Bases-Loaded Specialist (4)
Two strikes, no balls.
A very favorable count for me.
I could have mixed in a waste pitch or two before going for the kill, but I decided ending it right here was the right call.
The longer a defensive inning drags on, the more the fielders' concentration frays at the edges. Under the crushing pressure of a bases-loaded jam, holding that focus pitch after pitch had to have piled the fatigue high on our infielders too.
It was a one-run game, and our next turn at bat would start from the top of the order — meaning there was no room to bring in fresh gloves for late-inning defense, either.
I couldn't promise it would go my way, but I resolved to throw this pitch with every intention of ending it.
I'd already settled on my pitch.
Ho-ji signed for a breaking ball that would bend out of the zone. I shook him off and sent back the sign for a finishing pitch.
So he answered with a sign asking for a knuckleball instead.
No, Ho-ji. This one's mine.
When I kept pushing, he reluctantly accepted my proposal.
Throwing a breaking ball in this situation is the safe choice, the logical choice, the textbook choice. Which means it's a pitch anyone and everyone can see coming.
So why throw it? All it would do is add a number to my pitch count.
A starter stretching deep into an inning might pitch by the book for any number of reasons, but I'm a reliever. A pitcher whose only job is to smother this one inning and walk off the mound.
All the more reason to throw something no one could predict. A ball that smacks the hitter in the back of the head, that strikes where he isn't looking.
Of course, if I were the kind of pitcher who threw 160 km/h gas, I wouldn't have to rack my brain like this. But I'm not that kind of pitcher.
And then, out of nowhere, I remembered playing catch with my father when I was small.
"Han-sae. What do you think matters most to a pitcher?"
"Hmm... throwing the ball fast, probably!"
"Hahaha. Well, sure, fast is nice. But the most important thing is control. The ability to put the ball exactly where you want it."
"Still, I'm gonna be a pitcher who throws lightning!"
The me of today never did become the fireballer that kid dreamed of being. But —
"Heheh, you rascal. If you've got no control, doesn't matter how fast you throw. You'll end up just like the bums your old man cusses at on TV."
At the very least, I'd become a pitcher my father wouldn't cuss out.
"Throw strikes. Home plate don't move."
Words hammered into my ears so many times they might as well have been nailed there. For the longest while I thought my father had coined them himself — only later did I learn they came from Satchel Paige, one of the game's immortals.
And so, turning that saying over in my mind along with the memory of my father, I finished preparing the third pitch that would end this long, long inning.
[Pitcher, pitch number three!]
I coiled my body and drove forward with everything I had —
[And he delivers! Wha—]
— or rather, I faked the delivery, siphoning out the barest minimum of effort, and released a ball that drifted through the air ever so slowly, ever so lazily.
"Strike — OUT!!!"
[Strikeout, looking!!! He punches him out with a pitch clocking fifty kilometers per hour!]
[Hahaha... to throw something like that with the bases loaded... simply remarkable.]
The ball, puff-puff-puffing along in the most adorable fashion, floated up and clipped the very top of the strike zone — and Kang Gae-seok simply stood there, watching it all the way in, unable to muster so much as a twitch.
The pitch I'd chosen was the eephus. A ball of almost comical slowness. Nothing in the world catches a hitter more off guard.
And my choice hit the mark dead center.
[With an agonizingly slow pitch, Jang Han-sae brings the marathon top of the eighth to an end! Three men left stranded on the bases — we head to the bottom of the eighth with the Urbans coming to bat!]
"WHOOOAAAA!!!!"
Dopamine, detonating across my entire brain. Every nerve in my body was buzzing. Why would anyone ever do drugs? We've got baseball.
"Nice pitching!!!"
That was the encouragement of Hunsang-hyung, the strongest second baseman in the universe.
"You seriously throw some shit-ass balls. Well done, you son of a bitch!!"
And that was the praise of Geum Byeong-hyeon, the man who'd driven in the game's only RBI.
"Now that right there is one goddamn disrespectful little punk."
And finally, the glowing review of the very batter he'd just struck out — Kang Gae-seok.
I'm sorry, what?
Before the umpire or Ho-ji could wedge themselves between us, Kang Gae-seok came barreling toward me in long, furious strides.
"There's a limit to how much you can disrespect a man, you green-behind-the-ears punk."
His eyes had rolled completely white, and he looked ready to beat me to a pulp on the spot. He charged so fast he might as well have been an angry bull.
"This ain't neighborhood ball. You throw THAT?"
