The Returned Catcher Wants to Win the Championship
An attempt by a baserunner, while the ball is in play, to advance to the next base regardless of where the ball actually is.
There was a time this might have been written into the book as a violation. Baseball decided the game was more fun with it in, and so the stolen base was folded into the official rules.
Recorded in English as a stolen base, abbreviated SB.
Ask most people what matters most on a stolen base and they will picture speed. What matters more is timing.
On a broadcast it looks like the catcher's fault. The pitcher throws, the catcher receives, the catcher throws — so the steal, surely, sits on the man in the gear. That is only half the truth.
The real key is the pitcher. His tells, the pitch he chooses to throw — those are the seams that open, and if you slip into them a stolen base is not a hard thing at all. Knowing a pitcher's timing, and knowing how to break his rhythm, counts for more than raw speed. A runner who can crack that flow will beat a runner who can only run.
And Choi Seungtaek, formerly of the Busan Seagulls, knew the man on the mound inside and out.
Top of the second, one out, runner on first, one strike. Beautiful out-count to mess with them. Slow stuff, slow mechanics — this won't be hard.
He watched the pitcher, then widened his lead another step.
There we go. You want to throw over, don't you? Don't you?
He started baiting them, inching and feinting off the bag for everyone to see, and the first baseman, well aware of him, hugged the bag.
The whole point is I don't actually go. Not this time.
A bluff. An empty, exaggerated show of force — looking like a threat you have no intention of backing up. He kept stretching the lead until Kang Pung-gi, the catcher, finally put down a pickoff sign, and Lee Do-ryeon, who had been preoccupied with Seungtaek anyway, threw over to try to catch him.
Here it comes!
The lead was big enough that Seungtaek had no choice. He threw himself back toward the bag.
Tick!
"Oh! Lee Do-ryeon's throw skips away behind first!"
Lean on people long enough and luck has a way of showing up. The hurried throw to first was not accurate. The first baseman stretched, and the ball ticked off the leather and got past him.
"Go! Go! Go!"
Huh? Ah— it got away!
He had laid out to get back. The base coach's shout yanked him up off the dirt, and he scrambled to his feet and broke for second.
Footsteps hammered the infield. Seungtaek locked onto the bag and ran like a madman.
He's setting up to catch it? Already? Screw it — dive.
The Seagulls shortstop was already settling into a receiving stance at second, and Seungtaek figured the timing was razor-thin. He went headfirst, stretching a hand for the bag. The shortstop tagged him. The second-base umpire called him safe.
Damn, that took it out of me. Still — I got what I wanted. Second base is second base.
He stood and slapped the dirt off his uniform.
People say that if you make a thing look easy, you are extraordinarily good at it. Watch professionals on defense and the throws look effortless — the product of tens of repetitions, hundreds. And still, even professionals miss. Even professionals can look anything but airtight on that side of the ball.
A fundamental mistake, the kind that happens once and costs you everything. The lower a team sits in the standings, the more those mistakes show.
Anyone cracks if you lean on them long enough.
Seungtaek had pressed the pitcher and catcher without letup, and it had produced an error. Taking that extra base might have looked like a little thing. It wasn't. A runner on first and a runner on second are two different games. Moments like this stacked into runs, and runs stacked into wins.
He had no intention of stopping there.
Settling in at second — or pretending to — Choi Seungtaek looked at Kang Pung-gi.
There it is.
He smiled inwardly. Kang Pung-gi carried a peculiar nickname: Beon-jeo-gang. As in, Bunt? I'm Kang Pung-gi. It advertised the thing he actually was — an offensive catcher whose bat did not take a backseat to anyone. It also advertised the thing he was not.
Not a finesse guy. I've got second, and he's not even being careful.
Defensive catchers tend to be fussy. Fussy enough to memorize, fussy enough to be canny in every count, fussy enough never to give the other club free information. Kang Pung-gi was not that kind of catcher, and that, for Seungtaek, was another tell.
You flash the signs like that? There's a runner on second — cover the thigh, at least.
Sign stealing. Reading the other club's signs and passing them along. Korean professional baseball banned the practice in no uncertain terms. Major League Baseball was a different story, depending on the situation.
