The Number That Came Back

The entry fee was $150—about 210,000 won. A round-trip from Incheon to Phoenix came to 1.6 million, and four days of a room and getting around would take roughly a million more. Tae-oh looked from the calculator screen to his banking app and back. What sat in the account was a little over 3.2 million won, everything he had managed to save across three years of part-time work fitted in around baseball.

Getting there, I can do. The trouble was everything after. Even if he made a team, the independent league didn't open until the middle of May. They would give him a bed and meals. They would not give him anything you could call a paycheck. Six weeks to Opening Day, if I even get in. Four months to the end of the season. All of it without a salary.

He punched the numbers in a few more times. However he ran them, the answer ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠came out the same. Numbers don't lie. Tae-oh closed the application page. …I'll give it up.

Only one thing left to do. Tell his mother he was quitting baseball.

Two days later, the second floor of a worn walk-up in Incheon. Yellow tape ran the length of the stair rail, wound dense along the handhold. By then his mother could no longer see where a step ended, and falling had become an ordinary thing. Tae-oh had wrapped that tape himself, three years ago.

"You're here?"

The voice came from inside before he could even press the bell.

"How did you know?"

"At this hour, you're the only one who comes up these stairs."

His mother, Jung In-sook, was boiling noodles in the narrow kitchen. Her hand found the pot handle without looking, and the salt without looking for that either. Ten years of keeping the same things in the same places.

A baseball broadcast drifted from an old radio beside the table.

Crack!

"It's gone," Tae-oh said, plain as anything, taking the bowl of noodles.

His mother set her chopsticks down.

"How did you know?"

"The sound's different. When it's hit right, the sound comes off clean."

"They sound ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the same to me."

The year Tae-oh turned twelve, his mother's eyes had begun to fail, and fast. From then on he sat beside her and called the games out loud. Ten years of that, and his ears had learned baseball first.

She reached across the table and felt along his face.

"But why are you so hollow under the eyes?"

"I was up late, getting ready for camp."

"However hard it gets, you eat properly."

"I do."

While the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠lie was still in his mouth, his left eye blinked once, all on its own.

"Tae-oh. How many kilometers did you throw today?"

That was the one question he had never lied about.

"One-fifty-six."

"Aigoo. Our boy is still throwing like that."

Still.

The word caught in his throat. He swallowed a mouthful of water. He had to say it now—that he was quitting. He had ridden a bus three hours to say it. What came out was something else.

"Mom."

"Mm?"

"I'm going to America next week."

He was more startled by it than she was.

…What?

"America?"

"The club is sending me. A training program. Something like that."

"Out of all those players, they picked our son?"

"…Yes."

I'm finished. Now I really do have to go.

"That's wonderful. Truly wonderful, Tae-oh."

She held him for a moment, then went into the bedroom and came back with a bankbook.

"Take it."

"What is this?"

"It isn't much."

He pushed it back without opening it.

"Mom, I can't take this. You saved it for your eyes."

"These eyes aren't coming back. A doctor told me that ten years ago."

She pushed the bankbook toward him again.

"But Tae-oh. Today you came up those stairs one step at a time."

His chopsticks stopped.

"Every other time, that child took them two at a time."

…You knew. All of it.

"You don't have to say it."

She set the bankbook in his palm and laid her hand over his.

"…Yes, Mom."

A hard, bright light came into Tae-oh's eyes.

The last seat of the bus back to Jeonju. Only there did he open the bankbook.

He knew what those months had been. A hundred thousand won was a month he'd bought new spikes. Fifty thousand was a month he'd bought a new glove.

Eight years.

He turned his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠phone on and opened the application page again. Somebody's going to call it foolish. A released Futures League player, taking a shot at America. But even so…

He pressed the button to apply.

For Mom, if for nothing else—this time I'll work like it might kill me. And this time, I'll make it.

April 3, nine in the morning, Mesa, Arizona. It was still early, and the heat was already eighty-two. Back home they'd still be in parkas… and out here it's summer.

The Pecos League open tryout camp. Twelve clubs watching from the same seats, and 214 names on the list. Nineteen hours from Incheon through Dallas to Phoenix. He had landed at eleven the night before and slept in a motel that ran fifty-eight dollars a night. My back's still stiff.

