Swallow Ji-hoo

We're fucked.

That was the conclusion Swallows fans reached without much deliberation.

The Swallows were fucked.

Even though it was still early in the season — barely twenty games played — Swallows fans had already declared the year a write-off, and the reason was simple.

A team that had lost all three of its foreign players had no future. And for a franchise like the Swallows, which had spent years bouncing around the bottom of the standings, that went double.

The exodus started with the foreign hitter. He had lit up spring training with a performance so electric that fans dared to hope this year might be different — only to slip in the shower, crack his tailbone, and leave everyone sighing that this year was exactly the same.

The Swallows front office issued a statement saying only that recovery would take some time — but fans knew exactly what that meant: We have no idea when he'll be back, but we're not releasing him. Just like that, one of the three foreign players vanished from the roster.

Next came the foreign pitcher with the innocent face that looked like it had never thrown a real punch in its life. Proving he had become a true Busan man, he got into a scuffle with a drunk and dropped him with a single haymaker. Unlike the tailbone-cracked hitter, he was released immediately. Violence against a civilian was something no one could defend.

The remaining foreign pitcher was the best of the lot — in the sense that he was simply, purely bad at baseball.

Under normal circumstances, his numbers would have already put him on the chopping block. But the Swallows front office couldn't bring themselves to cut him. After all, finding replacements for the other two foreign players was already nearly impossible. The odds of a team that had completely botched its foreign-player harvest somehow staging a miraculous turnaround? In the eyes of the fans, vanishingly small.

The community even had its own how-to manuals. Swallows fans knew better than anyone how to enjoy a ruined season — they had data accumulated over a span that rivaled the history of the KBO itself.

The Swallows were the only team in the KBO that could truly be said to be living through a dark age. The fans who still poured passionate support into that team deserved every bit of praise — and yet.

Even they got tired. It was only natural. Fortunately, a white-horse-riding superhuman named Kim Jae-sang had appeared and delivered performances that made fans' hearts swell — but baseball isn't a one-man sport, and Kim Jae-sang alone couldn't resurrect the Swallows.

More importantly, Kim Jae-sang just wasn't fun to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠watch.

His hitting made you think, Wow, he makes baseball look easy. If he'd been on a powerhouse team, that would have earned him nothing but endless praise. But Kim Jae-sang was a Swallows player — the franchise's sole star, expected not only to put up elite numbers but to satisfy the fans' dopamine receptors as well.

Why do people watch baseball in the first place? For fun. Whether it's love for a team or support for a player, it all starts with entertainment.

The current Swallows — and Kim Jae-sang — just weren't fun. And so.

Swallows fans turned their eyes to the Rhinos. The Daegu Rhinos — a fellow Gyeongsang Province franchise. The Gamers? Some bastard child trying to sit at the grown-ups' table? Please.

Unlike the Swallows, who had crashed and burned their way out of postseason contention yet again last year, the Rhinos had at least caught a whiff of autumn baseball. And this season—

They were absolutely on fire. And Gong Ji-hoo, more than anyone, was carpet-bombing the league.

The player who, in his first interview after returning from injury last year, had flat-out declared that the Swallows "can't play baseball." The player whom Kim Jae-sang — a man whose name was always preceded by "that rude bastard" — had personally called his rival. The player who had led the Suwon Wizards to a championship, been traded to the Rhinos, and was now making a massive contribution to their grip on first place.

That explosive swing producing monstrous hits. The frequent clowning around. The Swallows fandom he couldn't quite hide.

As far as Swallows fans were concerned, Gong Ji-hoo was a player who belonged with them so perfectly that they practically serenaded him with love songs begging him to join. Of course—

Gong Ji-hoo was absolutely not a Swallows fan. The real reason the protagonist of his first post-regression novel, The Genius Batter Regresses, played for a Busan-based team was simply this: among all the popular KBO franchises, the Swallows were the only one for whom a championship seemed genuinely impossible.

Of course, even if the fans had known that, they wouldn't have stopped singing his praises. Sure, they genuinely wanted Gong Ji-hoo on the Swallows. But more than anything—

He was fun.

