed with hearty laughter, taking my deadpan joke in stride. I had a feeling I was going to get along with this veteran just fine.