If the Opponent Hates Me
Dong Sang-guk.
As manager of the Wolves, he had guided the team to the Korean Series four times. Looking purely at his career, there was no question he ranked among the finest managers in the KBO.
Yet true to the baseball adage that “great managers do not exist,” he never received glowing reviews.
Put kindly, he was a manager who maximized player autonomy. Put unkindly, he was a manager who trusted his talent and did absolutely nothing.
The most famous nickname capturing that style was none other than “Spectator Guk.”
It was a nickname bordering on an insult, yet surprisingly Dong Sang-guk never minded it. If the team ran smoothly even while he merely watched, how wonderful was that? That was how he thought.
But.
“Hey, you son of a bitch!!”
After today’s game, he had a gut feeling he would never again be called Spectator Guk.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing!”
Dong Sang-guk stormed toward the mound with heavy, furious strides. Anyone could see the rage had climbed all the way to the top of his head.
“Stop! Manager, please stop!”
He shook off the arm of the bench coach trying to block him.
“Sang-guk. Keep this up and you’re gone. That’s enough.”
He ignored the home-plate umpire—his senior in the baseball world—and kept going.
“Manager! I’m sorry! I’ll talk some sense into him!”
At the words of the Stars’ catcher, Lee Chi-yeon, Dong Sang-guk finally halted. Then he twisted the corner of his mouth.
“Talk sense into him? Talk sense? So you’re admitting that bastard hit him on purpose?”
“…”
Lee Chi-yeon stammered, unable to continue.
“Why so quiet? Are you admitting it, you little shit!”
His voice climbed higher and higher. In the end the Incheon Stars’ manager came charging out of their dugout as well.
“Senior… I’m sorry. Jun-hyeong didn’t mean to do it either.”
“An accident, you say?”
Dong Sang-guk glared at his junior, the Stars’ manager.
“What kind of pitcher-looking bastard is standing on that mound! Is that how you taught him!”
He roared and shoved his forehead right into the other man’s face.
Ah… the old personality’s coming out.
The Stars’ manager, remembering how Dong Sang-guk had been called a “thug” for his rough play and language back in his playing days, hunched his shoulders and kept retreating.
He used to play the refined manager after he took the job…
Watching the scene, the umpire finally barked,
“Ejection!”
Still seething, Dong Sang-guk spat toward Kwak Jun-hyeong, who stood blankly on the mound, then followed the umpire’s order and left the field.
And the entire sequence was captured clearly—sound and all—by the broadcast cameras.
Ah… Manager Dong Sang-guk, enraged by Gong Ji-hoo’s hit-by-pitch, protests and is ejected.
I understand the anger, but that was excessive.
Dong Sang-guk became the first manager ejected in the 2025 season, yet the fans praised him instead as “a manager who truly cares for his players.”
“Um… are you all right?”
In the Stars’ visiting clubhouse, the bench coach who had followed the ejected Dong Sang-guk inside asked carefully.
“Huh? Of course.”
The same Dong Sang-guk who had been seething moments earlier answered with complete calm.
“…Was that an act?”
“You know me that little? You think I’d lose my temper just because one player got hit by a pitch?”
“Then why on earth did you do it?”
There had been no benefit. If anything, having to finish the game without their manager was a penalty for the Rhinos.
“If I hadn’t thrown that fit, the bastard on the mound would have thrown the exact same beanball next time.”
“Surely not…”
“No. His eyes said it. I’ve seen eyes like that plenty of times.”
Having once managed a generational pitcher like Do Jeong-hoo, he recognized it at a glance.
“I don’t know why, but he was overflowing with inferiority toward Ji-hoo. A terrifying amount of it.”
The kid had at least aimed for the thigh this time.
“Next time the ball might have gone straight at the head.”
“…”
The bench coach was half-skeptical, yet he nodded at Dong Sang-guk’s absolute certainty. The man was already ejected; nothing could be done about it now.
“And… if it hadn’t been me, Ji-hoo might have charged the mound himself.”
