The Returned Catcher Wants to Win the Championship
Jo Oosoo had returned.
Choi Seungtaek finally had a backup catcher, but it also meant he could lose the starting job at any moment. Of course, it looked like Jo Oosoo would need a little more time to be fully recovered, but still.
There was an enormous gap between the two of them, the kind that seventeen years in the pros had created for Seungtaek and that felt almost impossible to close. Surviving in this league at all meant you were strong. And Jo Oosoo was an absolute monster at the two things that defined a catcher: blocking and framing.
Seungtaek had always fallen short on both, and the contrast had only grown sharper with time.
“All right, start!”
The battery coach shouted, launching into the blocking drills.
Thud. Clang. Crack.
Damn, that hurts.
Seungtaek felt the familiar ache of muscles he hadn’t used in a while. The coach lobbed the ball in a direction that forced his body to move, and he launched himself to catch it. The balls came every five seconds, nonstop, turning every block into something that felt like it might break him.
His kidneys were completely shattered.
Two hours later.
“Kyahhh!”
His shoulders, knees, thighs, stomach, collarbone—there wasn’t a single spot that didn’t ache.
“Good. That’s the last of the boxes. Take five and we’re switching to framing drills.”
“Yes, sir.”
Seungtaek answered with his usual confident voice, even though he felt like he was about to die. He had spent almost two straight hours blocking by himself, and catching balls every five seconds was basically suicide.
Well… at least the blocking drills later will be with the other catchers, right?
If he were doing them with the team, the rotation would give him some relief. Right now he was taking every single ball alone, and the pain was brutal.
After catching so many, his entire upper body had taken hits and his lower body wasn’t spared either—he had taken one or two to the thigh while going down.
Nothing spared. Still, at least my balls are still in one piece. That’s something.
“Doing this after a while, you’re gonna feel it, right?”
“Yeah… I think I’m gonna die.”
“You still need to move faster. In spring camp you were lightning quick and took even the weirdest balls smoothly. But now that you’ve got real game experience and dropped a lot of weight, you’re slower than hell. You know it’s true.”
Seungtaek had to agree. The coach was right.
Shit… I guess I didn’t train much during the off-season. Dropped weight but lost reaction speed. No mistakes yet, so that’s good.
Blocking was supposed to be like this anyway. Even with perfect practice, pitchers were human—mistakes happened. When there was a runner on base, those mistakes could be fatal. Plenty of wild pitches slipped through, and the catcher had to be ready to take the ball. If you blocked well, you could escape every jam. Pitchers would trust you to clean up their mistakes and stay more relaxed.
That was the one thing Seungtaek was still missing, and this raw, repetitive blocking was the only way to fix it. He took every drill silently.
Huuu…
After the morning blocking session, Seungtaek was a complete mess.
I kind of want to go buy a whole new uniform. Should I change? No, I’ll change after framing drills only.
While he lay there resting, the battery coach walked over again.
“You okay?”
“Yes, I’m fully recovered.”
“Hmm… really? That was pretty hard.”
The coach tilted his head, checking Seungtaek’s condition.
“Still, if anything feels off, tell me right away. If you get hurt, it’s a big problem.”
“Heh…”
So you’re scheduling it while worried about injury? I was sure I was about to die.
Seungtaek didn’t say it, but inside he was cursing.
Thank god no injury risk. Your skills really are top-notch. But your game sucks. In the pros, injury feels even worse.
Seungtaek stood up.
“All right, get ready.”
“Yes, sir.”
Wait… no way…
Seungtaek’s bad feeling never changed.
“Catch! Keep going.”
The coach kept firing balls at him in rapid succession, and Seungtaek caught them cleanly every time. The mitt felt heavy, so it wasn’t easy to stay consistent.
The one time he had taken framing drills before, his body had almost shut down.
That spring camp framing was the absolute worst… now I have to do it again.
Han Geunseong’s coaching style hadn’t updated at all. This framing drill was painfully old-school.
It was just endless, mindless catching practice. Box after box. Box after box. Box after box.
Seungtaek’s left wrist started screaming.
Damn it. I should have just done blocking.
While he was daydreaming, he missed a ball coming from the side.
“Ouch!”
“Seungtaek, you not focused?”
The coach’s single word lit Seungtaek’s eyes up.
No! If I do this, faking the injury works.
Seungtaek dropped the glove and clutched his wrist.
“Huh?”
