The Day the Catcher’s Sensitivity Sparked
Choi Seungtaek quieted the pounding in his chest as he made his way to the Cranes' second-team training ground with Manager Park Wangyu.
"Alright, this is Choi Seungtaek, the Magpies' rookie catcher. He'll be training with us today, so go ahead and say a quick hello."
"Hello. I'm Choi Seungtaek, rookie catcher for the Magpies."
The Cranes' second-team battery coach and catchers, who'd been waiting to start practice, stared at Choi Seungtaek and Manager Park Wangyu with looks that said, Wait, what?
The situation was so hard to process that their brains needed a moment to catch up. The second-team battery coach, whose mind started working first, was the one to return the greeting.
"Uh... right. But aren't you the Magpies' starting catcher right now? Why are you down in the minors?"
"Haha... something came up."
After that thoroughly awkward exchange, catcher drills got underway.
The work itself wasn't much different from what he did with the Magpies. It was all the fundamentals—pitch blocking, pitch framing, throwing out runners—and because the drills were familiar, Choi Seungtaek handled them without any trouble. The only thing that felt a little off was the sight of a single catcher in orange gear standing among a field of players in the Cranes' red.
When practice wrapped, the Cranes players and coaches headed off to get ready for their game. Choi Seungtaek stayed behind, wanting an honest evaluation from Manager Park Wangyu.
"Manager Park, how did I look?"
"Hmm... more ordinary than I expected?"
Ordinary... His pride took a hit. He'd thought he'd been working pretty hard.
"Is that so?"
"Yeah. Honestly, you weren't much different from the guys out there. Weird, though—you looked sharper at wrap-up camp. You slacking off on your training?"
That one landed.
"Ahem. No, sir. I've been working hard!"
"I can tell just from that video the Magpies posted. Back then you were sharp—didn't look like a rookie at all. Honestly, you were better then than you are now."
Better then? What's the difference supposed to be?
When Choi Seungtaek's face made it clear he didn't follow, Manager Park Wangyu went on.
"You don't see the difference, do you? Why do you think professional players train?"
"Training? To cut down on mistakes, I suppose?"
"That's a good answer. But if you think a little more precisely, everyone trains because they want to get better."
"That's true."
Choi Seungtaek listened closely.
"Training under Manager Han Geunseong is brutal, isn't it?"
Choi Seungtaek couldn't answer right away.
"You can be honest. Everybody already knows."
"Ahem... yes. The volume is just so high."
"You think that's the wrong way to do it?"
"Uh..."
"Why's that so hard to answer?"
Of course it is.
Manager Han Geunseong was a revered mentor to the Incheon Cranes players. That made it hard for Choi Seungtaek to speak freely.
"Alright, I'll make it easier. Between high school and now, as a pro—when do you train more?"
Choi Seungtaek knew the answer clearly. He'd felt it not only under Manager Han Geunseong with the Magpies, but back with the Busan Seagulls as well.
"Obviously more as a pro."
"Then between rookies and veterans, who trains more?"
"Uh... the rookies."
"Right. Rookies always train more. And yet the veterans usually put up the better numbers. Why is that?"
"Hmm... because veterans train more efficiently?"
"Exactly. So what makes training efficient?"
Choi Seungtaek wracked his brain, but a clear answer didn't come easy.
"I'm not sure."
"We work with our bodies. We drill the same things over and over so we don't make mistakes. But when you repeat the same motion enough times, something of your own starts to form."
"Something of my own?"
"After tens, hundreds, thousands of reps, every movement becomes natural. And that's when you get the chance to grow to a higher level."
Grow?
Choi Seungtaek turned the words over in his mind.
"A pitcher throws one pitch a countless number of times until he locks in command, velocity, and stuff. A hitter trains to add distance, to raise his contact rate."
Choi Seungtaek nodded.
"Have you ever stood in the box and had the ball look as big as a watermelon? Or, when you're blocking, had the ball look so slow you already knew the path and turned your body to smother it?"
Choi Seungtaek's head spun. The ball looking as big as a watermelon had been happening to him from the exhibition games all the way through recent contests. And the ball looking slow when he blocked—that had shown up at wrap-up camp.
"Yeah! I have."
"That's it. You train so you don't lose that feel. The guys who can hold onto it—they eat baseball alive."
It felt like lightning had struck inside Choi Seungtaek's skull.
Then that means I—
"Which means you were goofing off when it mattered most. Am I right?"
"Guh..."
Choi Seungtaek wilted a little.
"Veterans go insane training just that one piece—so they can find that perfect feel again. That's why they produce. The grinding you do as a rookie is so you'll feel that sensation even once. So I'll ask you again. Do you think Manager Han Geunseong's training is the wrong way?"
"Uh... no?"
"You don't sound very sure."
"Haha..."
"Well, the truth is it depends on the player."
Manager Park Wangyu clicked his tongue.
"For rookies—guys who are short in a lot of areas—it's a huge help. You're putting them through high-intensity work across the board. But for veterans who don't need that, or players carrying a bunch of little injuries, it's not a great approach."
Then he added one more thing.
"Of course, now that I'm a manager myself, I think I get where he's coming from. You want to run every drill and somehow get every player to a decent level in every area. From a manager's seat, that's how you get stability."
"Ah! I see."
