The Spy Who Knows Every Secret of the Busan Seagulls
If the Busan Seagulls were rock bottom, the Daejeon Magpies were the basement underneath it.
Most people accepted that without argument — the Magpies had finished last often enough to earn the distinction. But if there was ever a year the two clubs swapped places, it was 2015.
Choi Seungtaek thought back to the Seagulls of that season.
Yeah. That year was brutal.
The 2014 scandal over the invasion of players' private lives had left the clubhouse under enormous strain. There was friction between the coaching staff and the roster, and more friction still between the players and the front office. The Seagulls' Stove League had gone ice-cold, and by the time camp opened they had let every internal free agent walk.
It never quite looked like an open war, but the players kept voicing their discontent with the front office, and once the fans caught wind of it they hounded the club every single day. Too busy putting out those fires, the Seagulls' front office failed to get anything else done properly — including assembling a real coaching staff for 2015. The result was that most of the roster never even got their bodies right before they were thrown into Opening Day.
The players did what they could on their own, but that was a luxury reserved for the veterans. For a rookie like Choi Seungtaek, and for the other low-service guys, development wasn't the job. They spent their days fetching and carrying for the older players.
Seungtaek caught every pitcher on the Seagulls staff and helped every hitter through Special Batting Practice. Of course he learned their strengths and their weaknesses down to the last tell — and a man like that wearing a Magpies uniform was a catastrophe for the Seagulls.
A spy who knew every last one of their secrets was sitting in the Magpies' dugout.
And so Choi Seungtaek had no confidence.
No confidence in losing, that is.
Seungtaek finished his warmup with the Busan Seagulls years still running through his head, then stepped into the dugout. Every Magpies player filed past him with a word of encouragement.
"Congrats on your debut today, Seungtaek."
"Let's go! Let's take Opening Day."
"You've got this!"
"Don't tense up too much. We can win this."
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Hoo…
Whether it was the teammates' voices or the sound of his own pulse, Opening Day was starting to feel real. He had worn down second-team fields more times than he could count, and he had even appeared in a first-team park now and then as a backup. He had never walked out there as an Opening Day starter.
He locked in.
Today he was hitting sixth. He had torn through the exhibition games, and sixth was a high hole for a catcher — high enough that they'd actually written him there.
He glanced over the rest of the position players. The Magpies had lost Kim Geontaek and Woo Jeong-geun, a pair of genuine table-setters, but the lineup still had some teeth. He checked the card.
Seungtaek looked the hitters over. The one-two spots had lost a lot of weight, but the heart of the order itself wasn't bad. Even on a quiet day, the three-four-five hole would put men on, and the chances would come around to him in the sixth spot.
Hwang Ganggyeong stepped into the box, and the game began.
"Tsk."
The Busan Seagulls' pitching staff was a wreck, but they weren't about to send just anyone out there on Opening Day. They handed the ball to Joshua, their imposing foreign starter, and he carved through the Magpies' first three hitters without much trouble.
Seungtaek picked up his catcher's mask and walked out onto the field. The Magpies had prepared a foreign starter of their own for Opening Day, and Russell would be pairing up with him.
◈ Pitches:Four-seam fastball, curveball, slider
◈ Trait:Overpowering fastball
Seungtaek knew Russell's numbers by heart. A pitcher whose breaking stuff was complete garbage — and whose fastball was fucking filthy. He went out there to carve the other club up with that one weapon.
The Seagulls' leadoff man was Song Woosop, a core bat who cleared .300 without breaking a sweat.
I know this guy's hole.
On most days he handled the inner half just fine, but this spring camp an inside pitch had caught him on the elbow. After that injury, a two-year fear of the inner half had taken root, and he simply couldn't answer pitches in on the hands anymore.
A fastball from a guy like Russell, with that kind of velo? That'd be hell.
Seungtaek knew the secret, and he went inside without mercy.
Inside Fastball
Huh? Why is he going inside?
