I'm Jealous!
I am an impulsive person.
Most of what I do—mainly at the ballpark—is decided on the spot, driven by whatever emotion hits me in the moment.
Which means:
I have never once planned a ceremony as hideous as the Double Peace.
In the first place, that ceremony is deeply profound yet packed with an intuitive metaphor, an outstanding…
"Hoo."
Maybe the cliché that regressors turn into pessimists is a pretty realistic setting after all.
Whoosh.
I took a few practice swings before stepping into the box.
I had to set the record straight about myself before some little soda-pop regressor started growing inside my head.
Fortunately,
proof
and explanation
were the things I did best after regressing.
"Good work out there~"
Home plate.
Irons catcher Han Seong-gon snuck a sidelong glance at the unusually quiet Gong Ji-hoo.
The sly smile in his eyes was the same as yesterday.
Only—
"Pretty quiet today, huh?"
Even to that question, Gong Ji-hoo simply answered,
"Yes."
We’re the ones who dropped a game, though…
Kids these days really are hard to understand, thought Han Seong-gon, a late-thirties veteran already preparing for retirement.
Or is it just the Wizards who are weird?
"Senior."
Gong Ji-hoo’s voice came out of nowhere.
"Today’s a game that could decide the entire direction of a player’s career. How about a fastball right down the middle?"
The strange seriousness in Gong Ji-hoo’s tone made Han Seong-gon flinch for a second.
"What kind of nonsense is that? Is this one of those MZ-generation jokes?"
He tried to laugh it off, but—
"Ah…"
Gong Ji-hoo’s next words left him grateful for the catcher’s mask that hid his reddening face.
"Senior, millennials don’t call themselves the MZ generation."
"Well, I have a hard time keeping up with the young guys these days myself."
Isn’t that punk only twenty-four?
The more he talked, the more he felt himself getting tangled up.
How the hell does Kang Ho-san keep yapping like that behind the plate?
He felt a fresh wave of respect for his junior catcher in Daegu, the one whose specialty was tormenting hitters with that three-inch tongue of his, and called for the pitch.
Low four-seamer inside.
Thwack!
Felix’s fastball arrived exactly where he’d asked for it—a beautifully located pitch.
But—
"Ball."
Gong Ji-hoo never even moved the bat, so it was a ball.
…I knew from the scouting report that his eye was good, but still.
Suddenly the ABS zone felt cold and unfriendly.
His framing, now second nature, would have been more than enough to fool a human umpire’s eyes.
A machine, however, could not be fooled.
In the memory of the broadcasters who had called that game, when asked how it felt to finally reach forty home runs, Lee Dae-beom had grinned and said:
"Even though he insists he’s not a power hitter, I want to thank Ji-hoo for the advice that became blood and flesh to me."
CRACK!
Gong Ji-hoo showed a sharp no-stride swing.
"Foul!"
The ball screamed off the bat and vanished just outside the foul pole.
"Tch."
Gong Ji-hoo smacked his lips and stepped back into the box.
Thwack!
A changeup that dropped out of the zone—Felix’s pride and joy as a put-away pitch.
"Ball."
Once again Gong Ji-hoo’s bat never twitched.
The game that burned Gong Ji-hoo’s name into the entire baseball world.
The fastball from Oh Jin-muk that Gong Ji-hoo’s bat sent over the wall.
That pitch had been clocked at 168 km/h.
Watching the broadcast on television in Busan, one particular player scratched his head at those words.
That lightning-bolt swing exploding out of his characteristically low stance.
Fans already ranked Gong Ji-hoo’s swing among the coolest in the entire KBO.
Two balls, one strike.
The Gwangju Irons battery was thinking the exact same thing.
We have to get Gong Ji-hoo!
Yes, he was an outstanding hitter.
But walking him?
Whoosh!
Lee Dae-beom waiting on deck had just taken home MVP yesterday—another dangerous bat.
It was only the first inning.
The battery had no real reason to put Gong Ji-hoo on.
So they had to finish him with this pitch somehow.
