Diamond Girls (Part 3)
“Everyone, over this way, please!”
Coach Yoon Jae-wook waved them in.
On their way back from the outfield, Jeong Da-bin lightly caught my arm. “I thought you said you didn’t prepare anything!”
“I really didn’t practice for this separately.”
“Then how are you so good?”
“Just got lucky, I guess.”
Judging by the pout on her face, she wasn’t buying a word of it. Fortunately, the coach called out again, sparing me the trouble of inventing another excuse.
Reaching the infield, I caught glimpses of the next group warming up outside the diamond. When I casually asked a nearby staff member, they told me around fifty hopefuls were testing today. Because the waiting rooms had been divided, I hadn’t realized just how large the crowd was.
It made me wonder how many of them would actually make the cut.
“Alright, gather round!”
The infield evaluation took place at the shortstop position. The drill was simple: field a ground ball and fire it across the diamond to first base.
First up was Oh Hye-rim. When a sharp hopper came right at her, she blocked it with her body to knock it down. But in her hurry to fish the ball out, she fumbled it, and once she finally recovered, her throw sailed way too high.
“Secure the ball first, then take a breath before you throw,” Coach Yoon Jae-wook instructed. “Square your feet toward first base before you release.”
Hye-rim’s shoulders slumped, and she hung her head.
Next was Kang Yu-ra. Living up to her track-and-field background, she covered ground effortlessly on a ball slicing to her left. But rather than attacking the bounce, she waited for it on her heels, inviting a tricky hop. The ball caromed off the tip of her glove and trickled away. Flustered, she scrambled in a panic and completely lost sight of it.
If she’d taken just one more step forward, it would’ve been an easy scoop.
Waiting passively on a grounder was never the answer. The golden rule was reading the hop early and charging into position before the ball played you.
Then came my turn.
As I stepped into the dirt, Coach Yoon Jae-wook stood at home plate with a bat in hand. “Ready?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Starting right at you!”
Crack.
The moment wood met leather, my feet were already in motion.
A routine ball hit right at me offered no trouble as long as I managed the hop. Keeping my eyes glued to the seams, I shortened my stride, dropping my center of gravity. Just as the ball reached the apex of its final bounce, my glove met it cleanly on the short hop.
Thwack.
Funneling the glove toward my chest, my bare hand seamlessly secured the grip. In a single, fluid motion, I shifted my weight, aligned my hips toward first base, and released. The ball streaked across the diamond on a frozen rope, landing squarely in the assistant coach’s chest.
“Good! Now toward your right!”
Crack.
Up the middle, toward second base!
My body reacted before my mind could register the sound. Slicing across the infield dirt, I saw the window closing fast, so I dropped into a clean slide, snared the ball, popped back onto my feet in one continuous motion, and rifled it across. Once again, the assistant coach at first didn’t even have to budge his feet.
A voice muttered from the dugout. “Forget everything else, we should draft her on defense alone. Her fundamentals are in a completely different league.”
Coach Yoon Jae-wook rested the fungo bat against the dirt and looked up. “Seo-jin.”
“Yes, Coach?”
“Are you sure you want to be a pitcher?”
“Yes.”
He studied me for a second, then turned toward Manager Jang Tae-oh. “Boss, can’t we just put her at shortstop for now?”
“Let’s see her throw off the mound first.”
“With hands like that, she’s ready to start right out of the box.”
“Which is why I said let’s see her arm first.”
Both men grinned at me, their faces glowing like kids who had stumbled upon a buried treasure chest.
I looked down, pretending to retie my shoelaces to hide my amusement. Man… just wait until you see me on the mound. You’re going to change your minds all over again.
After all, defense was actually the part of my game I felt least confident in.
We were given a short breather while the staff prepared the mound for the pitching evaluations.
When I headed over to the bench for a sip of water, my mother immediately hurried over, handing me a towel. “Aren’t you exhausted?”
“I’m totally fine, Mom.”
“Your face is all flushed.”
“That’s just what happens when people exercise.”
Still, the worry didn’t fade from her eyes, so I flashed her an even brighter smile. “Seriously, I’m good.”
Only then did she relax, gently brushing a stray lock of hair away from my forehead.
Beside her stood Writer Lee Ji-eun, clutching a walkie-talkie with a wide grin. “Seo-jin, I had no idea your fielding was that sharp.”
