Team Color
Betting is the Rhinos' team color.
Not in any negative sense.
In a pretty positive one, actually.
At the very least, nothing as absurd as the team's core getting caught gambling on the road right before the Korean Series, getting scratched from the roster, and settling for runner-up had ever happened here.
As if a team like that could even exist.
The Rhinos players simply enjoyed perfectly legal bets.
And only ones related to baseball, at that.
How wholesome could a wager get?
It was a tradition that stretched back years, they said. Not some duelists from elsewhere—just a team that, the moment they got bored, would charge in with "Let's settle this with baseball."
That was the Daegu Rhinos.
No wonder my live batting session with Sim Ji-hwan during spring camp had somehow turned into a bet before I knew it.
Just look at right now.
"Hyung, what are you even..."
Kim Young-su only took issue with the fact that I'd called myself hyung.
"If you called me Gong Ji-hoo-nim, maybe I'd let it slide."
"What?"
"Nothing."
I must have misheard him.
"Anyway, want to make a bet with me?"
"A bet... Me? With you? Does that even make sense?"
"Why wouldn't it?"
"Still..."
Apparently the idea of betting against me felt a little too heavy for him.
In that case.
"Chicken?"
Time to break out the finishing move. If he ran after hearing that, I'd accept it. I'd just go straight to Manager Dong Sang-guk myself and tell him I was playing third. Kim Young-su could stay a backup for the rest of his life.
"What's the bet about?"
As expected—the magic word that made no man ever back down. "Chicken" worked wonders.
"Right, so..."
Truth was, I hadn't thought about what the bet would even be. I'd just blurted something out to get Kim Young-su's form back—the guy who was well on his way to becoming the second Minor League Yeopo Gong Ji-hoo.
"...You had nothing in mind?"
"No, that's not it."
Roughly speaking.
"We should keep it to tomorrow's game, right? No need to drag a bet out."
"Yeah."
"Then... Player of the Game?"
"That's way too stacked in your favor."
The guy who got named Player of the Game as naturally as breathing. That was me.
"True enough."
"You've got to factor in the gap between us at least a little. Otherwise you'll just win every time."
"That so..."
I wanted to yell You spineless little—! but the gap between me and Kim Young-su really was that wide. Firefly in front of the sun, basically.
"What do we do... Hits? No. Ji-hoo draws intentional walks a lot. Then on-base? Same problem..."
Kim Young-su muttered to himself, turning over possible bets in his head.
Of course. The guy's a Rhinos fanboy through and through...
Jang Tae-wook went crazy for bets too. Being from Daegu, Kim Young-su was cut from the same cloth. Whether either of them would agree with that assessment was another matter.
Still.
Even though he'd been whining right up until today's game that starting was impossible, he was already treating tomorrow's start as a given. Watching him, I smiled in satisfaction.
Just as planned.
The reason Kim Young-su refused to start was simple. He thought the rightful owner of third base—me—was just too damn good.
I wasn't sure exactly where he ranked me as a player, but one thing was certain: he didn't see me as just another draft classmate. So.
I suggested the bet so he'd focus on something other than the pressure.
"Ah... this is tough. I can't even get a feel for what kind of bet to make. It really is Gong Ji-hoo, huh."
It had worked better than I expected. The faint glaze in his eyes was even worse than Jang Tae-wook's. I got the weird feeling I'd accidentally created something from the abyss.
"Then let's do it like this. First..."
Either way, it was a good sign. He was already thinking about giving me a penalty while fully acknowledging how massive the gap between us was.
Which meant that, even so, he was thinking about beating me.
Of course.
"If I lose the bet..."
I had zero intention of losing either.
Bottom of the first.
First at-bat.
"Appreciate the hard work~"
I offered the usual greeting. The catcher who answered with something completely pointless was Lee Mun-woo, the guy I'd faced to death since last year.
"You must've been exhausted playing the outfield for the first time in a while yesterday. Why didn't you just rest instead of coming out again?"
"Well... it didn't feel that hard."
"But you ran around a ton, didn't you?"
True enough.
"Honestly, I never get infielders. How can they claim the infield is harder than the outfield, right?"
"Uh, I'm an infielder too?"
"A guy who was an outfielder until last year calling himself an infielder? Please."
"..."
I'd gone from outfielder to infielder, and from infielder to outfielder.
Last year I'd called myself a member of the Magician Corps; this year blue blood suddenly ran in my veins. That was just how the world worked. Nobody knew where a person would end up.
So I had no intention of sticking my foot into this kind of pointless measuring contest. Especially not in front of Lee Mun-woo.
This old man had moved teams four times as a journeyman—he had connections across the entire league. And his mouth was a little too loose. There was no telling how my words might get twisted on the way out.
"You're thinking something extremely disrespectful right now."
"Ah. Caught me."
Maybe I needed to learn a proper poker face.
Should I ask Oh Jin-muk about it?
Honestly, that guy scared even me.
Anyway.
The reason Lee Mun-woo suddenly brought this up was pretty simple. First, of course, to break the concentration of the batter standing in the box—me. Second...
"Just admit it. Catcher defense is the hardest and you're just saying that because you're jealous, right?"