That next remark, however, was harder to accept.
“Come on… that gentle kid?”
“I’m saying it’s possible.”
The bench coach didn’t know. He had no idea how completely unhinged Gong Ji-hoo became once his mood soured.
The same Gong Ji-hoo who had once tormented an opposing pitcher until the man cried, simply because the strategy had been to ignore him.
He probably wouldn’t have thrown actual punches… but just in case, Dong Sang-guk had stepped in first.
“Gong Ji-hoo is the heart of our lineup. Having him sit out from the start of the season would be a headache.”
And then,
“Besides, I’m just a spectator of a manager. The team doesn’t need me, right?”
Watching Dong Sang-guk laugh heartily, the bench coach could only manage a hollow smile of his own.
“More than anything, if I show them this side of me, won’t the players trust and follow me more? First year on the job—gotta put in a little effort.”
“That… I have to agree with.”
On that final point the bench coach fully concurred.
Before leaving the dugout he had looked around at the players’ eyes. In them he had seen both shock at the sudden chaos and genuine trust in a manager who had exploded on their behalf.
Honestly, I was stunned.
Stunned that a pitcher I’d never faced before had thrown a beanball. Stunned that Manager Dong Sang-guk had charged out of the dugout in rage and gotten himself ejected.
It all happened so fast I never even got a word in.
I wouldn’t have gone so far as to climb the mound and start throwing punches, but I had planned to make some kind of gesture after getting hit. In the end Manager Dong had stepped up for me, so I had no choice but to stand down.
“Whoa… our manager’s cool as hell.”
Just like Kang Ho-san’s admiration, it really was cool. Loyalty I didn’t even know I had started sprouting like weeds.
But what stunned me even more was this:
Thwack!!
“Strike three!”
Kwak Jun-hyeong was still calmly throwing pitches even after the opposing manager had screamed every curse in the book at him.
Is this guy a psychopath?
That went beyond bold. That was something else entirely.
Time passed. Manager Dong Sang-guk was gone, and it was the top of the fifth. I stepped into the box with a runner on first.
“…Sorry, Ji-hoo.”
“It’s fine. It’s not your fault, hyung.”
“The bastard won’t apologize, so I have to.”
Why should someone else apologize? He should do it himself.
Thwack!!
“Ball.”
“That son of a bitch…”
A fastball buried deep inside. If I hadn’t moved, it would have hit me again.
Judging by the curse Lee Chi-yeon spat, it hadn’t been intentional. Or rather—
Lee Chi-yeon hadn’t intended it. Because the twin bastard on the mound was smiling that disgusting smile and mouthing something.
‘Next one’s the head…’ is that it?
“Ha…”
Really.
“Hahaha…”
Laughter just bubbled up on its own.
“Ji-hoo… you okay?”
“Ah, I’m fine.”
I wasn’t angry. Who gets angry at a lunatic?
But I do love the saying that a madman needs a beating.
My grip tightened harder than usual today.
Before the season started.
“Hmm… the Korean league is truly incomprehensible.”
“What is?”
At the coach’s sudden remark I tilted my head.
“I watched the Korean Series.”
“Oh, really?”
Maybe he was about to praise me.
“Why didn’t you knock the pitcher flat?”
What?
“This pitch was clearly a beanball, wasn’t it?”
What the coach showed me was the clip of me getting hit by the teary pitcher Wheeler.
“Well, I did go pretty hard on him too…”
“Ridiculous. In America you smash the guy’s face regardless.”
That was—
“Barbaric. This is a place that values manners, you know.”
“Manners? In a neighborhood where you bat-flip every single swing?”
When he put it that way I had nothing to say.
“No choice. I’ll teach you how to handle beanballs.”
“A method?”
Was he going to teach me boxing?
“I don’t really want to learn how to throw a good punch…”
“You said that was too barbaric.”
“Then what method is it?”
The method the coach taught me was—
“No way…”
In a sense, it was the most baseball-player method imaginable.
“Does this actually work? Have you tried it yourself?”
