Bam!
A team with a long history carries just as many jinxes. Not the personal superstitions of individual players — the kind that belong to the franchise itself.
Take the most famous example: the Busan Swallows' "Welsh Corgi Day."
And the Daegu Rhinos — a franchise that, when it came to pure institutional pedigree, stood as one of KBO's twin pillars right alongside the Swallows — were no different.
"Still, we should at least make the postseason this year…"
That was what Jang Tae-wook had said after winning the home opener. I hadn't realized it at the time, but the man was practically a jinx fundamentalist.
"It's not a jinx, it's science. When you've got ten years of data stacked up, you can't just call it a superstition!"
The reason Jang Tae-wook had declared this season's postseason berth a lock came down to a jinx attached to Rhinos Park — the Rhinos' home stadium, one of the more recently built parks in the KBO.
Ever since Rhinos Park opened, every team that won its home opener there had gone on to make the postseason.
The Rhinos themselves had only reaped the benefits of that jinx once — last year. The funny part was that until five years ago, the Rhinos Park jinx had been something else entirely: the team that wins the home opener advances to the Korean Series.
In other words, they were forcibly keeping a jinx alive that had already been broken five years earlier — just by downgrading it from Korean Series to postseason.
Anyway. I wasn't so socially tone-deaf that I was going to say something like, "What kind of jinx is that?" Still…
"Ah… we're losing today's game."
Even so, this was a bit much.
The Daegu Rhinos could not win six in a row.
Their last six-game winning streak, roughly speaking, had come before the Suwon Wizards even existed. That was well over a decade ago. And so the jinx had calcified into something like an official rule: the Daegu Rhinos do not win six straight.
A jinx like that drained the fight out of the players before the game even started.
"Today's game is probably a no-go…"
"Honestly, it's a little disorienting."
If you opened the season with five straight wins and sat alone in first place, overflowing confidence was the normal response, wasn't it?
"Of course it's disorienting."
Kang Ho-san nodded.
"But stick around this team for a couple years and you'll get it."
Last year alone, they'd made three runs at a six-game streak. All of them failed.
The truth was, six consecutive wins were never easy. But when the same pattern repeated for more than a decade… well, you got the idea.
"And this team's got more hometown guys than most regional clubs, so it hits even harder."
"Haa…"
So the jinx felt heavier because they'd watched it as fans long before they ever put on the uniform? Still.
"Jinxes exist to be broken, don't they?"
Against a team that was overwhelmingly rated weaker than us on paper, shrinking back like this just didn't sit right with me.
The Daejeon Powders.
Last year, by their own standards, they'd pulled off a miracle run — finishing third in the regular season. But right before that, they'd finished dead last two seasons in a row, the undisputed weakest team in the KBO. At least they hadn't managed three straight last-place finishes.
Three consecutive last-place finishes? Was that even a team?
Endless rebuilding. A front office that shouted "This year is different" before every season. A roster that could only bow their heads and apologize when the season ended. And fans who still sent love their way, whispering, "Maybe next year will be different."
For nearly twenty years, that same loop had played on repeat at the Daejeon Powders.
Last season had been different. Breakout performances from players whose potential finally detonated, combined with a perfect foreign-player lottery, had carried them to third place and a postseason berth — a glorious year. For the Daejeon Powders, 2024 had been that kind of season. Which was exactly why Powders fans had such enormous expectations for this year.
So why was a team that had finished above the Rhinos last season now being rated the weakest club in the league?
The reason was simple.
"They all left…"
Those breakout players? Most of them had transferred to other teams. The problem was that their potential had bloomed far too late — right as they hit free agency. That was the side effect of a rebuilding philosophy built on "draft them and raise them in-house."
And the foreign players who'd carried them last season? They'd performed so spectacularly in the KBO that every last one of them had gone back to America.
In the end, every reason they'd been able to hold a high ranking last year was gone. The old "weakest team" label was back, and inevitable. They hadn't even filled the vacancies.
"Did they blow the entire budget on the new stadium?"
That was how little the Daejeon Powders had moved this offseason. Which meant, in every way that mattered, they were the perfect opponent for breaking a jinx that had tormented the Rhinos for years.
"Come on, you think we never faced teams like this before? And it still didn't work, okay?"
The other players didn't see it that way.
"Hmm…"
The top of the second inning was over in a blink. The score sat at 0–0. Both sides were locked in a tight battle, but our dugout atmosphere was still strangely deflated.
It wasn't a lack of effort. It was more like they were playing with a "if we lose, it can't be helped" mindset. I didn't like it. Of course, I was one to talk — I'd gone down on strikes in my first at-bat.