"But that's not what you need to be thinking about. You get what I'm saying now, don't you? You should have a feel for how you need to train."
Choi Seungtaek nodded.
"Can I ask one more thing?"
"What?"
"It's a little vague, but... how do I get good at catching, the way you were?"
"Hmm... that's a tough one."
Manager Park Wangyu sank into thought for a moment.
"Ah! I've got a good example. When you're throwing out a runner, what's more important—the pitcher, or the catcher?"
Choi Seungtaek thought hard. Most fans, when a steal situation develops, lock onto the catcher and the runner. But Choi Seungtaek, who'd done his time as an analyst, knew the real key was the pitcher. Runners take off based on the pitcher, not the catcher. So a steal situation is about the pitcher, not the catcher.
"The pitcher."
"No. The catcher."
"What?"
"That's where it starts. How to be a good catcher."
Choi Seungtaek was thrown by Manager Park Wangyu's answer. It was a question analytics had basically already settled—and now a master of the position was saying something else entirely.
"Let's go back to first principles. To stop a runner from stealing, what do you do?"
"I have the pitcher throw over."
"And if that doesn't work?"
"I call a pitchout."
"But how do you know if the runner's going or not?"
"If the lead is big, or he's a fast runner, I stay on alert."
"Then isn't the catcher's side more important?"
What is he...
"Up until the moment you throw to a fielder to cut down a steal, a catcher can see a lot. If you've done everything you can to shut the situation down, and you still fire a pop time under 1.9 and they make it—that's when you get to say it was the pitcher's fault."
"Ah!"
"Yes!"
Of course...
Then another question occurred to him.
"Then can I ask one last thing?"
"What now? The game's about to start. I've got to go."
"Well... if a backup catcher hanging on by a thread at the first-team level is C-Grade, a catcher putting up solid numbers in the league is B-Grade, and a catcher who was at the very top of the league like you, sir, is A Grade—where would I fall?"
It was an interesting enough question that Manager Park Wangyu sank into thought for a moment.
"That's a fun one. Hmm... where do you think you are?"
"I'm a C. Based on what you said about practice earlier—that I wasn't much different from the fourth- and fifth-year catchers."
"Hmm. Modest of you. I think you're a B."
"What? Me?"
The evaluation was more generous than he'd expected, and Choi Seungtaek wanted to know why.
"Using the scale you laid out, the most important path to becoming an A Grade catcher is whether the catcher can lead everything on the field."
"Lead everything...?"
"That's right. Especially reading the hitter in real time, adjusting the pitch mix, and making the pitcher's stuff more dangerous. You can get by leaning on the bench and scouting reports, but if a catcher can't do it himself, he'll never be a top-of-the-league catcher. In that sense, you showed that potential through the Song Geumho situation, so B—between A and C—feels about right. Was that helpful enough?"
"Thank you. That was more than enough."
Choi Seungtaek bowed to Manager Park Wangyu several times.
"Alright, go on. Ah—and you know I can't really give you the nitty-gritty tips. If you want the detailed catcher stuff, go find Oosoo."
"Who?"
"Jo Oosoo, on your team. He's basically a playing coach, isn't he?"
"Ah! That's right."
"I like throwing with compact footwork, but that kid's got his own sit-and-throw. His basic catching stance, too—there's a lot to learn from him. Study under him. That's how you'll get better fast."
"Understood! Thank you so much!"
Choi Seungtaek offered his thanks to Manager Park Wangyu and went to find the Magpies' second-team manager.
"Skipper, I've got somewhere I need to go."
"Somewhere you need to go? You're not supposed to leave the second team."
"The place I'm heading is pretty similar, actually. Wouldn't that be alright?"
Choi Seungtaek told the second-team manager where he wanted to go, and the manager, looking baffled, gave him permission.
The Magpies' Seosan second-team training ground.
More precisely, several Magpies players were there in the Seosan rehab group, working their way back. Among them was Jo Oosoo, rehabbing his knee. He'd finished his recovery work and was sitting, watching a Magpies game.
"Ugh... they're on a nasty losing streak. And of course the whole catching corps is wrecked."
The Magpies were in the middle of a losing streak, and Jo Oosoo was hurting for them.
"Hello, hyung."
And then, out of nowhere, Choi Seungtaek appeared.
"Hey! No! Kid, what the hell are you doing here?!"
This was the rehab group—the last line of defense. Choi Seungtaek was the last person who should have been here. Jo Oosoo came bustling over in a full-blown panic.
"Where'd you get hurt? Knee, like me? Or hamstring, like Gyeokpo? Aish, why would the skipper send this kid to this dump of a second-team field! He's the only one we've got left and now they're getting him hurt too!"
Jo Oosoo started grabbing at Choi Seungtaek's thighs and knees, and Choi Seungtaek jumped at the veteran's unceremonious hands.
"Hey! I didn't come here because I'm hurt."
Jo Oosoo froze.
"Then why are you here?"
Choi Seungtaek answered with a bright smile.
"I just came to hang out?"
"You crazy little shit! You scared the hell out of me. And 'just came to hang out'? Does that even make sense?"
Jo Oosoo bellowed at the sheer absurdity of it.
"Sorry, that was a joke. I came to get personal catcher training from you, hyung. Please. I'm asking you."