So the Swallows fans prepared a special surprise for Gong Ji-hoo — the man they were certain would one day join the Swallows — and unveiled it successfully during his first at-bat.

"Waaaaaah! Gong Ji-hoo! Gong Ji-hoo!"

Of course—

"What the hell. Why are those people like that. That's scary."

Whether Gong Ji-hoo was moved by it remained an open question.

They say hatred that exceeds its limit becomes indistinguishable from love. Maybe the cheers the Swallows fans were directing at me were exactly that.

"Hmph…"

I was surprised. I was bewildered. I even felt a flicker of gratitude. But I still had a job to do — for the Rhinos. Which meant:

CRAAACK!!

Getting hits. Scoring runs.

I drove a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠breaking ball on the outer half deep into the gap, and I coasted into second base. Jang Tae-wook, who had been on base, came home for the first run. The Rhinos took the lead in the top of the first. Naturally, I thought—

There'll be boos now, right?

Reality had other plans.

"Waaaaaah!"

Quieter than when I'd stepped into the box, but still unmistakably cheers.

"Why on earth…?"

I felt a genuinely Lovecraftian sense of dread. And so it went.

In my second at-bat, after a six-pitch battle—

"Ball."

—I drew a walk, and still:

"Waaaaaah!"

In my third at-bat, I lifted the first pitch—

CRAAACK!!

—and smashed a double off the wall, and still:

"Waaaaaah!"

In my fourth at-bat, after a grinding battle—

CRACK!

—I punched a single between the first and second basemen, and still:

"Waaaaaah!"

And even in my final at-bat—

CRAAAAACK!!!

—when I sent one over the wall for a home run:

"Waaaaaah!!"

I got cheers.

It was a bizarre game where I couldn't tell whether I played for the Rhinos or the Swallows. Buoyed by the Swallows fans'… support(?), I put up an absurd line of 4-for-4 with a homer, a walk, and three RBI across five plate appearances.

But the final score:

Busan Swallows 8 : 6 Daegu Rhinos

The team lost.

"Haaah…"

The 2-15 Swallows versus the 13-3 Rhinos. Anyone would have expected the Rhinos to dominate their first matchup. Instead, the result once again proved the old saying: there are no absolutes in baseball.

Today's game was a little rough… Sajik lived up to its reputation.

The cheers of the Sajik faithful — famous as the most passionate fans in the entire KBO — had been directed exclusively at the Swallows and at me. The Rhinos pitchers wilted under that overwhelming wall of noise, their command crumbling as they walked batter after batter. And of course—

CRAAAAACK!!!

Kim Jae-sang was not the kind of player who knocked over a fully set table.

The RBI he produced with that signature lazy swing of his: eight. The same number as the Swallows' final score. You could fairly say the Daegu Rhinos had simply lost to Kim Jae-sang. And yet—

"Ah… that's a shame."

Kim Jae-sang was complaining.

"A guy who just drove in eight runs is disappointed? Have you actually lost it?"

"I've been hearing people call you a record-breaker and a history-smashing hitter lately, so I figured I'd try to set one myself. Not as easy as it looks."

Single-game RBI record, then.

"What's the existing record?"

"Nine."

"Oh… close one."

"Exactly."

Still.

"At the end of the day, my team won, right? Better than being a loser, no?"

"…"

Nothing to say to that.

"If I said something like, 'Yeah well, you're still in tenth and we're in first~' right now, that would be a little classless, wouldn't it?"

"That's classless, Ji-hoo."

Tch.

"We'll just win tomorrow."

"You think tomorrow will be easy?"

"Well…"

Honestly.

"They're a two-win — no, three-win — Swallows team…"

Today's game was basically a minor glitch. Nothing more.

"…"

This time it was Kim Jae-sang who had nothing to say. In the end, all he could manage was:

"Just you wait."

—the kind of line a third-rate villain would deliver.

That night, for the first time in a long while, I checked a community board — and not even the Rhinos' board, but the Busan Swallows fans' community. I swallowed a bitter truth.

"Hmm…"

"So it was voodoo…"

I'd felt a little moved watching the opposing team's fans cheer for me. The Swallows fans had stomped all over my pure heart.