Cleaning Time
I checked the scoreboard.
The score was 3–0.
Aside from the early lead our team had scratched out in the first inning, neither side had put another run on the board.
The Irons manager's masterclass of a bullpen show had been more than enough to silence our lineup. I'd gone down on a grounder to second in my second at-bat myself.
And so, with the top of the fourth about to begin, the day's critical turning point arrived.
From the sky.
Pat. Pat.
"Ah…"
Would the weather service ever give us a day we could actually trust? They'd sworn it would be clear and sunny, and yet here came the rain, starting up out of nowhere.
"Hey, do they even call rainouts in fall baseball?"
No answer came back.
Top of the fourth.
It was an inning that opened with the bottom of the order, but Manager Kim Tae-sik's eyes were fixed solely on the sky.
"…Has there ever been a rain delay in the postseason?"
"…No precedent yet, sir."
In the distant past, they had played Korean Series games in pouring rain. Kim Tae-sik knew that better than anyone — he had been the one on the mound throwing those pitches. Still.
"So there's a chance, however slim…"
Even if that rain-soaked bloodbath had come at the tail end of his own playing career, it was already more than twenty years ago. Time enough for the mountains and rivers to change twice over. Modern baseball and the baseball of the past differed in countless ways — especially where player injuries were concerned.
Kim Tae-sik had no desire whatsoever to push his players past their limits. But the Suwon Wizards had thrown everything they had into Game Four to clinch their Korean Series berth.
"Damn it…"
He found himself resenting the clueless sky for no good reason.
Crack!
"Out!"
The bottom of the order went down in succession without a fight, and the inning was over. A double-edged feeling settled over him — disappointment that they hadn't tacked on another run, and relief that the inning had ended quickly — and he let out a long breath.
Pat. Pat.
— Waaaaaah!
Baseball fans really were something else. To keep cheering with that much fire even while the rain came down — even from the outfield seats, where there wasn't a scrap of cover to be found.
Of course, this was Gwangju. The vast majority of the crowd was dressed in the Irons' red uniforms.
While I waited for Charlie to finish his warm-up pitches on the mound, the damp brim of my cap started to bother me. I took it off for a moment and raked my hair back.
"Tch."
Rain made everything inconvenient. The grass got slick. The uniform got heavy. Even your vision could go blurry. That said—
The pitcher has it worse than an outfielder like me…
The one silver lining was that the rain hadn't gotten any heavier. Please, just hold like this until the fifth is over.
No wonder there were always those high-up "dome parrots" who ended every argument with the same punchline: build a dome stadium.
Tick.
Charlie was throwing under a whole stack of bad conditions. A body that hadn't gotten proper rest. A mound growing more treacherous by the pitch from the rain coming down. And—
Tick.
—an Irons lineup that had started stubbornly running up his pitch count.
From the first inning on, the Irons hitters had been grinding away, trying to pry the starter off the mound. The moment rain started falling from the sky, they got even more blatant about it.
Tick.
"Foul!"
Part of it was wanting to knock out a starter who was looking dominant again today as fast as possible. Part of it might have been the faint hope that if the rain got worse, the game could be called a no-contest.
Some people might call it cheap. I didn't particularly think it was wrong. The Irons were chasing a Korean Series berth too, and they desperately needed a win.
Thwack!
"Strike three!"
Even so, Charlie kept his composure and stacked outs one by one. In the end, what the rest of us in the field had to do was simple: help Charlie finish this inning. On defense, the pitcher was always the star of the show.
Before long, two red lights filled the scoreboard. Charlie had thrown a fair number of pitches working through each batter, but the bases were clean. Back-to-back strikeouts. The Wizards' strikeout machine didn't break down just because it got wet.
And then—
A senior I personally wanted to get along with better stepped into the box and gripped his bat. Han Seong-gon, the Irons' catcher.
After going hitless in Game Two and sighing heavily at the plate, he'd come home and immediately started swinging a hot bat. Ryu Hyun-seo's brilliance as the player of the game had overshadowed him, but for yesterday's contest alone, Han Seong-gon had put up an MVP-worthy performance of his own.
And today, he seemed to be carrying that same good feel over. Even if his first at-bat had only produced a deep fly ball.
Craaack!!
As if to prove it, he squared up Charlie's fastball cleanly. The ball rose on a high arc toward the outfield. Except—
Man, this senior really has no luck.
He ought to start practicing picking up trash in his free time. Just like the well-struck ball in his first at-bat had turned into a deep fly, this one too was coming on a course I could catch without much trouble.
And then—
"Huh?"
If someone asked whether I'd let my guard down, I could admit that a tiny bit of that feeling had crept in. But if they asked whether I'd lost focus on the game, I could swear without hesitation that I had not.
Pat. Pat.
I glanced up without thinking to track the ball — and a raindrop landed at the perfect angle to wreck my sightline.
Where's the ball?
I squinted hard and tried to pick it up again. But I couldn't see it.
"Shit."
I spat a short curse and moved on pure instinct. The crack of the bat off home plate. The direction of the ball I'd checked while running. Every scrap of information spun through my head like a whirlwind.
