The Showman of Sajik
Busan road trip, Game 1. The visiting team's locker room at Sajik Stadium.
"Aigoo~ man! The weather here in Busan is absolutely die-al gorgeous!!"
Even I, someone with zero connection to the Gyeongsang region, could tell that was a butchered attempt at the dialect.
"Geum Byeong-hyeon, shut up."
"Hey! Hyung-nim! We're back in Busaan, ain't we!"
"Hey, Byung-hyun. What did you just say at the end of that sentence?"
Song Gyeong-seok, Geum Byeong-hyeon, and... Carl Johnson hyung.
The perpetually serious, stern veteran; the goofball overflowing with antics; and the Confucian Black man, as the nickname went. It seemed like a combination that should never work — yet come the offseason, the three of them were close enough to travel together on private trips.
"It's honestly fascinating."
"What is?"
"Those three. How can they be that close?"
Ho-ji, who had been stuffing his gear into his locker, glanced over at them and let out a snort of laughter.
"Song Gyeong-seok and Geum Byeong-hyeon went to the same high school, remember?"
"Even so, there's a pretty big age gap between them. How would they ever have gotten close?"
"Because that high school was the worst-performing baseball program in the country. In the entire thirty-year history of the school's baseball team, only one player ever made it to the pros — Song Gyeong-seok."
"Ohh..."
"Geum Byeong-hyeon became the second. So apparently Song Gyeong-seok took a real personal interest in him. Even though they ended up on different teams, he kept meeting up with him privately and looked after him."
"That's incredible."
It was an interesting story.
"What about Johnson, then?"
"Johnson had a really rough time adjusting when he first came to Korea, and again it was Song Gyeong-seok who stepped in and helped him with everything. And Geum Byeong-hyeon, well... he's naturally cheerful. Word is he was closest with the foreign players back when he was in Gwangju too, so it just happened naturally."
"I see. But how do you know all this stuff?"
"It's my hobby."
What a terrifying guy. I knew catchers carry a mental database on every hitter, but I hadn't realized it went this deep. Come to think of it, back during my duel with San Wool-lim, he'd rattled off information about the senior like it was nothing.
"You could make a living as an analyst even after you retire."
"Why would I watch a single second of baseball after I retire?"
I burst out laughing at Ho-ji's flat, absolute answer.
Today was Game 1 of our away series against the Busan Titans.
It would be my first away game since my professional debut. I'd finally get to feel, with my whole body, the legendary fervor of Busan's baseball fans.
And honestly? I couldn't be more terrified.
Just imagining how much jeering would rain down on every play I made...
Just thinking about it gives me chills. The good kind.
Then came the bottom of the fifth.
"Han-sae! Get up there!"
Our number two starter, mired in a disastrous outing, had failed to make it out of the fifth inning.
Four innings, five earned runs. He'd given up all five in the very first inning — the worst possible start — then seemed to find his zero point again, scraping through the next three scoreless. But his pitch count had already ballooned, and the leadoff walk he surrendered the moment the fifth began made the bench's decision for them.
The score was 5–0.
Song Gyeong-seok had the catcher's mask on today. I'd had three full days of rest, so my condition was excellent.
Better yet, the heart of the opposing order had already come and gone — this was the bottom of their lineup. And with a comfortable lead to protect, the pressure barely registered. It felt almost insulting how easy the situation was.
The batter stepping in was right-handed, so I fit the glove on my left hand accordingly. Then came Song Gyeong-seok's sign.
Fastball, up and in. Overhand or three-quarter.
Okay. If he wanted a double play, he'd have called for submarine — the fact that he didn't meant he was keeping a runner-steal attempt in mind. The underhand motion is bigger than the other deliveries, after all, which makes it easy for runners to take off.
He's asking for a fastball that runs up and in, but...
Thing was, I absolutely despised missing the zone on the first pitch.
"Hup!"
I threw it a hair lower than called for, aiming for the top corner of the strike zone.
Crack!
With the sound of contact, the ball soared skyward. Song Gyeong-seok sprang up, ripped off his mask, and chased after it, hauling in the pop-up with total composure.
"Ahh... the dignity of a veteran."
One out. While the next batter walked to the plate, Song Gyeong-seok tossed the ball to first base so I could stay loose. I took it back from Johnson, who was playing first, and got set again.
Another right-handed hitter. The catcher's sign: a curveball with late downward bite.
A double play.
