First Training Since Coming Back (Revised)
Early January 2024.
The Seoul Urbans' second-team stadium, located in Icheon.
"Oh, Han-sae! You're here. How are you feeling?"
The second-team coach greeted me while studying my face. He was probably checking whether my mental state had survived intact, since I'd been through every kind of unfair treatment imaginable.
I leaned into it, throwing on my brightest smile as I answered.
"Yes! I feel absolutely fantastic!"
"Th... that's a relief. It's late, but congratulations on your discharge."
Was that too much?
The coach's expression twisted slightly, as if my enthusiasm had caught him off guard.
"Thank you. Happy New Year, Coach."
"Right. Happy New Year to you too."
"Yes, sir!"
"Good! Shall we get right to it? Start loosening up with some catch."
"Understood."
I'd squeezed in weight training whenever I could during my service, so I could confidently say my body was in peak condition.
It might even be the best shape I'd been in since starting my career as a player.
"Han-sae!"
My catch partner was Yang Ho-ji, my draft classmate and the player the team saw as its future starting catcher.
Unlike me, he'd applied for the military sports unit Sangmu the moment he joined the team and been accepted right away.
Thanks to that, he'd sharpened his game instincts throughout his service and even gotten a taste of the first team in the season just before his discharge.
We'd come from different schools, but we'd been pretty close when we first joined. Since our service periods never overlapped, though, we'd gone quite a long time without seeing each other's faces.
Maybe that was why I was so genuinely glad to see him.
"Ho-ji!! It's been a damn eternity! Seriously."
"Hey, shithead! You been doing alright?"
"Looks like you put on a little weight?"
"How'd you turn into such a twig?"
"What's that supposed to mean, you pig?"
This heartwarming exchange of pleasantries went on for a while. Then, mid-laughter, Ho-ji's face suddenly darkened.
"Ah, I'm sorry I couldn't make it to your father's funeral."
"Don't be. I was in the army—how were you supposed to get out?"
"Still... I'm sorry."
"Forget it. If you're that sorry, catch my pitches."
"Ah, I don't know about that... I might void the warranty if I catch pitches thrown by a hack like you."
"Oink oink oink oink?"
After all the grumbling, an easy game of catch finally began. As expected, since I'd kept throwing throughout my service, nothing felt the least bit stiff.
"Okay. Ho-ji, get ready to receive for real."
"Yes sir!"
Watching us, the coach called for full pitching. Given the long layoff from my service and the bus accident, it was a test to check the state of my body.
Even knowing that, I couldn't help feeling nervous for no reason.
'My balls are shriveling up here.'
"Alright, fastball!"
Ho-ji spread his catcher's mitt wide and called it out loud.
'Might as well start with my usual delivery.'
I slipped the glove onto my left hand and gripped the ball with my right.
One deep breath, and I hurled the ball with everything I had in the overhand form I'd always used.
The ball left my fingertips with a satisfying pop and buried itself dead center in the mitt.
"Ooh! Nice ball!"
Ho-ji flashed me a thumbs-up as praise.
That's all it takes to impress this guy?
I glanced over at the radar gun. Around 140.
Same velocity as always.
After a few more fastballs, the request came for breaking balls this time.
"Let's see a curve!"
"You got it."
Again I threw from the overhand form.
The ball dropped from high to low in a huge, steep arc, falling like a waterfall straight into the catcher's mitt.
"Whoa! What the hell was that?"
The movement of my breaking ball had undeniably changed to a different dimension from before.
Well, of course it had.
I'd spent over ten thousand hours refining that curve.
The coach, who'd watched the fastballs without any particular reaction, was beginning to watch with growing interest.
After a few more of those absurd waterfall curves, the call came for a slider.
Whoosh—POCK!
The slider bent away outside and sliced in sharp, meeting the mitt with a crisp catch.
"Wow... since when is a slider that fast?"
At Ho-ji's pure amazement, I checked the radar again.
140 km/h.
Identical to my fastball.
"Hey, Jang Han-sae."
The coach, who'd been watching silently all this time, waved me over.
"Yes?"
I walked up and asked what was going on.
"You need to be honest with me..."
Suddenly his voice carried weight.
My balls started rattling all over again.
"...Yes, sir!"
"Were you on drugs?"
"Excuse me?"
Drugs? Did he think I was doping?
It stung a little, but thinking about it, it was also proof that my skills had improved that much.
"I-I did... take painkillers prescribed at the hospital..."
"No! Stop messing around! Are you seriously on something or not?"
"Completely clean, sir. Practically an air purifier."
"........."
"...I'm sorry."
"Right... go on back and keep throwing."
I returned to my spot and set up in my delivery. I'd shown off enough breaking balls for now.
At this point, I needed to show them something that would really leave a mark.
"Ho-ji! I practiced something in the army—want to take a look?"
"Hell yeah! Let's see it. Breaking ball?"
I answered with a nod instead of words.
The exact same windup.
Inside my glove, I gripped the curveball.
Then I flung the ball from an underhand angle.