Han Seong-gon and Felix exchanged signs again and again.
In the end the pitch they chose was:
A two-seam fastball that just catches the inside edge of the zone.
The changeup was hard to use.
If it missed the zone, that freakishly disciplined hitter would simply take it.
If it caught the zone, it was basically a meatball—at least against someone like Gong Ji-hoo.
They needed a pitch that, even if he made contact, wouldn’t produce a good result.
Whoooosh!!
Felix, with his outstanding command, sent the ball flying precisely toward Han Seong-gon’s mitt.
And Gong Ji-hoo,
the instant he saw the ball leave Felix’s hand, finished his decision.
This is a pitch I can hit.
CRAAAACK!!!
Tap.
Standing on second base, I couldn’t hide my disappointment.
Tch. I thought I got all of that one…
Unfortunately the ball I hit flew toward the deepest part of Wizard Park’s outfield—straight at the center-field fence.
It caromed off the wall and dropped.
"Safe!"
Park Ji-han, the runner from first, showed off those quick feet and scored easily.
I coasted into second myself.
If things had lined up I could have tried for third…
But it was still only the first inning, so I decided not to push it.
"Ji-hoo. First time we’ve met on the bases, huh?"
"Ah, Senior."
That gentle voice.
It was Ryu Hyun-seo.
Just as he said, this was the first time I’d ever met him on the bases.
Since I play the outfield, we never crossed paths during the Wizards’ defensive innings yesterday.
And when I’d come to the plate yesterday—
I never reached base except on the home run.
"You really hit the ball well. I’m starting to get jealous…"
A shortstop who had already joined the 40-40 club, sounding genuinely impressed.
If anyone else with the same résumé had said it, I might have wondered if they were teasing me.
Strangely, coming from Ryu Hyun-seo, that feeling never appeared.
"Thank you… but how could I compare to you, Senior? That ball just now—if it had been you, you’d have been standing on third with room to spare."
"Haha… well, that’s true, isn’t it?"
A mild-mannered tone that still carried clear pride in his own ability.
The quiet ego of a genius who had torched the KBO and thrown down the gauntlet at the big leagues was faintly visible.
"Still, I’m glad. Since you didn’t make it to third, it looks like we’ll get out of this with just one run."
"I don’t know about that… Lee Dae-beom isn’t exactly a soft out, is he?"
And then—
Crack!
"Out!"
Lee Dae-beom was a soft out.
…Did this bastard use up all of today’s hits yesterday…
Failing to get a hit once or twice at the plate is only natural, of course.
But making me look awkward is unforgivable.
Especially when the grounder went straight to the shortstop and I couldn’t even advance.
The next hitter, Lee Se-ho, put up a stubborn battle,
but in the end—
"Swing! Strike three!"
After a seven-pitch duel he went down on strikes.
I guess I should just be satisfied that we ran up the starter’s pitch count…
Still, the disappointment was hard to shake.
If I’d had Ryu Hyun-seo-level speed and reached third,
Lee Dae-beom’s grounder to short would have been a grounder that drove in a run instead of just a grounder.
Even so,
I wasn’t particularly jealous of Ryu Hyun-seo.
I’ve got… well…
The “Gong Ji-hoo Genius Theory” Kim Jae-sang had once floated.
At the time I’d thought it was just something he said to cheer me up.
Now I was starting to realize that even if it had a little exaggeration, it wasn’t completely wrong.
So—
There are still plenty of chances…
I already had too much to be jealous over something as simple as fast feet.
And then, late in the game, bottom of the eighth.
A strong outing from our lottery-ticket foreign pitcher.
Park Ji-han’s revival with four times on base, plus the rest of the lineup’s power.
6–3.
With a second straight postseason win within reach, I stepped into the box and looked up at the scoreboard.
— No. 3 Batter, Left Fielder, Gong Ji-hoo
Double
Single
Home Run
Under my awkwardly smiling profile photo sat today’s line.
And now the fourth at-bat.
Damn it… Senior Ryu Hyun-seo is so enviable!
For a brief moment, that thought crossed my mind.