The plan was to induce a ground ball and kill the inning with a twin killing. I threw it exactly as signed, and the batter swung — an extreme uppercut that got under the ball, popping it high into the infield where the second baseman could drift over and camp under it. The ball hung in the air, died, and dropped right into his glove.
Two outs.
The next batter stepped in from the right side as well.
"Batting ninth for the Titans! Oh Seong-bin!"
The roar of Titans fans filled the stadium to bursting. The game was already out of reach score-wise, but it was still early, and the energy in the stands was considerable.
No way — Seong-bin Jwa!
The batter called Oh Seong-bin was a rather peculiar player. His hitting and fielding were perfectly ordinary; what made him famous was pure showmanship. People joked he was less a ballplayer than an entertainer with a uniform number — he pulled stunts like reaching base on a walk and staging a full ceremony as if he'd just delivered a walk-off hit, or leisurely rounding the bases on an easy scoring play only to stop at home plate and spin a figure-skating routine, or moonwalking his way back to the dugout after striking out. He'd performed every stunt under the sun.
He was also quick on his feet, and his unpredictable baserunning caught opponents off guard from time to time. A hitter I'd wanted to face at least once...
Oh Seong-bin began his signature, borderline-insane batting routine. The routine changed every single at-bat, which made watching him genuinely something to look forward to.
What's today's performance going to be?
Oh Seong-bin planted his bat upside down into the ground, dropped to one knee like some medieval knight, took a light hold of the tip of his helmet, and bowed with full ceremony toward the mound. Before I knew it, I found myself inclining my head slightly to return the greeting.
Whereupon Seong-bin suddenly gripped the bat with both hands, hoisted it overhead, and leapt straight up, tucking his legs beneath him mid-air.
"YAY!"
Accompanied by a battle cry of utterly unknowable meaning. Then he landed, and as if nothing had happened at all, settled casually into his batting stance.
I was genuinely awed by the sheer creativity of the performance.
That's an all-timer, honestly.
I felt laughter about to burst out of me and clenched my teeth to hold it in. We were losing. I couldn't be seen grinning on the mound. And then a thought struck me — maybe this, too, was an act of high-level psychological warfare.
"Ahem!"
I cleared my throat and refocused on the game. Song Gyeong-seok, who'd had a front-row seat to that performance from barely ten meters away, sent in the next sign with a face utterly devoid of amusement — not a chick's-tear worth of laughter in him.
I still have such a long way to go.
Same location as before, pitch type: two-seam fastball. The moment I poured everything I had into the overhand delivery—
YAY!
"Pffh!"
That bizarre shout popped into my head and the laughter finally broke loose.
Crap. If I keep this up, it's a wild pitch — minimum, a hit batter.
I summoned superhuman strength, steadied my trembling fingertips, and forced the ball back under control. The result was neither a two-seamer nor a four-seamer — some ambiguous, unclassifiable fastball — but at least it landed where the catcher had asked for it.
Tink!
With the familiar graze of bat on ball, the batted ball popped straight up off the spot. Once again Song Gyeong-seok rose from his crouch and swallowed the falling ball near home plate, closing out the inning.
"Whew. That was close."
And so I finished the defensive half on just three pitches and headed back to the dugout with the position players.
***
Jang Han-sae — a star among the league's analysts, thanks to his multiple arm slots, deep repertoire, and true ambidextrous pitching. The moment word spread that he'd taken the mound, every club's analysis team tuned in to watch him pitch.
He didn't do it often, but every so often he'd kill an inning on three pitches. To a casual observer, there'd have been nothing special about that outing. Through the analysts' eyes, though, it looked very different.
"What on earth was that pitch?"
"A sinker?"
"Nah, wasn't that that gyroball thing or whatever?"
"That was officially ruled a nonexistent pitch ages ago."
"Then was it just a bad throw?"
"Are you kidding? A guy with top-of-the-league command from both hands and close to a dozen pitch types is going to misfire? The man invents new pitches — he doesn't flub them."
"So you're saying that's a brand-new pitch Jang Han-sae created?"
"I'm saying it might be..."
Every club without exception zeroed in on the same question and started their analysis: what exactly was the pitch that had retired Oh Seong-bin?
Every club — except for one analyst.
"Pff! He threw it wrong because he was trying not to laugh."
On Myo A-rin's tablet, a heavily zoomed freeze-frame of Jang Han-sae's face filled the screen — the exact moment he'd delivered the pitch to Oh Seong-bin. She traced the corner of his mouth on the display with her fingertip, and a smile crept onto her own face in mirror image.
"Cute."