Is there some rule in professional baseball against throwing "that"? Last I checked, no?
"There's nothing wrong with it, is there?"
Why on earth is he this furious?
"What did you say, you little—!!"
Crap, hearing it over and over is getting me riled up too. We've never even met before today, and it's already "this punk" and "that punk"?
"Seriously! If you can't hit, you can't hit — what's with the temper?!"
"You're dead."
"The hell? You play one decent game of baseball and suddenly you're throwing tantrums over everything. Complete lunatic, can't even own up to his own failure."
"You are seriously dead."
That was the day I first learned Kang Gae-seok could move that fast.
Just as that 190-centimeter, hundred-plus-kilogram mass of muscle cocked back a fist aimed at my face —
Thud.
A great wall rose up between us.
What filled my vision was the number 4 and the name JOHNSON.
Our team's foreign slugger.
Carl Johnson had planted himself in Kang Gae-seok's path.
He'd been on his way back to the dugout after his turn at first base when he spotted Kang Gae-seok hurling curses and charging at me — and he wheeled straight around, stepping in at a moment when the whole thing was one twitch away from exploding.
"Move!"
"Don't make me say it twice."
"What did you just say? I said MOVE!!!"
"..."
"GRAAAAGH!"
Kang Gae-seok, his eyes fully rolled back, tried to shove Johnson out of the way — only to have his arm seized and locked down instead.
And with that, every last player from both dugouts came pouring onto the field, and the first bench-clearing incident of the season was officially underway.
He was cursing a blue streak the whole way over — pretty sure he's pissed that Han-sae threw him a garbage ball?
Dude was literally sprinting in swinging punches when Johnson cut him off holy crap
Bench-clearing's been going since.
Of course, even when a bench-clearing breaks out, it almost never escalates into an actual free-for-all.
Everyone who comes pouring out of the dugouts is there to break up the fight, not join it — aside from the two parties involved, nobody has a reason to swing at anybody. And in truth, once you're one handshake removed, everyone in this league is tangled up in some sunbae-hoobae relationship anyway.
Most guys just haul back the instigators, or stand around trading pleasantries — asking what the other had for lunch, that sort of thing.
And so, without any further scuffle, it all wound down peacefully.
Kang Gae-seok and Carl Johnson, the two who'd made physical contact, were both slapped with ejections.
All that, just for protecting me, and he gets tossed...
I walked over to Johnson to thank him.
"Um... Johnson? Uh... eh... sorry, and thank you?"
"No problem, Han-sae! Same team, throwing up a shield for you is only natural. Besides, I wanted to rest anyway."
Huh. His Korean's actually really good?
Come to think of it, Johnson was a long-tenured foreign hitter already closing in on his fifth year living in Korea.
Five years in, and he's even tossing around expressions like "throwing up a shield."
"Oh... right... Well anyway, thank you, truly. If it weren't for you, I might've been carried out of here on a stretcher."
"You welcome. But, Han-sae."
"Yeah?"
"Why you talk down to me?"
"Huh?"
"I'm your hyung. And what year you make pro debut?"
"2022..."
"I come to this team in 2020, bro. I'm a foreigner, so I won't make you call me sunbae. But hyung you gotta say. Bro."
"Yes... hyung."
"Good."
With Johnson gone from the lineup, the Urbans failed to add any insurance in the bottom of the eighth, and when Kim Hyeok took the mound in the top of the ninth, he slammed the door with a three-up, three-down inning to seal the win.
And so, having crossed my second bases-loaded crisis since my debut, I recorded my second hold of the season.
My final line for the day: one inning pitched, two strikeouts, zero runs allowed.
Player of the Game went to Jung Min-gyu, the day's starter, who had spun seven scoreless innings.
"Han-sae, great work out there today."
"Thank you, Manager."
And so, with the game over, I was heading out of the stadium when —
"IT'S JANG HAN-SAE!!"
"Jang Han-sae!! You were incredible out there today!"
"Can I get your autograph, please!"
"The Urbans' Bases-Loaded Specialist!"
There were fans chanting my name in numbers that put the Opening Day series to shame.
Father... are you watching?
"Thank you..."
I could feel something hot welling up from somewhere deep in my chest.
Before it could come bursting out, I hurriedly bowed to the fans.
Because crying here would be mortifying.
Swallowing my tears down again and again, I gave everything I had to offer to every single fan who came looking for me, missing not one of them.
With a genuinely joyful heart.
Getting off work ran far later than usual that night — but it was no trouble for me at all.