There Is No Bottom of the Ninth in Suwon
The reason I started studying was pretty simple.
Surprisingly many people were thinking exactly that.
Really.
There were even full-blown fights about it in the fan communities.
When I first heard that kind of talk, honestly, I couldn't understand it.
Look at my numbers for the month of September.
Over .500.
How could anyone think a player like that wouldn't perform? Those couldn't be Wizard fans—they had to be Iron fans wearing masks.
That was what I thought.
And then.
I had no choice but to accept it.
Apparently there had even been real conflict inside the organization over whether to start me as a regular.
The Suwon Wizards are a strong team.
Three years—four including this one—of consecutive fall baseball appearances.
The problem was that they had never once experienced a championship.
Their peak was runner-up.
That was two years ago.
So for the Wizards, this season was extremely important.
A so-called "happening" season where they held onto second place despite every kind of adversity. Of course I was one of the main figures who made that happening season possible.
But trusting me in the most important fall baseball of all was a completely separate matter.
It wasn't that they wouldn't use me.
How could they not use a player hitting this well right now?
However.
There were a few coaches who said things like that, apparently.
The source was, as always, one of my classmates.
However.
Manager Kim Tae-sik decided to trust me, they say.
So I decided to study in order to live up to that trust.
And the result of that studying was—
It was perfect.
CRACK!!
At the sound of a ball well struck and flying hard, I rose from the bench, grabbed the dugout railing, and leaned out.
—Waaaaaah!!
The home fans, ready to explode with joy at the thrilling hitting show starting from the first inning—
—Waaaaaah??
—couldn't hide their confusion at what came next.
"Wow… that slow-ass bastard."
The ball had clearly slammed into the wall.
Plenty of carry for a double.
No—it simply was a double.
Except the batter was Lee Dae-beom.
He rounded first, then sprinted for all he was worth toward the halfway point remaining to second—
WHOOSH!!
—only to scramble back to first in a desperate scramble under the Irons right fielder's quick follow-up play.
The way he ripped off his helmet and shook out his hair while gasping for air carried so much raw desperation you couldn't even get mad at him.
Yeah… what are you supposed to do when the guy is just slow? Still, he got a hit, so that's something.
—Waaaaaah!!
Even the home fans who had been thrown off eventually roared again for Lee Dae-beom's single.
Number-two hitter An Sung-woo's infield single.
Number-three hitter—me—with the two-run homer.
And number-four hitter Lee Dae-beom's wall-banging single.
From the bottom of the first the Wizards lineup was already rolling without pause.
All eyes turned to the plate as number-five hitter, senior Lee Se-ho, stepped in—
CRACK!!
—and he answered that expectation with a clean swing of his own.
Thwack.
The ball shot deep enough that it looked ready to punch through the infield—until the shortstop wearing number 2 appeared out of nowhere at the end of its flight.
And then.
"Out!"
Naturally first-base runner Lee Dae-beom became an out.
"Out!"
Lee Se-ho, who had been sprinting full speed, was out as well.
In the end we had no choice but to put down the bats and pick up the gloves.
Pop.
"Out!!"
Charlie falls squarely into the fly-ball pitcher category rather than the ground-ball one.
He prefers strikeout pitching over inducing contact, so it can't be helped.
Even so.
In the previous defensive half-inning, shortstop Park Ji-han had been busier than anyone.
Two shortstop flies.
Balls that Charlie's elite stuff kept from carrying far all ended up in Park Ji-han's glove.
The first one, even—
I could have caught it easily enough.
Yet—
"Mine!!"
—Park Ji-han appeared out of nowhere and showed off his outstanding range.
The fans cheered.
I, on the other hand, could only think:
What's with that guy?
It was completely different from Park Ji-han's usual style of play—like he was under pressure to prove something. Honestly, it reminded me of myself right before retirement.
Of course I'd been several times worse than that.
"Why's that kid pushing so hard?"
And I wasn't the only one thinking it.
Lee Dae-beom, whom I ran into in the dugout, didn't even look at me as he started toward Park Ji-han.
But I stopped him.
"Hey! Why are you holding me back?"
"Talk after. After the game."
Suwon Wizards' top mental-game instructor, Gong Ji-hoo.
In my judgment, going over and saying something right now would do no good.
"Come on! Anyone can see that guy's off!"
"Yeah."
"Then why stop me?"
"Because even if you go over there and say something, it won't help much."
I finally had a rough idea of what was going on in Park Ji-han's head.
Before the postseason started, he had said he wanted to beat Ryu Hyun-seo at least once.
And that same Ryu Hyun-seo was flying around the field again today.
"He's impatient. Feels like he has to show something too."
"You of all people know better than anyone that things go even worse when you're like that!"
"Exactly. That's why I'm saying this."
"What?"
Honestly.
"You think Ji-han doesn't know he's rushing?"
"…"
No way.
"And you think the manager doesn't notice what we've already noticed?"
That was also impossible.
"The manager hasn't said a word either. Talk after the game. Saying anything now is useless anyway."
The extreme option would be to pull Park Ji-han from the game and tell him to cool his head.
But.
Without Park Ji-han the team falls apart…
A shortstop is precious.
A shortstop who can hit is even more precious.
Especially on a team famous for thin depth.
Even if that good-hitting shortstop wasn't producing at full strength, there was no one on the Wizards who could replace Park Ji-han.
"Then… what are we supposed to do?"
"I already told you. Talk later."
The odds that a single word would suddenly snap Park Ji-han back to normal were vanishingly small.
"After the game we'll all grab coffee and talk. Ideally after we win."
