Are You Playing Baseball Alone?
“Is that guy actually insane?”
“About what?”
The moment I stepped into the locker room, Lee Dae-beom was already pouring out every complaint he had.
“Yesterday’s Media Day!”
“Ah.”
The Media Day held the day before the Korean Series. Lee Se-ho and Park Ji-han had gone for us, I think.
“Well, that was yesterday. And that senior’s mouth running wild isn’t exactly new, is it?”
“Still! He basically treated us like complete trash!”
This was about Do Jeong-hoo.
Media Day, kicked off in front of a swarm of reporters. True to his nickname as the “King of Media Day,” Do Jeong-hoo had delivered interviews with this kind of flavor:
Naturally, Suwon Wizard fans had exploded. A few of the Wizard players themselves were burning with hostility too. Honestly, though?
“Isn’t that just standard trash-talk range?”
I, Gong Ji-hoo, was a man who had once—unintentionally—straight-up insulted a specific team during an interview. Let me stress that again: unintentional.
“Yeah, well… you…”
Lee Dae-beom nodded as my glittering interview history clearly flashed through his mind.
“That Do Jeong-hoo singled you out, so maybe you’re not even mad.”
“Huh? In what sense?”
“What else would it be?”
“Never mind if you don’t get it.”
Do Jeong-hoo had singled me out, huh. But still…
“That wasn’t exactly a compliment, was it?”
At Media Day, when asked which player he most wanted to face, Do Jeong-hoo had said:
“That’s him acknowledging you, right? As expected of a genius…”
“That genius talk still isn’t over, huh.”
Glug-glug.
I sipped my iced americano and deliberately ignored the comment.
“Haa… Fine. We’ll just have to show them the Suwon Wizards aren’t Gong Ji-hoo’s one-man team!”
Lee Dae-beom made his bold declaration.
“One-man team, my ass… Who the hell plays baseball alone?”
That was what I said.
And exactly four hours later.
Beep!
“Holy… shit. Maybe I should start practicing pitching right now.”
I realized that a pitcher, at least, actually could.
After Game 1 of the Korean Series ended, the Suwon Wizards were forcibly rebranded. Not by anyone else—by their own fans.
We lost, after all. Clean and simple.
If I had to make some kind of excuse: the playoff games had been brutal. Most of the hitters weren’t in their best condition.
Game 4 of the playoffs, played under the pressure of a must-win while getting rained on. Fatigue had piled up on everyone without them even realizing it. Of course…
Can’t even finish five innings and gives up five runs—is this really a foreign import?
The foreign starter who had pitched so well in Game 2 of the playoffs had rolled a low on the dice and completely betrayed our trust.
The two-faced nature of fan communities was enough to make even Jekyll and Hyde nervous. When the team won, they praised you to the ends of the universe. When the team lost like today…
“Ugh…”
You could see every curse imaginable.
Manager Kim Tae-sik had lost his surname and become “Stone Tae-sik.” Lee Dae-beom had turned into a greedy pig bastard. Today’s starter Jack, who had somehow racked up ten wins in the regular season, was now a freeloading bust. But still—
The one eating the most hate was…
Why is this actually true?
Me.
Honestly.
“Is this really something I should be getting flamed for?”
I felt wronged.
The game had ended in Do Jeong-hoo’s complete-game shutout, but the Wizard lineup hadn’t just rolled over and died. At least the top of the order had each managed a hit.
Even Lee Dae-beom, who was getting roasted for waving at every pitch with runners in scoring position, had done that much.
And my line for the day? Four plate appearances, four walks. Reached base every single time.
The reason the community was still on fire despite that…
What the hell are these two even doing?
…was because it looked like I hadn’t earned those walks by being good.
First at-bat. The first pitch was a fastball way outside the zone. Second pitch, a fastball a little closer. Third pitch, another fastball a little closer still. And the fourth…
A fastball that missed the zone by the width of a sheet of paper.
Naturally I didn’t swing at anything that never entered the zone, and I walked. That kind of duel played out the entire game.
Second at-bat it was with sliders. Third with changeups. Even the fourth at-bat, with curveballs.
It felt like I’d been turned into Do Jeong-hoo’s personal control practice dummy. Given that he boasted the best command in the KBO, that couldn’t actually be true—but still.
After drawing yet another four-pitch walk in my fourth plate appearance, I was so baffled I just stared at him.
He only grinned and said, “What.”
“Yeah… I guess that can happen.”
Even I, the guy living it, had my doubts about this game. So the fans turning vicious was only natural.
I feel like this has happened before…
When was it?
“Ah.”
Right. That had also been against the Seoul Wolves. The final game of the regular season.
It hadn’t been this openly mocking, but the Wolves pitcher had kept throwing borderline balls the whole time. And then…
“I only hit the one pitch that leaked into the zone as a mistake, didn’t I?”
Which meant every one of these Seoul Wolves pitchers’ approaches had some kind of meaning behind it.
“I really can’t figure this out.”
Right then—
MUSTARD!!!!!
My phone rang.
“Hey, Walk Machine.”
It was Kim Jae-sang.
“Oh, perfect.”
My personal answer machine had called me on its own.
When I asked about the Wolves’ weird behavior, Kim Jae-sang first put on airs a few times.
“Why should I even tell you that?”
Then he finally started explaining. And after hearing it, I…
“What kind of nonsense is that?”