"Name?"

The clerk at the table didn't look up from the screen.

"Kang Tae-oh."

"Pro or amateur?"

"I was a developmental player in the Futures League for three years."

"…Released?"

"Yes."

The clerk slid a number slip across.

Check-in order was throwing order. One hundred eighty-seventh out of two hundred fourteen. The ones holding single-digit numbers had been getting ready for this day for months. Show up late, throw late. Just make it a pitch they remember.

Under the shade canopy of the pitchers' waiting area, a mutter of voices reached him.

"Where's that guy from? Japan? Korea?"

"Korea. I heard earlier. He got released."

"A released guy came all the way out here? Must have money to burn. What a waste of a plane ticket."

They were speaking English, and it was hard to follow. Even so, he caught Korea and released. Nothing kind, then.

Fifteen pitches apiece, in number order, off four bullpen mounds. By the time the sun was leaning west, the scouts' section had gone slack. Most of the velocities so far had come in between 88 and 91. A few scouts were already folding their chairs.

"High numbers checked in late. Nothing worth seeing."

"Let's go get a drink."

That was when it happened.

"One-eighty-seven!"

"Here!"

Tae-oh stepped onto the mound. The bullpen catcher behind home plate pushed his mask up.

"You came from Korea, right?"

"…You speak Korean?"

"I'm Korean-American. Oh Jae-min. I'm here working part-time as a bullpen catcher. We're both Korean, so just throw comfortable."

Jae-min opened his mitt dead center. Tae-oh blinked his left eye once. Then the windup.

A sound like leather tearing cracked across the park. The staffer behind the tracking unit yanked his tablet up to his face.

"…96.2?"

"…What?!"

A scout halfway through folding his chair went still. The hardest pitch of the day so far had been 93, and even that had belonged to a twenty-five-year-old who had already held a minor-league contract.

Jae-min pulled the mitt off and shook out his hand, his face saying the sting had gone all the way into the bone. He looked at his palm. …This is not a pitch I'm built to catch. He worked the mitt back on.

"Hyung. How hard did you just throw that?"

"Same as usual."

"…"

Instead of answering, Jae-min shifted the mitt a touch farther inside from the middle.

"One more."

The mitt answered again, louder.

"97.1 miles!"

The staffer's voice carried over the whole field. Scouts who had been folding chairs got to their feet, one and then another. A few who had already started for the parking lot turned around and came back. Under the canopy, it went quiet.

"…Hey. Weren't you saying the plane ticket was a waste?"

"Did I say that?"

No idea what they're saying. Their faces, though—those I can read.

Tae-oh bounced the rosin bag once. The bullpen was never the problem. I always threw well here. It was what came after. He bit his lower lip and drew one short breath. For now, just throw. So eight years of what Mom put away doesn't come to nothing.

And the third pitch.

A boom, as if the mitt itself were splitting open, reached all the way to the parking lot. The staffer shot the tablet up over his head and turned the screen toward the scouts.

"97.5 miles!!"

Jae-min was on his feet before he'd even pulled the mask off.

"Hyung! One-fifty-seven!One-fifty-seven!"

One hundred fifty-seven kilometers an hour. The number an old radar gun had flashed on the Gwangil High field, in the spring of his senior year. A number he had not seen once since.

…It's back.

Only then did Tae-oh smile, just a little.

"Let me see that kid's profile again."

Front row of the scouts' section. The general manager of last year's league champions said it as he walked out to the fence, and the scout beside him hurriedly turned a tablet his way.

"One-eighty-seven, Kang Tae-oh. Twenty-two. Three years as a KBO developmental player. Released."

"They released a kid throwing 97.5 in April? Are the clubs in Korea blind?"

The GM rubbed his jaw. An independent-league tryout was, in a word, a second chance for the already beaten. Even so—even in America—97.5 was not a number you saw every day. Raise him right, and this isn't an independent-league arm. The minors. Maybe above that.

Then the scout's finger stopped somewhere on the screen. His face hardened with it.

"…Sir."

"What."

"This kid's walks are a little…"