People treated sign stealing as dirty by default, but MLB had drawn the line in writing. If a base coach or a runner at second picked the signs up with his own eyes, even sharing them was not a violation. It depended on how you had learned them. And Seungtaek had read the signs without passing them on — which meant his stealing of them broke no rule at all.
So this is legal. He didn't cover up. That's on him.
Smiling to himself, he watched Kang Pung-gi put the signs down. He was a Busan Seagulls alum, and he knew this exact era's signs by heart. They were the first signs he had ever learned on a professional field. Unforgettable.
Alright. Breaking ball this time.
The pitch came in on a long, lazy hiss. Pop. Hwang Ganggyeong, hitting seventh, kept the bat on his shoulder.
And in that instant, something lit in Choi Seungtaek's eyes.
Hmm. I could steal on this.
His mind turned over fast.
Runner on second. Pitcher is Lee Do-ryeon. Catcher is Kang Pung-gi. Yeah. This is on.
Steals of third were rare. The throw from home was shorter, the risk higher, and so you saw it from a true burner, or when a double-steal order came down from the bench — and almost never otherwise.
Slow delivery. Slow breaking ball. Kang Pung-gi's receiving is shaky — he wobbles when he catches. He just bagged a slow breaker off-balance. That stuff adds up. That's a weakness.
He ran the numbers. This was a gamble worth taking.
Kang Pung-gi put a sign down to Lee Do-ryeon. Breaking ball again.
Perfect. They're thinking they don't have to throw anything good with a man on second. One out, so even if first gets occupied it's still manageable. Conservative — which works out great for me.
Seungtaek wandered a few idle steps, stretching his lead. The distance opened so naturally that Kang Pung-gi was a half-beat late to notice. And the moment Lee Do-ryeon gathered into his delivery, Seungtaek broke for third.
The pitch hissed. Footsteps hammered the dirt.
"Ah—! Choi Seungtaek is going for third!"
What the—?
Kang Pung-gi startled at the steal. His eyes registered it, his brain screamed throw — but Lee Do-ryeon's pitch still had not arrived.
Why is this so slow?!
In that instant the baseball crawling toward him felt interminable.
Pop!
He snatched it in a panic, clenched his teeth, and fired to third. The recoil knocked his catcher's mask into the dirt.
The throw sailed. Thud.
"Safe!"
"Ah! Choi Seungtaek's surprise steal is in there! Third base occupied in the blink of an eye!"
"Wow, I did not see that coming. That's Han Geunseong's chess showing on the bases."
Catchers who could not run did not steal, so the booth assumed the manager had sent him. A complete misunderstanding. Either way, Choi Seungtaek was standing on third.
"Seungtaek, have you lost your mind?"
The third-base coach said it with a disbelieving laugh. Even the club's burners, Lee Gun-taek and Woo Jeong-geun, taking off without an order would have been one thing. A rookie — and a catcher, no less — just going on his own was absurd.
"Hehe."
Seungtaek got up slapping dirt off his jersey, and he found it funny himself. He grinned at the coach, pleased. In the pros, though, if it works, it works. The third-base coach did not chew him out.
"Seungtaek, you're in trouble."
"Sir? Me?"
A steal with no send from the manager. Han Geunseong did not look like a man who enjoyed this kind of freelance.
Tsk. I'm screwed.
Han Geunseong had no taste for improvisation. But if you had a reason, you could make a case. Seungtaek got ready to let a little of what he knew slip.
I can read Lee Do-ryeon's signs.
He leaned in with a wicked look and murmured to the third-base coach.
"Later. I'll pass it along later. Ahem."
"Huh? What was that?"
In that moment a devil was sitting plainly on Choi Seungtaek's face, and the third-base coach caught it from the way he was acting.
Ah. This kid can read the signs.
The coach flicked his eyes toward the catcher. Seungtaek nodded.
"Alright. You make sure you explain it to the manager later, you hear?"
"Yes, sir. I will."
Lee Do-ryeon threw. Hwang Ganggyeong put the bat on it.
It's in the air.
"Ah! Hwang Ganggyeong gets it up! Heading toward center!"
The ball drifted out to the center fielder, and Seungtaek went straight back to the bag.
Good. All the way to the smart baseball. Made the scramble worth it.
He watched the center fielder squeeze it, then broke for home.
"Choi Seungtaek tags up! He's coming home! And just like that, the Magpies have the first run of the game."