An arm slot so low it nearly scraped the ground.
The ball climbed up off the floor, then floated upward with a soft whoosh around the middle of its flight.
Ho-ji barely managed to straighten up and snag it at the last second.
"Huh?"
"Huh?"
Ho-ji, who'd caught the ball. The coach, who'd been watching me pitch.
Both of them stared at me with dumbfounded expressions, frozen.
As if someone had hit the pause button.
"Hey... what ARE you?"
"Figured a guy like me can't survive on a single delivery."
Average velocity. Average movement. Average control. And on top of that, a classic right-handed orthodox pitcher.
Skills that barely scraped past the league average weren't going to cut it in the cutthroat world of professional baseball.
So the first method I'd chosen was expanding my pitch arsenal.
Thanks to that, I'd barely managed to make it into the pro league, but it was obvious as day that things would end with me shuffling between second-team rosters until retirement.
Then the car accident happened, and I got the chance to train in that inexplicable space. Since a pitcher with my obvious limitations was unlikely to ever overpower hitters with raw stuff, I poured in the hours to master every throwing form there was.
Admittedly, I couldn't leave that place—like some psychiatric ward where time ran sideways—unless I met the conditions of a 'perfect pitcher,' so it was partly something I'd worked out for myself.
Either way, it had undeniably been the most realistic path to my own survival.
And the coach watching me, along with the catcher receiving my pitches, were proving right now that my judgment hadn't been wrong.
"You... you absolute lunatic..."
Ho-ji tossed the ball back to me along with lavish praise.
"Catch this one too."
"At least t-tell me what's coming..."
"Where's the fun in that?"
I set up in my delivery again. Same windup as before.
This time I extended my arm out from my side and drove the ball in hard.
Smack!
"H... holy crap?"
Curses spilled out of Ho-ji's mouth as he hauled in the pitch.
"A two-seamer? Out of a sidearm slot?"
"You saw that, right? You saw it, Coach...?"
I turned my head triumphantly toward the coach.
But the coach who'd been watching my pitching just moments ago was nowhere to be seen.
Where'd he go?
Oh well, didn't matter.
I kept firing pitches at Ho-ji.
A forkball from the three-quarter slot, a rising fastball from underhand again, a sinker from sidearm.
I peppered him with pitch after pitch, mixing every repertoire with every arm angle.
"What on earth happened to you in the army?"
"Practiced until I cried, that's what."
"Honestly, I can't say your stuff is anything special... but since nobody knows what angle you'll throw from or what's coming, this must be an absolute nightmare to face as a hitter, huh?"
I flashed a V with my fingers and gave a wide grin.
"Jang Han-sae."
That voice...
"Manager!"
I straightened my uniform and sprinted over to the manager.
The coach was standing beside him.
Ah, so that's why he'd left—he'd gone to fetch the manager.
"Good. You look to be in fine shape."
Ahn Jeong-won, the Urbans' second-team manager.
A franchise legend who'd spent all twenty years of his playing career with the Urbans.
He loved the club so much that even after retirement he'd taken charge of the second team.
His position as a player had been catcher.
His enormous frame looked somehow even more massive today.
For all his terrifying looks, he was a genuinely warm-hearted man—and, gratefully, word was he'd been the first to come running when he heard about my car accident.
Though I'd been unconscious at the time, so I never knew he'd come...
"Congratulations on your discharge. And a happy new year to you."
"Yes sir, thank you! Happy New Year to you too, Manager!"
"Right... so what in the world happened? You kept switching up your delivery with every pitch."
Time to deflect this one to our Company Commander.
He'd never believe the truth anyway.
"I met a devoted Urbans fan in the army—my Company Commander—and he granted me some special privileges. Thanks to him, I practiced throwing from all kinds of different forms whenever I had spare time."
"Impressive."
"Manager! Isn't this kid just unbelievable? In all my years coaching, I've never once seen anything like him."
"I'd imagine so. Your coaching career is what, two years now?"
"Hahaha!"
Leaving the pitching coach laughing awkwardly behind us, the manager posed a question in that characteristically booming voice.
"So? Pretty impressive, wouldn't you say?"
A question directed at neither me nor the coach, but at someone else entirely.
I looked around, but apart from Ho-ji and the coach, there was no one in sight.
"He's an interesting kid, isn't he?"
Just then, a very familiar voice came from behind the manager.
"Huh?"
"I'd love to face him once."
The owner of that voice, hidden until now behind the manager's massive frame, was the world-class slugger and three-time reigning league MVP.
Senior San Wool-lim, who'd entered Major League Baseball this very season.
"S-Senior!"
A player I'd looked up to like an idol from a mile away, even on the same team.
And a real, actual major leaguer wanted to face me...
It was beyond anything I could have imagined.
"Is that so? What do you say, Han-sae? Mind granting the request?"
"I'd love to. I've never seen anyone pitch while switching deliveries either. Should be fun."
"Then get ready."
And so, a duel with the best hitter in Korea was set in motion.