Mutual Aid
You can’t fight what you were born as.
No matter how many free-agency revolutions come and go, no matter how many shiny new swing mechanics take over the game, the wall of pure physical talent stays right where it is.
Agumon can evolve all it wants—it’ll still be a lizard. It never turns into a wolf.
Which is just a long way of saying that no matter how much a ttuk-ttak-i grows, becoming a true power hitter is almost impossible. Plenty of guys bulk up in the off-season chasing extra-base power and watch their entire game fall apart.
And when you stack a contact hitter against a slugger in the popularity contest, the slugger usually wins. There’s a reason people call the home run the flower of baseball.
But the game has always had its great contact hitters—guys who leaned into their strengths so hard they carved their names into history. And those guys? They often ended up more beloved than the sluggers.
Jang Tae-wook had every chance to become that kind of contact hitter, at least inside the KBO. His foundation was rock-solid from the start.
A pure-blood franchise player for the storied Daegu Rhinos. The kind of loyalty that made him turn down better free-agency offers just to stay. Shortstop by trade, and a clean defender at that. Honestly, it would be weirder if he wasn’t popular.
Kang Ho-san and I give him endless shit for being a pure contact guy, but take the home runs out of the equation and his bat is more than solid. Five home runs in a season and people start whispering about PEDs, yet every year he rolls out a .300 average like it’s the bare minimum and uses those quick feet to turn singles into doubles without breaking a sweat.
I’m not a huge fan of the running game, but he steals a ton of bases and does it at a high success rate. If Ryu Hyun-seo didn’t play the same position, Tae-wook probably would have a Golden Glove or two by now.
More than anything, though, Jang Tae-wook is—exactly as I’ve said a hundred times—a guy who plays baseball in the most infuriating way possible.
He works counts with a sharp eye. He fouls off unhittable pitches with elite contact. And after that endless, grinding battle…
CRAAACK!!
…when the pitcher finally grooves one, he strokes a clean base hit like it’s the easiest thing in the world. The kind of at-bat that makes opposing pitchers mutter that they’d rather just give up a home run and get it over with. That’s the baseball Jang Tae-wook plays. That’s the baseball he has to play.
And that’s the baseball the fans want from him.
—WAAAAAAAAAH!!!
Rhinos fans roared as Tae-wook worked a twelve-pitch battle and finally punched a single the other way to reach base.
Look at him. He’s having the time of his life.
Good thing he didn’t get greedy for extra-base hits just to chase All-Star votes.
Still… Ji-han’s got the edge.
Park Ji-han was a legitimate 20-20 threat. And his background wasn’t exactly light either. Sure, he played for the unfashionable Suwon Wizards, but he was a Busan kid—Swallows fans were already singing the old hometown songs for him. Everyone knew he’d started playing because of Ryu Hyun-seo, so Irons fans liked him too. Plus he was one of the face-of-the-draft guys from the 2020 class.
Of course, I had zero intention of telling Tae-wook any of that.
You never know.
If hyung suddenly awakens and goes nuclear, he might still win.
When two guys have equally strong backstories, it comes down to pure personal popularity—and the fastest way to jack that up is putting up numbers. And if Tae-wook goes nuclear, that helps me too.
“Appreciate the hard work~”
The Powderz catcher still refused to acknowledge the greeting. I didn’t know his name. Didn’t care enough to look at the scoreboard either. I wasn’t about to go out of my way for someone who couldn’t be bothered with basic manners.
Pitcher already looks gassed.
Twelve pitches ending in a hit will do that to a guy. And Jang Tae-wook’s particular brand of misery didn’t stop once he reached base.
POP!!
“Safe!”
He scrambled back to first on the pickoff attempt, stood up, brushed the dirt off his uniform, and grinned as he stretched the lead even wider.
POP!!
“Safe!”
Another pickoff.
POP!!
“Safe!”
And another.
The pitcher kept throwing over like he’d forgotten the plate even existed. Watching it, I casually scratched the top of my helmet with the bat.
Looked meaningless. But little things like that get under a pitcher’s skin.
Finally he took a long breath, set, and came home.
WHOOSH!!
Missed.
No—wait.
POP!!
“Ball.”
A pitchout, clear of the zone. The catcher immediately looked to first, then saw Tae-wook standing on the bag laughing and decided throwing was pointless.
A pitchout designed purely to keep Tae-wook honest.
In a situation like this, throwing a tantrum about “How dare you ignore the best hitter in the KBO, me, Gong Ji-hoo” would have been pure stupidity. There was a reason I’d told Tae-wook to just keep doing what he always did. This exact moment was the plan.
I’m the one standing in the box, but…
The previous hitter had just ground out a twelve-pitch single, and that same guy turns into a forty-steal threat the second he reaches base. So no matter how good I am…
WHOOSH!!
…the battery still has to worry more about Jang Tae-wook than about me. That’s just how human brains work.
A clean fastball right down the middle. Throw anything soft and you’re basically gifting Tae-wook second base. What the Powderz battery forgot while they were busy getting hypnotized by Tae-wook’s particular brand of baseball was simple:
CRAAAAACK!!
I hit most pitches well.
Fastballs? I hit those really well.
The ball sailed over the eight-meter wall like it wasn’t even there. I flipped the bat, clapped my hands once in pure satisfaction, and started the trot.