Manager Han Geunseong had put down a sign to work away. Seungtaek didn't even glance at the dugout. He shifted his body toward the inner half.
This is why… rookies… haah…
Han did not like the look of it at all. He figured the kid was just wound too tight — a rookie starting Opening Day behind the plate, of course he'd be nervous.
A white blur hissed in. Pop!
Strike!
Fine. I'll give him that one. He'll take the sign this time, right?
Seungtaek saw the sign to go away. He ignored it and called inside again.
This little—?
The head coach caught the look on the manager's face and started firing signs at Seungtaek in a hurry. Seungtaek paid them no mind.
The ball hissed. Pop!
Strike two!
Song Woosop, a man who was supposed to be strong on the inner half, somehow couldn't lay a finger on it. Seungtaek called inside again.
Hoo… somewhere else this time. What, again?
He could have mixed in something away, or a breaking ball. He asked for the inner half anyway. In Han Geunseong's eyes, the kid behind the plate looked more like a child catcher with every pitch.
The fastball ripped in. Pop!
Strike three! He's out!
And yet Song Woosop went down on three pitches. The next two hitters followed him, each of them punching out on three pitches of their own. A perfect 1-2-3, three straight strikeouts, and Seungtaek came back to the dugout.
"Choi Seungtaek."
The result was fine. The process was not. Han Geunseong called him over.
"Yes, Manager!"
"From the first hitter on — why didn't you follow the signs?"
"Ah. That's because Song Woosop can't hit the inner half."
"Can't hit the inner half? Where does it say that?"
Han's face tightened as he flipped through his notebook. Song Woosop was a centerpiece of the Seagulls' order; of course they'd been watching him, and Han had gone through the analytics department's reports more times than he could count. Whatever was in those pages was written down in the book, clear as day.
Crap. That wasn't in the scouting report, was it?
It was information the analytics staff didn't have. Seungtaek had to scramble.
"You have a basis for that?"
Ugh… what am I supposed to say? I can't just tell him I know…
He put his soul into the lie.
"When Song Woosop stepped in, I got the sense he had no confidence on the inner half."
"That's your basis?"
"Yes. His stance looked like he was sitting on the outer half, so I judged that attacking inside was the right counter."
It was his usual stance, of course — but I have to say it with a straight face. I got him. That means I'm right.
"I suspected the inner half, so that's the sign I put down. All the hitter did was flinch. He didn't do a thing. The second fastball was to confirm."
"…"
"Even with the second one coming in that obviously inside, he still couldn't do a thing. That's when I was sure. So the third fastball — I called it with full conviction."
"Even so. You still have to follow the bench signs to some degree."
The head coach standing beside them nearly jumped out of his shoes at the kid's nerve.
Whoa. This Choi Seungtaek kid is the real deal. He's going head-to-head with Manager Han Geunseong?
Would you look at this brat…?
Seungtaek was only talking his way out of trouble however he could. Han Geunseong, though, took a real hit from it. He thought he could finally see why his prized disciple Park Wangyu — the Incheon Cranes' second-team manager — had spoken so highly of the boy.
The ability to read a hitter in that sliver of time at the plate, and to act on it. That, too, was something an elite catcher had to have. And Seungtaek's read had been right. He had taken their core bat and stripped him down to nothing.
In Han Geunseong's eyes, at least for this moment, the young catcher was already walking the road toward becoming an elite — a road no one had even properly shown him.
"Fine. I understand. Go on."
"Yes, sir."
Han watched him for a quiet beat, then sent him back.
Hoo… it worked. Thank god.
Seungtaek let out a careful breath and returned to his seat. Han Geunseong stared after him, still wearing that stunned look.
Scouting was supposed to change by the second. If the starting catcher picked up an opponent's weakness in the middle of a game, that was scouting too. That moment was the report being updated — and the attack based on that report being executed at the same time.
The one holding old data — no. The one holding the wrong data — was Manager Han Geunseong himself.