“Thank you.”
“We actually decided to assign an extra camera just for your pitching segment. Don’t let it get to you, though—just do your thing comfortably.”
“Understood.”
After resting my legs, I spent the remaining time doing dynamic stretches to get my shoulder loose. Being slated last in our group, I had secretly hoped to throw a few warm-up tosses against a wall, but there wasn't a suitable spot nearby.
Out on the mound, Oh Hye-rim naturally commanded the most attention. Her national handball pedigree wasn’t just for show—there was genuine whip and life on her ball. Her command was thoroughly erratic, with more than half her pitches spraying well outside the strike zone, but whenever one managed to clip the plate, it drew genuine murmurs of admiration from the dugout.
Her top velocity clocked in at an impressive 95 kilometers per hour. According to the chatter around the dugout, that was the highest mark recorded all day.
“Han Seo-jin, you’re up!”
With all four other members of our group finished, my name was called over the field speakers.
I climbed the slope of the mound, tapped the dirt around the rubber with my cleats to establish my footing, and locked eyes on home plate. An assistant coach sat in full catcher’s gear, crouched in a target stance. Behind the backstop netting, a staff member stood poised with a radar gun.
“Take a few tosses to find your rhythm,” the catcher called out. “Don’t rush it.”
I nodded and gripped the four-seam seams.
One easy toss down the pipe. Another with a little more mustard behind it.
Flipping the ball back to me, the catcher asked, “Feeling loose?”
“Yes.”
“Alright, let’s do this.”
Without a batter standing in the box, the objective was straightforward: drive the ball into the zone with authority. The catcher set his target squarely in the center of the plate.
I gave a slight nod, drew a breath, and smoothly initiated my windup.
All those weeks of conditioning and plyometric training paid off immediately. My body felt weightless, flowing with effortless momentum.
Smack!
The ball popped the pocket dead center. A no-doubt strike.
“Ninety-seven!” shouted the operator from behind the screen.
A ripple of surprise swept through the dugout.
I feel like I’ve got more in the tank than that. My rhythm is dialed in today.
Without delay, I gathered myself and fired the next one.
Crack-snap!
The catcher’s glove snapped shut without shifting an inch from its spot.
“Ninety-nine!”
A collective groan of agonized anticipation broke out from the spectators.
Ah, so close.
Because my old instincts subconsciously prioritized pinpoint command, my mechanics reflexively held back that final ounce of raw horsepower. Missing triple digits by a solitary kilometer per hour felt tantalizingly petty.
Still, considering I had first set foot in an indoor training facility barely a month ago, the progress was nothing short of miraculous.
“I’d like to see you bust one inside… Seo-jin, are you up for it?” Manager Jang Tae-oh called out from the side.
“Yes, sir.”
At my response, the catcher shifted his target toward the inner edge—a spot that would have brushed right against the thigh of a right-handed hitter.
I nodded, came set, and delivered.
Pop!
The target dropped slightly on the sink, but horizontally, it didn't budge. Right on the black.
“Ninety-nine again!”
“Bravo!” the manager gasped, genuinely impressed. “Now give me one on the outer half.”
Letting out a quick puff of air, I hoisted my front leg high into the air.
My lower half glided downhill in a pristine, uninterrupted kinetic chain. From the moment my stride foot planted into the clay to the instant the leather snapped off my fingertips, there wasn't a hitch of resistance. Pure, unadulterated transfer of energy.
Oh yeah. I caught all of that one.
Crack!
The ball drove deep into the outside corner, snapping the catcher's mitt with a thunderous echo.
“One hundred!” the staff member holding the radar gun yelled, his voice cracking with sheer excitement. “We got a hundred kilometers per hour!”
“For real?!”
Several people in the dugout shot to their feet. A round of startled applause erupted alongside giddy whoops.
A grin broke across my lips.
One hundred kilometers per hour.
In my past life, throwing that slow would have been practically impossible without lobbing it underhand. But I was no longer Kang Do-yoon, the reigning KBO MVP.
I was Han Seo-jin, the Nation’s Little Sister.
And for the person standing on this mound right now, hitting triple digits was an achievement worth celebrating with pride.
As the catcher tossed the ball back, Manager Jang stepped toward the line. “Great job, Seo-jin. That’ll do. You can step down.”
“You don’t want to see any more?”