…fell into even deeper confusion.
“I’m saying that’s how I would’ve thought about it. Not that I’m automatically right. Still… I’m probably pretty close.”
With that, Kim Jae-sang hung up. I still had no idea why he’d called in the first place.
“Hmm…”
So throwing pitches that just barely miss the zone was supposed to rattle my mental game and wreck my swing. That kind of…
“They’re actually doing something that inefficient?”
And the first-place team, no less?
Kim Jae-sang had said:
“It means you’re so unsolvable they have to throw a gamble like that.”
But still…
“I feel like that gamble’s gonna fail…”
Should I even count this as good news?
In interviews I’d said that starting a web novel series on Coach Kim Phil-jung’s recommendation had helped a lot with resolving my trauma. But to put it bluntly, that solution had basically failed.
After all, Minor League Yeopo Gong Ji-hoo had retired. That was before the regression, of course.
In the first place, it had just been something my high school senior Kim Phil-jung tossed out as a “try anything” idea. It hadn’t even been a real solution.
“Nobody knows I regressed, so…”
Could they actually be thinking like that?
“Hmm…”
I tried imagining it. Suppose Kim Phil-jung’s non-treatment treatment had worked to some degree. I never retired, put up great numbers, and made it all the way to the Korean Series. And then…
The Seoul Wolves pull this exact strategy.
“Oh.”
This…
“Would actually work.”
The fans’ raised expectations. The current me found them purely pleasant. But the me in that imagination probably wouldn’t feel the same way. Fan expectations could turn into sharp daggers and come flying back at any time.
Just look at today’s game.
And the me who never experienced regression… would never have been able to endure this situation.
“Whoever it was, they clearly put a lot of thought into it, but…”
There were some things you simply couldn’t help as long as you didn’t know the secret that a regressor existed in this world.
The web novel series. Even Kim Phil-jung, the one who’d recommended it, probably never realized—this solution wasn’t a short-term project. It was a long-term one. And…
I was the only patient who had carried that project out perfectly for five full years.
So.
Fan reactions of this level simply couldn’t shake me.
I knew perfectly well that their words weren’t criticism born from hating me—they came from the frustration of wanting to see me perform.
My trauma treatment had started with learning to distinguish that kind of affectionate criticism from pure hate, and then accepting it.
It took roughly two years of web novel writing to escape the psychological problems that had been tormenting me. By then I’d already retired, so it was useless.
If I hadn’t regressed like this…
Korean Series Game 2.
The Suwon Wizards had tasted the bitter flavor of a helpless loss via Do Jeong-hoo’s shutout, but of course they had no intention of going down quietly.
[Coming to you live from Jamsil for Korean Series Game 2! The Suwon Wizards, who have to show how they’ll bounce back from yesterday’s defeat, start with their top of the first!]
[There’s a small change in the Suwon Wizard lineup. Namely…]
Top of the first. The first player to step into the untouched batter’s box was—
— Leadoff hitter, left fielder Gong Ji-hoo.
Gong Ji-hoo.
[Gong Ji-hoo is batting leadoff, and the previous leadoff man An Sung-woo has unusually been dropped to ninth.]
[Gong Ji-hoo drew walks in every plate appearance yesterday with that outstanding eye. Manager Kim Tae-sik’s choice seems to have that in mind.]
[Then how should we interpret An Sung-woo batting ninth?]
[By putting the high-performing An Sung-woo in the nine-hole, they’re probably looking for organic connection between the bottom and top of the order. After all, the leadoff hitter only leads off the game once—in the first inning.]
[Yes! So in this new batting order, what kind of swing will Gong Ji-hoo show us? First pitch from the pitcher! Here it comes!]
Thwack!
“Ball.”
The first pitch was a ball, same as always.
Gong Ji-hoo nodded at the sight of it, then said:
“Senior. Do you know what happens when you try to freeze out a perfectly normal person?”
“…What?”
He finished talking without even waiting for the catcher’s reply.
“They go dark.”
So if someone was going to try freezing me out, somebody should’ve yelled “Stop!” first.
Another first pitch well outside the zone. Watching it, Seoul Wolves manager Dong Sang-guk clicked his tongue.
“That Gong Ji-hoo kid… he’ll start to crack, right?”
The Gong Ji-hoo countermeasure the analytics team had once presented. He hadn’t actually planned to try it from Game 1, but Do Jeong-hoo had seen the report and said:
— “This looks fun, doesn’t it?”
And opened fire on his own.
“What did Jeong-hoo say after Game 1?”
“That it probably wouldn’t mean anything. Said he didn’t look like the type to get rattled by a cheap trick like this.”
But they’d already started, so what could you do? You had to see it through until a result appeared. And…
Tick.
That result seemed to be arriving faster than expected.
“He just swung, right?”
“Yes.”
“Was it a pitch inside the zone?”
The coach checking the ABS smiled brightly.
“No, sir!”
“He’s actually getting rattled…?”
Even a ridiculous scheme could work differently when smart people put their heads together to invent it. That was what Dong Sang-guk was thinking when—
Tick.
Then another.
Tick.
At Gong Ji-hoo’s swings—
Tick.
—he couldn’t hide his—
Tick.
—bewilderment.
“Is that bastard… actually getting rattled for real?”
Tick.
“Foul!”
Why is this so fun?