The Jeil Civil War
I suppose I should talk about my high school days for a moment.
High school Gong Ji-hoo was pretty ordinary.
He wasn't the coward from before his regression who was so terrified of the baseball field that he was afraid to even pick up a bat. Nor was he the guy after regression who loved baseball so much that a grin would spread across his face every time he grabbed a bat.
Just your average baseball club student you'd see anywhere.
In fact, the reason he joined the baseball team was ridiculously simple.
They said if you joined the baseball team, you'd get more food.
The orphanage's support wasn't exactly lacking, but for a high schooler at that age of constant hunger, free meals were a big deal.
So I joined the baseball team, and there I was a pitcher, shortstop, and outfielder all in one.
Nothing particularly unusual about that. Most baseball players probably have similar experiences.
In high school, the rule of thumb is that the good players pitch, play shortstop, and fill in as outfielders when short on people. Even Lee Dae-beom played shortstop back in high school, apparently.
Anyway, it was only after entering high school that I realized I had talent for baseball. Because that was when I officially started playing.
Of course, there were those suspicious uncles who came to volunteer at the orphanage and loved baseball way too much, saying in their awkward way, "Hey~ you should become a baseball player!"
But who takes seriously something said during a game of catch? You just think they're saying nice things to a poor orphan.
So, blooming with talent, I started getting some playing time as a starter from my freshman year in high school.
"Hey, you can hit pretty well? But you probably won't make it as a pitcher later. Your pitches suck."
That was when I met Kim Jae-sang.
No matter how outstanding a player I was, becoming a starter from freshman year was still pretty unexpected.
No coach leaves perfectly good upperclassmen on the bench to start some green kid. Especially not a high school baseball coach whose own performance is measured by how many players get drafted.
It wasn't as if I had the kind of skill that could devour high school baseball either. Even a talented kid doesn't start tearing through the league a few months after properly beginning.
In the end, the school was the problem.
Jeil High School. An utterly ordinary name. There must be at least thirty schools with that name across the country.
It was a fairly well-known high school in Pyeongtaek with nearly forty years of history, but the baseball team was another story.
Just four years. When I enrolled, the Jeil High baseball team had only been founded four years earlier. It was brand new.
A baseball player from Jeil High? Only Kim Phil-jung. And even he was bouncing around the second team.
Promising prospects? The capital region was packed with prestigious baseball high schools. No real prospect was going to end up at a place like Jeil High's baseball team.
Awards? They were nothing more than a rest stop in every tournament, including the four major high school competitions.
The weakest of the weak teams. That was Jeil High baseball.
Apparently that was also why they scouted me for the team.
They were short on players to field a game but no students were coming, so the coach was wandering the school when he spotted some tall kid face-down asleep on a desk. He figured the kid clearly wasn't going to study, so he tried recruiting him—and the kid agreed right away, leaving even the coach speechless.
But even in a bottom-tier team like that, Kim Jae-sang was different.
A complete catcher. The top prospect who had been called that since middle school.
Everyone in the baseball world wondered why Kim Jae-sang had enrolled at Jeil High.
Kim Jae-sang's answer was:
"Because it's close to home."
Everyone thought it was a joke, but that bastard was a hundred percent serious. Kim Jae-sang was that kind of guy.
"Senior, don't give advice when you suck at baseball. You'll ruin a kid who's doing fine."
His mouth was a little rude, sure.
"Hey, seriously don't pitch. What good is a fastball if you can't throw a single proper breaking ball?"
But he was the one who helped me a lot when I first started baseball.
"I saw you at the Blue Dragon Cup—there's nobody who hits like you. So why didn't you get drafted? I don't get it."
A friend.
Even five years later, the only baseball players from Jeil High School are still just Kim Phil-jung, me, and Kim Jae-sang.
"Kim Jae-sang~ Home run!"
The young Swallows fan who had been busy booing me until now stopped the jeers and started cheering for Kim Jae-sang at the plate.
Far away, Kim Jae-sang took his routine and stepped into the batter's box. He stood there blankly, looking like he was in his batting stance and yet not quite. Kim Jae-sang's unique batting form.
The defense had shifted farther back than their usual positions. A defense conscious of the power hitter Kim Jae-sang.
Especially since he was an extreme pull hitter, I, as the left fielder, focused every bit of my attention on his swing.
Thwack!
Lee Eun-soo on the mound threw the ball. A 138 km/h full-effort pitch. Kim Jae-sang simply watched the pitch that barely clipped the zone.
"Strike!"
Unexpectedly, Lee Eun-soo took the early count. Having shed a little of the pressure of facing a power hitter with well over forty home runs, he quickly began his next pitch.
Whooooosh~
Along with the two-seamer, the curveball that had allowed Lee Eun-soo to take the mound as a starter even in the second team. A big-breaking curve dropping from twelve to six tried to fool Kim Jae-sang's timing. But then—
CRAAAAACK!!!
The swing that looked half-hearted at first glance produced a massive crack the moment it connected.
Floating high~
The ball rose with an incredible launch angle.
Tsk.
Watching that ball, I kept backpedaling.
Thud.
Before I knew it, my back hit the fence. But Kim Jae-sang's hit sailed past me and lightly cleared the fence—
"Waaaaaaaah!!!!"
—and landed in the young Swallows fan's glove.
After a flashy bat flip, Kim Jae-sang rounded the bases. He raised one finger.
"Ha, that bastard."
Kim Jae-sang's finger was pointed exactly at me.
Gong Ji-hoo raised his glove high.
Thud.
The ball settled inside that glove.
Kim Jae-sang's next batter produced a similarly massive launch angle, but he wasn't Kim Jae-sang.
An ordinary left-field fly. Gong Ji-hoo casually tossed the ball into the stands and returned to the dugout as the first inning ended.