"It's been a while."
A strikeout really had been a long time coming. Probably my first of the season. The pitcher's stuff hadn't been perfect, either. Compared to the elite arms I'd faced so far, he was thoroughly ordinary. And yet I'd still struck out, so for a moment even I nearly slumped into thinking, Is this jinx actually real?
I needed a partner. Someone who could help break the jinx.
At first I thought of Garcia, our foreign hitter. Like me, he should have been less susceptible to a Rhinos-specific superstition. But all I got was—
"No…"
—and a fresh reminder that foreign guys were often even more superstitious than the locals.
Anyone else…?
Pop!!
"Strike!"
Pop!!
"Strike!"
Pop!!
"Swinging strike three!"
Three pitches, three strikes. Sim Ji-hwan — whose rotation had gotten tangled for one reason or another, making this his first appearance of the game — was dealing.
Tick!
"Out!"
And after that—
Crack!
"Out!"
—he was clean. Eyes full of fire. A perfect shutdown through two innings. Watching Sim Ji-hwan, I thought:
"Found him."
I'd found my partner for breaking the jinx.
"Good work out there~"
I walked over to Sim Ji-hwan myself — but I didn't say anything like You're my partner now. He was pitching brilliantly, but this was his first big-league start of the year, and I had no interest in loading psychological pressure onto him.
I'm just thinking this for my own peace of mind, anyway.
It worked. I stepped into the box for my second at-bat feeling freer than I had the first time. No one on base.
"…"
The Powders catcher ignored my greeting entirely and started exchanging signs with his pitcher. I knew he was the quiet type, but this went past quiet into just plain rude.
Hold it together, buddy.
I was pretty sure he was my junior. For a second, the Confucian dragon inside me nearly woke up.
Pop!!
"Strike!"
In the past, catcher had been rated the hardest position to truly master. There was so much a catcher had to manage — not just hitting. Leading the pitcher. Holding runners. Toy with the batter. Fool the umpire.
Of course, these days the introduction of the ABS zone had rendered framing meaningless, and coaches calling pitches from the bench had become common enough that catchers sometimes got dismissed as glorified backstops. At least, that didn't seem to apply to the Powders' catcher. His eyes never once drifted toward the Powders dugout, and he was still framing pitches even though it no longer meant anything.
Probably…
Catcher pride, huh…
It sounded like a dig, but it was admiration. Kang Ho-san had once complained that catchers with real pride in the position barely existed anymore.
"Back in my day… you couldn't even be a catcher without pride! But these kids nowadays… ABS is ruining catchers!"
The same man had then confessed that starting last year, he'd put his faith in ABS and started chasing his dream of becoming a KBO rice-bowl artisan.
Hmm…
The battery kept exchanging signs. After grabbing a first-pitch strike, the second pitch came in—
Pop!!
"Ball."
—an off-speed pitch that missed the zone. This at-bat was unfolding so identically to my first one that it felt like déjà vu. A catcher leading the pitcher on his own, without bench direction. Still…
Inexperience, maybe…
He didn't have the years under his belt yet, and the lack of adaptability showed. Because the third pitch, with the count at 1–1—
Whooosh!!
—came in on the exact same location as the first at-bat.
I'm not a pure guess-hitter, but…
A swing when you already know what's coming is always going to produce a cleaner result than one when you don't.
CRAAACK!!
A perfect result.
The bat spun from my hands as I flipped it and took off for first.
It's gone.
I tagged first and looked up to confirm the ball clearing the wall…
"What the hell is that?"
The launch angle had been solid. At Rhinos Park — hell, even at Wizards Park — that ball clears the fence with room to spare. But what I saw was a ball that smacked the very top of the wall and dropped back onto the field.
An eight-meter fence. The new landmark of Powderz Ballpark, a wall that called the Green Monster in Boston to mind, erased my home run and flaunted its own existence.
"Tch."
I clicked my tongue and kept running for the next base. The fact that I'd sprinted full-out just in case turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I hit second, turned my head again to track the ball, and—
"Whoa…"
—nearly slipped. Because the right fielder, lunging for the carom off the wall, and the center fielder, racing over to cover—
Bam!
—slammed into each other and went tumbling across the grass. Anyone watching that would have felt the same jolt of disbelief, the same momentary blankness. Thanks to that, I didn't stop at second. I kept going for third.
For a second I even considered making a break for home, but—
Close, but no.
—the right fielder scrambled up fast, gathered the ball, and threw. I pulled up.
There would be plenty of chances left. Still… jinx or no jinx, if we lost to a team putting on a performance like this, it would be downright humiliating.
That was the thought that settled in.