“Ah… my wrist hurts a little…”
Seungtaek immediately started acting injured.
Play it up just enough, you’ll get out of it.
That was the tip Jo Oosoo and Woo Jeong-geun had given him—fake the pain. Better to sell your soul a little and take a break than do useless drills.
***
It had been two days since Jo Oosoo returned and Seungtaek had started training again. Jo Oosoo had started as the starter those two days, and Seungtaek had done every drill every day. Instead of framing, he had reported a sore wrist and ended up doing only blocking.
“Still okay with that?”
“Yes! This is actually better. My wrist isn’t too bad and my body heals fast, so it’s fine.”
“Hmm…”
Blocking was obviously harder, so the coach was more worried, but he followed Seungtaek’s word.
“So no night practice today? I’ll be the starter tomorrow.”
“Right! But you just need to attend the meeting.”
“Oh! Right, he said I had to attend the meeting.”
Huuu…
After the meeting, his time at home would shrink even more. But because they had played every team, the scouting range had been cut dramatically, so the actual rest time stayed about the same.
Seungtaek attended the meeting with the coaching staff and veteran players.
“Ugh…”
“What? Hurting?”
Woo Jeong-geun asked while Seungtaek groaned in his seat.
“Yeah, I feel like I’m dying.”
“Aigoo… just drink this.”
“Thanks, senior!”
Woo Jeong-geun handed him an ion drink, and Seungtaek sipped while waiting for the coaches to arrive.
After a moment, Han Geunseong and the coaching staff walked in, and the meeting began.
After various topics, the discussion turned to Seungtaek and Jo Oosoo.
“We recently got meaningful data from Jo Oosoo’s return.”
It was the power analysis team’s report.
“What about?”
“Right now, in the catcher group, Jo Oosoo and Choi Seungtaek handle the game very differently.”
The report, based on live game data, showed their roles were completely different.
“So for important games, Jo Oosoo is clearly better. He’s more stable and gets higher strikeout rates from pitchers. He’s the type who lets pitchers shine at their best.”
“I see… Then what about Seungtaek?”
“For Seungtaek, long games favor him. He runs the game extremely efficiently. It looks like he’s directing it more with the hitters’ power than the pitchers’.”
The analysis team showed a table to highlight the two catchers’ different styles.
Really? That doesn’t sound right.
Seungtaek still leaned heavily on pitchers. The better a pitcher was at inducing ground balls, the more his strategy worked.
But right now he was going to quietly accept the new plan.
“Then… the usage is decided.”
“Yes. During the pennant race we’ll use Seungtaek as the starter, and in the postseason we’ll use Jo Oosoo as the starter.”
“Got it. So we’ll put Jo Oosoo in the lineup for the one or two toughest games each week and Seungtaek in the rest.”
“Understood.”
Seungtaek nodded.
“Also, Seungtaek, Woo Jeong-geun, Kwon Gyu-jin.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
Han Geunseong’s words made the three answer.
“You three are the ones who will come out early for the Children’s Day fan signing event, so get there sooner, train, and head to the signing.”
“Yes, sir!”
Signing event?
***
“Ooh~ Seungtaek!”
Woo Jeong-geun latched onto him.
“You’re officially the starting catcher now? Nice, congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
“And you’re a rookie and you’re already doing the signing event.”
“Heh… I still can’t believe it.”
“You trained hard today, right? Go inside and rest.”
“Yes, sir! You rest too, senior.”
Seungtaek waved goodbye to Woo Jeong-geun and headed home.
When he got back to his apartment, he collapsed onto the bed. The training had left his body heavy, but his mood was light.
Good! Even with Jo Oosoo back, I’m still the starting catcher.
Now he was a catcher who had to be used based on data instead of worrying about injury. The meeting had given him a solid reason to stay in the lineup, and finally it felt like he was properly respected inside the team.
Plus he had the signing event coming up—his mood was about to float away.
Wait, no!
This isn’t the time.
Now that I’m locked in as starter, I still need to raise my level. I need to learn framing again. Damn it. Even in the pros, I never got good framing drills…
Seungtaek remembered the rapid growth he had made.
I should use the System to level up fast. Follow the best players, make it mine.
Seungtaek sat up, turned on his computer, and started gathering data on catchers.
Yes, Benjamin. The best in this field.
The Cardinals’ Benjamin. The catcher Seungtaek thought was the absolute best.