Two-run homers from both teams in the first inning make the score 2-2! Today's game looks like it's going to be a fierce battle.
What's interesting is the two players who hit those home runs today.
Yes, exactly. Gong Ji-hoo and Kim Jae-sang. The two draft classmates are both from the same Jeil High.
This Jeil High isn't what you'd call a prestigious baseball school. It's even been called one of the weakest high school teams.
In fact, excluding Coach Kim Phil-jung, who has retired and is now coaching the Wizards' second team, there are only two active players from Jeil High: Gong Ji-hoo and Kim Jae-sang.
What an incredible coincidence. The only two active baseball players from Jeil High both hit home runs side by side.
Among baseball fans, when players from the same school face off on different teams, they call it a civil war. So let's keep watching to see if today's game can truly become the 'Jeil Civil War'!
Even with two players like Kim Jae-sang and Gong Ji-hoo, Jeil High had never even reached the Phoenix Flag final—they'd stopped at the round of sixteen. Now that name was starting to stick in the minds of the broadcast crew and baseball fans.
Aside from my home run and Kim Jae-sang's, the game flowed surprisingly smoothly. Since we were in Gyeongsang Province, let's call it chill.
Of course, regulars like Lee Dae-beom got hits and walked, but nothing turned into runs.
"Good work~"
Back at the plate again.
Top of the third. No runners on. One red light on the scoreboard.
Leadoff hitter Lee Seung-ha, who had drawn a walk in his first at-bat, struck out looking this time.
"Ah. They're calling that a strike. Damn machine."
Lee Seung-ha cursed the strict judgment of the machine god known as ABS as he headed back to the dugout. But I don't think badly of this machine god of the baseball world. On the contrary—
A machine is more accurate than a human...
I figure a consistent zone is better than a human umpire's strike zone that suddenly turns into a star shape. At least my strike zone didn't differ much from the ABS zone.
Tap tap.
I deliberately scraped my feet in the batter's box.
"Cough! Hey! What the hell are you doing?"
"Revenge."
Kim Jae-sang, sitting in the catcher's box, inhaled dust and coughed.
"That finger-pointing earlier—that was at me, right?"
"...You noticed?"
"It was way too obvious."
Grinning wide enough to split his face behind the catcher's mask, Kim Jae-sang's expression was clear.
"It's all just to make baseball more fun. My one and only rival has finally come back to life—shouldn't there be at least this much performance?"
"Rival, my ass."
Ever since high school, Kim Jae-sang had called me his rival. Coming from a genius so rude he would trash even seniors when it came to baseball, it didn't feel bad.
"Then give me a good pitch."
"Yeah?"
Kim Jae-sang smacked his lips.
"No, shouldn't you be the one striking out at the plate? That guy's your fan too, you know? Aren't you gonna give some fan service?"
Come to think of it, he'd said something like that in the top of the first.
"Hmm..."
Kim Jae-sang clicked his tongue as I hesitated for a moment.
"Look at this guy stalling when he has no intention of making an out. Umpire! Don't we need to give him a strike here? Let's do it Major League style!"
He spoke to the home plate umpire.
"Both of you quiet down and focus on the game."
In the end, we both got scolded.
"Yes, yes..."
Grumbling, Kim Jae-sang exchanged signs with the pitcher.
The pitcher nodded and took his set position.
He was a good guy. First of all, he was my fan, and he even apologized for a pitch that came a little too far inside.
Whooooosh~
"Ball."
A forkball dropping low. Ridiculously low.
"What the hell is this?"
"Gong Ji-hoo countermeasure."
With that, Kim Jae-sang sent another sign to the pitcher. The next pitch—
Whooooosh~
—was another dropping forkball.
"Ball."
A little higher than the first, but still just below the zone.
"..."
"Yeah, just walk. With a good hitter, you just put him on base~"
And the next pitch—
Thwack!!
"Ball!"
—was a fastball coming in low, below the zone.
"Hoo..."
I sighed, called time, and took a practice swing.
"I told you to just walk. Why are you actually swinging?"
"Hold on."
—Boooooo!!
I enjoyed the home fans' boos, which I was getting a little used to by now.
"Can you turn the lights off a bit?"
"What the hell is this crazy bastard saying."
I'd once read an article about me that said baseball is a mental sport. I tend to agree with that.
After all, the reason I was performing in the first team was because I'd treated my own trauma in my own way. And mental issues aren't just my story.
"I don't know what this Gong Ji-hoo countermeasure is, but if you put the pitcher in a three-ball hole, is that guy's mental going to be okay? A catcher who should know better—why are you doing this?"
Whooooosh!
Another low pitch coming in. But this time—
It barely clipped the strike zone. Which meant—
CRAAAACK!
—it was a pitch I could hit.
A bullet of a line drive flying low. At the same time, I sprinted with everything I had.
First base. The ball that tore through the infield in an instant shot past the right fielder.
Second base. The right fielder fielded the ball that had rolled to the fence. And then—
I saw the right fielder drop the ball as he tried to throw it. Today's game was being played with a 1.5-team roster. Probably a backup player.
The heat of a first-team stadium is an enormous burden for players who aren't used to it. Just like it had been for me in the past.
I could see Kim Jae-sang, who'd thrown off his catcher's mask, pointing at third and yelling. The flustered right fielder grabbed the ball and threw.
From right field to the second baseman. Then quickly relayed from the second baseman to the third baseman. But—
"Safe!"
I was already standing on third.
Far away, Kim Jae-sang, picking up his catcher's mask, was muttering something.
'He actually hits it when you tell him to hit? What the hell is that guy talking about?'
Was this really the Gong Ji-hoo countermeasure that Kim Jae-sang had come up with? It was beyond me.