"Ah. Caught me."
After meeting every starting catcher across all ten KBO teams, I'd found one common thread among men who otherwise differed in personality, performance, and age.
Namely.
"Catchers are peasants. Peasants. It's fucking hard."
They all believed no position was tougher than catcher. A kind of catcher sensitivity, maybe.
The senior catcher who first preached the Catcher Peasant Theory was basically a pioneer to them. Of course.
"I admit catching is hard."
It was hard to deny that catcher was the toughest position in baseball.
"But hearing that from someone who's been living the rotation life and milking it for all it's worth is a little ironic."
"That's only starting this year!"
Manager Dong Sang-guk rarely changed the starting lineup. The only reason the Rhinos' lineup had shifted since yesterday was the variable of Jeong Su-hyun's injury.
"Starters are starters for a reason."
From spring camp through the exhibition games, the starters had been locked in through competition. Why rotate players for no reason? That was Dong Sang-guk's logic.
Not wrong, exactly...
Under that approach, the position that inevitably suffered most was catcher. Even Kang Ho-san, rated as having the best durability in the KBO, struggled with it. Though he himself said he'd rather play even a little.
Outstanding durability was one of the things that jacked up a player's market value. Who would hand a ten-billion-won FA contract to a glass body that couldn't even last half a season?
"Senior, you seem pretty happy Manager Dong Sang-guk left, huh?"
"Huh? Well, I don't know about that."
Lee Mun-woo whistled poorly and tried to change the subject.
"Jeong-hu hyung doesn't seem to like the current manager much either."
"...For real?"
"I'll make sure to pass your thoughts along to our manager too, Senior."
"Hey!"
Thwack!!
"Ball."
A breaking ball that dropped right in front of the zone.
This senior really is a sly old fox.
A catcher who'd moved teams four times. That meant he was a catcher who was always in demand.
Just like now—looking flustered by my words while, in his head, choosing the best pitch to fool me. Lee Mun-woo was a capable catcher who excelled at the chess match with opposing hitters.
Then again, how many starting-caliber catchers aren't?
The count was two balls. A perfect hitter's count. I glanced at the empty bases.
First...
Whoosh!!
A cutter coming into the zone to grab a strike.
Crack!!
I swung right through it.
Tch.
A grounder rolling fast between short and third. I glanced at the ball heading deep, then sprinted full-out toward the base.
Tap.
The time I reached the bag was clearly faster than the time it took for the shortstop—who'd shown excellent range—to field it and fire to first.
Thwack!!
"Safe!"
"Hoo..."
I let out a deep breath, raised one finger toward the bench, and wiggled it.
One down.
The terms of the bet were simple.
"It's like territory capture."
Over the same number of plate appearances, whoever occupied more bases won.
Of course there was a penalty. Kim Young-su started with five bases already in the bank.
On the surface, yeah, I'm massively screwed.
Five bases was a gap you couldn't close even with a home run. The kind of handicap that made anyone go, "Ah, this is rigged."
But.
I figured I could handle it. There was the basic talent gap between me and Kim Young-su, and more than that—
Gong Ji-hoo again?
—just like the Wolves fans packing the away section at Rhinos Park would say while clutching their heads, I'd been an absolute monster against the Wolves since last year. I'd become the poster boy for "Wolves Natural Born Killer."
They're still not really watching me.
Even with a big lead, the Wolves battery barely paid attention to me as a runner. With a career total of one stolen base, the moment I became a baserunner I vanished from everyone's radar.
Still...
I slid.
"Safe!"
Unlike the Jaguars' green battery that had completely ignored me, the Wolves battery wasn't leaving me completely alone. A sharp pickoff throw sent me diving back into first.
Hmm...
I shortened my lead a little from before. Like the pickoff had gotten under my skin and I couldn't help it.
That's enough.
The moment the pitcher threw from the slide step—
Thud-thud-thud.
—I broke for second.
Whoosh!!
Before the catcher's throw could arrive—
Tap.
"Safe!"
—I touched second base.
Infield single, then a steal. At this point people would start calling me a power-speed threat, wouldn't they? Lately my speed had been getting forgotten under the home-run lead.
That's two.
Standing on the bag, I rose, brushed off the dirt, and held up two fingers.
Unlike Kim Young-su, who was born a dump truck, I had wheels too. It wasn't like I'd only been counting on my bat when I decided this bet wasn't that bad for me.
Today I unlocked the stolen bases I'd been sealing away myself.
The bet was that important.
Posting an unaccompanied dance video on the team YouTube channel... There's no way I'm losing that.
Even if I'd turned into an attention whore, I still had shame.
Top of the third.
Ninth batter Kim Young-su stepped in as the leadoff hitter.
Maybe they'd gotten careless after yesterday's strikeout storm. A mistake fastball floated right down the middle.
Crack!!
Kim Young-su squared it up clean. The ball barely cleared the closest fence at Rhinos Park—the one some people called a bandbox.
The game score was 2–0 in our favor.
But the bet score was 2–9, and I was getting crushed.
Even so, I didn't give up.
I can't lose like this.
Twisting a terrible future into something favorable.
Wasn't that exactly what a regressed man was supposed to do?