"Ha… there it is."
People like to say corner outfield is where the guys who can't play defense end up. I won't exactly deny it. That was me. With draft classmates like Park Ji-han and An Sung-woo, what was a guy who'd only started playing baseball in high school supposed to do in the infield?
But that absolutely did not mean outfield defense was easy. Balls hit to the outfield come in faster than people think, and catching them takes real work.
The result of that work—
Ssshhh!
"Out!!"
—showed up as a sliding snag.
— Waaaaaah!
The precious handful of Wizards fans clustered on the left side roared with a heat that didn't lose an inch to the home crowd in Gwangju.
Honestly, it had been closer to a highlight-reel save than a routine play, and that left me more embarrassed than proud.
Pat. Pat.
Maybe it was just my imagination, but the rain seemed a little heavier now.
Top of the fifth. Two outs. The table setters had gone down cleanly.
I stepped into the box, stomping the ground that was starting to feel unpleasantly heavy under my feet.
"…"
Han Seong-gon glanced at me once, then called time. He walked slowly out to the mound and started talking with the pitcher.
Seemed like he was trying to kill the clock.
"Isn't it already a little late for that? Right?"
I asked the home plate umpire.
"…"
He didn't answer, but I could read agreement in his expression. And of course — if he declared a no-contest in this situation, the Suwon fans would drag him all the way back to Suwon, mat and all, and hang him from a foul pole at Wizards Park. Suwon Wizards fans were few in number, which only made them fight like a hundred men each. Getting kicked around as an unpopular team for so long had made them tough.
"Ah, just discussing something for a second."
"I see. Here I thought you'd gone to ask about the late-night snack menu to run out the clock."
"Ahem."
Han Seong-gon cleared his throat, settled back behind the plate, and started exchanging signs with the pitcher. That was when I thought—
Should I just go down swinging and get this over with?
The deliberation was short. The conclusion:
Just do what I always do.
This was too important a game for something as hollow as a rainout. Not unless the sky suddenly opened a hole and dumped a flood on us. So I tightened my grip on the bat.
Whoooosh!
A rain game. Who has it harder — the hitter or the pitcher?
I considered the answer to that question perfectly clear. Pitchers were sensitive creatures at the best of times. Our own team had a guy who would throw the whole game instead of the ball the moment the mound felt even slightly off.
So if I, standing here in the box, was already feeling that wrongness — what about the pitcher on the mound?
The ball coming toward me answered that question for him. A perfect mistake pitch, right down the middle.
I'd already made a small mistake on defense. That meant I had to be perfect at the plate. Wasn't that the least I owed the fans still cheering for us out there in the rain?
CRAAAAACK!!!
A crack of the bat so massive it punched straight through the sound of the falling rain. The ball, heavy from the wet and yet rising as if it felt none of that weight at all, cleared the wall with room to spare.
One pitch, and the at-bat was over. That basically completed the side quest of ending the inning as fast as possible, too.
As expected, there was no rain delay.
Except—
After the fifth inning, cleaning time began. And ten minutes later, it was still going.
"They call it cleaning time, but isn't this basically a rain delay?"
"Which means they're never going to stop the game like this."
My home run in the top of the fifth had made it 4–0. The Suwon Wizards led by four. If the rain stopped play now—
"Ah, can't they just end it? Game over! Charlie, five-inning shutout win! Suwon Wizards advance to the Korean Series! How nice would that look."
That scenario—
"You think the Gwangju Irons would be happy about that? This is their home park."
Of course the higher-ups at the KBO wouldn't want it either.
"But where's Ji-han?"
"Gwangju dugout."
"Went over to socialize… Maybe I should go too."
"Why would you?"
"I want to get friendly with Han Seong-gon sunbae."
"…"
Lee Dae-beom's face went uncharacteristically serious.
"Ji-hoo. What the hell do you keep doing at the plate?"
That was what he said.
"I don't really say anything special."
"Then why is that sunbae begging me to make you shut up a little?"
"Oh…"
Disappointing.
"If you go over there, you're not going to hear anything nice, so just stay put."
"Fine…"
All of this was because the rain delay dressed up as cleaning time kept dragging on. If it hadn't, I wouldn't have needed to swallow this red pill for no reason.
"Game starts in thirty minutes. Rain's supposed to stop soon."
"Ah — you startled me."
The now-familiar Suwon-made stealth delivery of information. At An Sung-woo's words, I stood up from the bench and stretched. Time to start loosening up.
"Charlie can't go any further, right?"
"All you think about is working the foreign laborer to death…"
Scary guy.
"No! That's not what I meant—"
I ignored my ruthless friend as he started to protest and began my stretching.
"Dae-beom."
"Hey! You're not even listening to me!"
"Honestly, doesn't the playoffs feel way too long?"
It was about time.
"Time to end it."
Truthfully, I didn't think winning on a rain-shortened game was ideal either. Whatever you did, a clean finish was best.
Of course, the ones advancing would be the Suwon Wizards.