Nice work, hyung.
Jang Tae-wook was an excellent RBI slave and an even better setup man. So I hoped he’d keep working hard—for his own All-Star vote lead and for my own hitting.
Wasn’t that the definition of mutual aid?
Better than that ugly saying about the bear doing all the tricks while the human takes the money. Mutual aid fits way better.
Yeah. That was the right way to put it.
Tae-wook’s damage wasn’t limited to the first at-bat.
Second time up, the battery—still haunted by that twelve-pitch war—tried to get ahead early by jamming a pitch into the zone.
Tick.
A perfectly placed surprise bunt dropped into the one spot the Powderz defense couldn’t react to in time. By the time the catcher fielded it, Tae-wook was already standing on first.
And of course the next man up was Gong Ji-hoo.
The Powderz battery found themselves in almost the exact same headache as the first inning. The catcher ran through every possible pitch combination in his head, then let out a long, heavy sigh.
“Haaah…”
Gong Ji-hoo wasn’t going to chase a mediocre off-speed pitch, and Jang Tae-wook’s legs on first were still a constant threat. But going back to the fastball…
He already took me deep once.
This wasn’t even a choice between two options. It was a situation with no good options at all.
Damn it.
After a long moment the catcher put down the sign.
WHOOSH!!
A breaking ball that dropped out of the zone. The odds of Gong Ji-hoo biting were tiny, but the memory of that first-inning home run was still too fresh. He had no other choice.
Except…
POP!!
“Ball.”
Gong Ji-hoo didn’t bite.
And the runner they were so worried about took off for second the instant the ball left the pitcher’s hand.
WHOOSH!!
The catcher transferred and fired, but—
Shhhk.
“Safe!”
—he never had a chance against a Jang Tae-wook who had decided to go.
Scoring position in the blink of an eye.
Yeah… baseball really is still “pitching and defense first, then the bats.”
Standing in the box, Gong Ji-hoo found himself quoting the old saying.
If we keep this up, I’m definitely Player of the Game, right?
On second base, Jang Tae-wook was already rehearsing his postgame interview.
Should I just walk him…?
Behind the plate, the catcher was seriously considering the intentional free pass. He was the type who believed pitch selection belonged entirely to the catcher—full of that classic “catcher high”—so he glanced toward the dugout. Naturally, no one gave him any help.
“Tch.”
He clicked his tongue hard and made the call.
Just attack him.
Gong Ji-hoo was a great hitter. But at the end of the day he was still a hitter. Ten at-bats, four hits. That was the math.
Yeah. Gong Ji-hoo is a piece of trash who can’t even hit .500.
He forced the thought into place, visited the mound, and told his pitcher to throw with confidence while he himself handled the careful part.
“Huh? What does that even mean?”
The pitcher had no idea what he was talking about, but—
“Just throw it like you mean it. I’ll take care of the careful approach.”
—he nodded at the catcher’s steady voice. Gong Ji-hoo might have hated the guy for being rude, but the Powderz pitchers genuinely followed him. He had real leadership.
Except leadership only goes so far.
WHOOSH!!
No matter how much a good catcher pumps up his pitcher, almost nobody throws loose and free with Jang Tae-wook on second and Gong Ji-hoo in the box. And the catcher wasn’t a wizard who could magically make the ball do what he wanted.
Besides…
CRAAACK!!
Gong Ji-hoo might have been a piece of trash who couldn’t hit .500, but he sure as hell wasn’t a piece of trash who missed mistakes.
Another ball rocketing toward Daejeon’s Green Monster. This time, though, the launch angle wasn’t quite high enough.
CLANG!
It caromed off the wall.
Tae-wook scored from second.
Shhhk.
“Safe!”
And the empty second base was claimed by a sliding Gong Ji-hoo.
Once again the one-two punch lived up to their new nickname: the self-sufficient table-setters.
First place versus tenth place. The game stayed comfortably one-sided from start to finish. Among all the Rhinos who had good nights, two stood out:
Gong Ji-hoo, always the default Player of the Game candidate, and Jang Tae-wook, who went a perfect four-for-four.
But—
“Ji-hoo. They’re only doing one Player of the Game interview today.”
“Yeah? Who is it?”
“You.”
Just like Kang Ho-san said, the interview belonged to Gong Ji-hoo. Four-for-four was ridiculous, sure—but Gong Ji-hoo had gone three-for-four with a homer and five RBIs. That was the kind of line that ends discussions.
“Ah…”
The most disappointed person in the stadium was, of course, Jang Tae-wook, who had been mentally preparing his interview speech since the first inning.
“Uh… sorry, hyung.”
Gong Ji-hoo still had a defense ready.
“It’s not like I could just decide to go hitless, right?”
In the end, Tae-wook had done all the dirty work and the “one-click freeloader” Gong Ji-hoo had walked off with the sweet fruit.
“Want me to pass the message along for you?”
Feeling a little guilty, Gong Ji-hoo offered, but Tae-wook shook his head.
“No. This is something I have to do myself. You said it works better when I say it in person, right?”
“True. It only hits right if it’s the usual cocky Jang Tae-wook making a heartfelt plea.”
“Exactly. Tomorrow’s Player of the Game interview is mine.”
Whether that would actually happen was anyone’s guess. But Jang Tae-wook’s resolve was absolute.