He turned back with a wry smirk. “I think I’ve seen plenty.”
Just as with the outfield drill, the batting test was thrown personally by Manager Jang Tae-oh.
Positioned behind an L-screen set up closer than the regulation mound, he tossed firm, hittable batting-practice strikes designed to let the hitters show off their swings.
Moon So-hee was up first and barreled up line drive after line drive. Her tennis background was unmistakable; she had exceptional hand-eye coordination and naturally met the ball out in front with the sweet spot of the bat.
“That’s it! Great contact right there,” the manager praised, drawing a bright smile from So-hee as she adjusted her batting helmet.
Kang Yu-ra, on the other hand, looked completely out of her element despite her blistering speed, swinging through multiple pitches before finally managing to chop a weak dribbler into the infield grass.
Someone shouted from the dugout, “Yu-ra! With your wheels, you’d beat that out every single time!”
A burst of laughter rippled through the spectators.
Leaning on my bat, I slowly rotated my shoulders while waiting for my turn.
“Seo-jin, your turn!”
Strapping on my helmet, I stepped into the left-handed batter’s box.
“Hitting from the left side, are we?” Manager Jang remarked.
“Yes, sir. Just how it turned out.”
“Here it comes whenever you’re set.”
I squared my stance, resting the barrel lightly over my left shoulder. To lock in the timing, my gaze locked onto the release point of his right hand.
The moment the ball parted from his fingers, my front foot lifted into a soft leg kick. Shifting the coiled tension from my back hip forward, my stride landed clean, and the split second my cleats gripped the dirt, my hips uncorked in a whip-fast rotation.
Crack!
A scorching grounder tore through the hole between first and second base.
A beat later, an impressed murmur rose from the dugout. “Oh!”
I reset my bat on my shoulder with a soft hum.
Hmm. Still a bit stiff. Rolled over on it just a hair.
The manager reached into the bucket for a fresh ball. The second pitch came in slightly higher than the first.
There it is.
The instant my instincts recognized a cookie, my body took over. The barrel, lagging patiently through the zone, whipped through on a violent arc.
CRACK!
A heavy, satisfying vibration resonated through the palm of my hands.
The bat followed through high and wide toward the pitcher before my top hand came off the grip, letting the momentum sweep the wood effortlessly around my back. In the corner of my vision, the bright white sphere shrunk into the distance, sailing toward the right-center gap.
An assistant coach shagging balls in the outfield spun on his heels, but the drive soared well over his head, landing deep in the outfield grass and rolling all the way to the warning track.
“Whoa!”
Listening to the chorus of gasps, I gave a subtle nod. Clearing the fence would have been ideal, but my seventeen-year-old frame simply didn't possess that kind of raw torque yet.
“Seo-jin.” Manager Jang was staring at me, holding the next ball loosely in his hand. “Keep swinging just like that.”
The third pitch drifted slightly toward the outer edge of the plate. Pulling a pitch out there would have caught nothing but the end of the bat. Waiting an extra split second, I let the ball travel deep into the zone and slapped it the other way.
Crack!
This time, a crisp line drive arched cleanly over the leaping third baseman, dropping shallow into left field.
The manager chuckled out loud. “Look at that. She knows how to go the opposite way too.”
Well, of course I did.
By nature, I was a dedicated pull hitter, but that didn’t mean I lacked the ability to push the ball when pitched away. Preference was just preference, not a technical limitation.
While the manager paused to grab another ball, a camera operator crept several paces closer, angling the lens squarely on my profile.
Good. Keep the tape rolling. Because this next one is coming right where I want it.
“Alright, last one!”
The final pitch floated through the air.
And true to form, it was a hanging meatball right over the heart of the plate.
Without an ounce of hesitation, I unleashed everything in my core into a ferocious full swing.
CRACK!
Peering past the violent rotation of my upper torso, I tracked the projectile’s trajectory. A blistering rocket sliced into the left-center alley, flying on a dead-straight laser line before slamming squarely into the outfield fence with a booming thud.
While cheers and whistles exploded from the dugout, I held my follow-through pose, basking in the sight.
Ah, there it is. That’s the feeling.
It had been an eternity since my chest felt this wonderfully clear and alive.
“Ha.” Manager Jang Tae-oh could only let out a disbelieving laugh, staring at me in utter bewilderment.