Fortunately.
"It's not like the guy is even struggling on defense."
If anything he was working too hard.
And doing it well, at that.
"Are we a Park Ji-han one-man team? We can't win if he has a bad day?"
"…"
"Just treat it as him not having his best stuff today and move on. No matter how much Ji-han digs himself a hole, we're winning this game."
I would make sure of it.
"You not confident?"
"…No way."
Lee Dae-beom let out a sigh, glanced at Park Ji-han sitting farther down the bench chugging an electrolyte drink, then dropped onto the seat next to me.
After the top of the third ended, broadcaster Lee Han-young stretched and spoke from the booth.
"Still, Charlie really is something else."
Former pitcher and color commentator Kim Jung-up nodded.
"He is. No matter how much you trust a pitch, throwing the same one that just got hit for a homer the previous at-bat? I couldn't have done that."
Then Kim Jung-up—
Heh.
—let out a small laugh.
"Hyung-nim, what's so funny?"
"Just remembering the conversation I had with that kid before the game."
"That kid?"
"You know. The superstar we helped create."
"Ah, Gong Ji-hoo."
The two of them had called the Daegu Rhinos game that first launched Gong Ji-hoo into stardom.
"He said something hilarious."
"What?"
"That he'd studied up on the Irons. Said he'd analyzed them pretty thoroughly, so we should look forward to his performance."
What exactly was funny about that?
Seeing the expression on Lee Han-young's face, Kim Jung-up continued.
"That kid… I get the feeling he really couldn't study for shit back in school."
Well, most athletic department kids are like that, but still.
Kim Jung-up leaned in and whispered something.
And then—
"Ahahaha!! What a fun kid. Gong Ji-hoo. No wonder everyone reads that novel of his."
"So what do you think?"
To that question the elite-university-educated play-by-play man answered:
"Reminds me of the friend who used to write down even the teacher's useless side comments in class."
"But we can't say that on the air, right?"
"Let's protect the young guy's image. He's got all the makings of a star."
"Good work out there~"
Model student Gong Ji-hoo.
Second at-bat, present and accounted for.
"Ji-hoo, take it easy. Hyun-seo went easy earlier too."
"That so?"
It had looked like a full-effort swing to me.
"You gonna tell Hyun-seo I ignored him because he's the kind of guy who swings that hard and still only hits a fly ball?"
"Ah, maybe not."
Getting hated by a good person takes real courage.
"Hyun-seo sunbae is heading to America next year anyway, so he's taking it easy. We're the ones in a hurry."
"No way. Gotta lift the championship trophy one more time before going to the States."
"So that last at-bat wasn't taking it easy after all?"
"…Guess not."
The catcher gave an awkward smile and started exchanging signs with the pitcher.
All right… time to check the results of my studying.
The pitcher on the mound—
Same Philadelphia Triple-A affiliate as Charlie. Actually friends with Charlie too.
A fact confirmed from the materials (Wikipedia).
There was even a friendly photo of them together.
Maybe that's why his pitching style is similar to Charlie's. Confirmed that in the first at-bat.
Personality was probably similar too.
Friends end up resembling each other, right?
In that case—
WHOOOOSH!!
The trajectory of the incoming pitch was aimed exactly at the same spot that had been hit for a home run the previous at-bat.
Knowing that, all I had to do was—
CRAAAACK!!!
—match the path of my swing to it.
Whirrr.
The bat flip that followed from the finished swing.
Surprisingly hard to make look natural.
I rounded the bases watching the word "HOMERUN" light up on the scoreboard, both hands raised with index and middle fingers extended.
My uniform number is 22.
Two twos.
So I'm stronger than two by another two.
Tsk, maybe the double-V ceremony was the problem…
After the back-to-back home runs, it was as if I'd been hit by the curse of two—I went completely silent.
Fortunately, my home run was going to stand as the game-winner at this rate.
Because while I went quiet, the bat of Lee Dae-beom behind me caught fire.
After that bizarre wall-banging single in his first at-bat, Lee Dae-beom showed that if your feet are slow you just hit it over the wall—launching a back-to-back home run right after mine in his second trip to the plate.
In the at-bats that followed he kept driving in runners like a man possessed, putting on a divine RBI feast.
Postseason playoffs, Game 1.
Top of the ninth.
Score 7–3.
One out remaining until the Suwon Wizards sealed the win.
And the Gwangju Irons' final batter was the same man who had led off the game: Ryu Hyun-seo.
Honestly, no matter how well Ryu Hyun-seo hit, the game was already tilted heavily our way.
Even if he put together a perfect swing in this situation, the most he could do was one run.
CRAAAACK!!!
Ryu Hyun-seo's ball, squared up off the Suwon Wizards closer's fastball, began flying toward left field.
Thud-thud-thud.
A shorter-than-expected ball started dropping into an awkward spot.
I sprinted full speed toward the landing point.
"Mine!!"
Park Ji-han, who had gone hitless today but shown outstanding defense, shouted that—but I ignored him.
This was not a ball a shortstop could catch.
He had to know that, and yet.
You are absolutely getting a sit-down after this.
Of course the game was already heavily in our favor.
Even so, if Ryu Hyun-seo reached first, that blazing speed of his could create a "what if" situation.
So—
THWACK!!!
I launched myself.
Right before the regression, this home stadium had felt so unbearably awful—but there was exactly one thing about it that I loved then and still love now.
The phrase written on one side of the outfield wall.
Thud.
From the diving position I twisted my body and raised the gloved hand high.
Inside it was the ball that announced today's game was over.
There is no bottom of the ninth in Suwon.