“No.”
The problem was that it was closer to trash talk than real technique.
“You’re teaching me something you never even did?”
“It’s perfectly possible. If that nonsense you spout about seeing trajectories is real.”
“…”
“If I’d been a player who could do this, there’s no way you wouldn’t know my name.”
“Huh?”
“Even if you’ve never watched Major League Baseball, you couldn’t possibly not know the name of a future Hall of Famer.”
Oh.
“So that means I’d be good enough to work in the majors too…?”
“Hmph! Don’t talk nonsense. You’re still a long way off.”
Can an outstanding hitter deliberately steer the direction of a batted ball?
The answer is: to a certain degree, yes.
The way I manufacture foul balls is essentially the same principle. So—while this is entirely my own method—if you intentionally twist the swing path so that it meets the pitch’s trajectory at a calculated angle, you can guide the ball’s direction well enough.
Of course, what was about to happen was absolutely not intentional.
Whoooosh!!
I’m only human. After the continuous brushback pitches I got a little excited, and my swing path wobbled just a fraction.
CRAAACK!!
The swing packed with power sent the ball screaming like a bullet—unintentionally—straight back at the pitcher.
If he makes a spectacular play here…
I’ll clap and nod in approval. A baseball player settling things with baseball is enough, right?
THWACK!!
“AAAAAGH!!!”
Judging by the bird-like scream Kwak Jun-hyeong let out as he collapsed, that wasn’t going to happen.
After touching first base I put on my most startled expression and sprinted toward the mound.
Kwak Jun-hyeong lay on the ground clutching his left calf. I felt truly, deeply sorry for this completely unintended situation.
“Jun-hyeong!”
We were the same age, so casual speech was fine.
“You okay? It wasn’t on purpose. I’m sorry!”
“Ugh… uuugh.”
Before the Stars players rushing over could reach him, I leaned in and whispered into his ear.
“So why’d you do it.”
“You… you son of a—”
“Ah! I’m so, so sorry!”
Think it’s too much? They started it.
There’s a saying, isn’t there?
If the other side hates you—make damn sure you give them a reason to.
Bottom of the ninth.
With the final offensive inning approaching, the Stars’ manager was in despair.
Just moments earlier he had received word that Kwak Jun-hyeong had been diagnosed with a fractured calf.
Bad luck. Or rather—
“Karma, maybe.”
The kid had thrown a beanball. If it hadn’t been mid-game, the manager himself would have been the first to explode over that cowardly act.
—“That bastard… that bastard did it on purpose! He fucking aimed for me!”
Even after getting hurt, Kwak Jun-hyeong still hadn’t come to his senses. As if Gong Ji-hoo would deliberately target someone’s calf.
Whether such a thing was even possible was secondary. Looking at Gong Ji-hoo’s thoroughly flustered face, the odds that it was intentional were low.
“Haa…”
Even after the universally despised Kwak Jun-hyeong left the mound with an injury, the Rhinos players still seemed far from satisfied.
“That senior got ejected for nothing…”
Their core player Gong Ji-hoo had been beaned, and the manager who led the team, Dong Sang-guk, had been tossed as well. It was only natural.
The scoreboard read:
Incheon Stars 0 : 10 Daegu Rhinos.
A miraculous comeback in the bottom of the ninth? He had never even imagined such a thing. But still—
“Bringing Oh Jin-muk out in a ten-run game… is that even legal…”
BOOOOM!!!!
A sound like a cannon shell exploding rolled through the stadium. The pitch buried deep on the left-handed batter’s inner half clocked
165 km/h.
Naturally it wasn’t a hit-by-pitch, but anyone could see it was a retaliatory brushback.
While the batter dropped his bat and tried to calm his racing heart, Oh Jin-muk raised a hand to signal it hadn’t been intentional. Of course, the gesture was utterly half-hearted.
Ha… this is just too much.
The Stars’ manager could only wait for the game to end as quickly as possible, silently cursing Kwak Jun-hyeong, whose return timeline was still completely unknown.