The Bench-Clearing Brawl That Left Do-ryeon Bleeding
This wasn't how it was supposed to go.
Lee Do-ryeon, a pitcher for the Busan Seagulls, had never imagined a moment like this would find him.
Just a second ago, Kang Pung-gi had put down a sign to crowd him up and in, and Lee Do-ryeon had thought it was a good idea. A high-and-inside pitch was a nasty offering to throw — miss your spot and it was a home-run ball waiting to happen — but if you located it right on the inner edge of the strike zone, it became a vicious pitch for any hitter to handle. And because Choi Seungtaek had set up crowding the plate, anything that ran a little further inside could double as a purpose pitch and back him off. Lee Do-ryeon had bought Kang Pung-gi's thinking and thrown it high and tight.
The ball leaked just off the plate and ran into Choi Seungtaek's body. It caught him in the shoulder, kicked up, and smashed into his head — and that was how this whole mess started.
I'm fucked. This is so fucked. Should I run?
A long career in the pros was screaming the answer at him. Even if Choi Seungtaek didn't come after him, this was more than enough to empty both benches, so Lee Do-ryeon looked toward the Magpies' dugout first.
Just as he'd expected. The instant Seungtaek got hit, they were already winding up to come pouring out.
With a shaky glance, Lee Do-ryeon looked back toward home. Fortunately, Kang Pung-gi had jumped in front of Choi Seungtaek in a hurry.
Hah... at least Pung-gi's right there to cut him off. Think he can talk him down?
Calm the hitter and a bench-clearing never starts. Lee Do-ryeon prayed, silently, that Kang Pung-gi would soothe Choi Seungtaek down.
He'll settle him a little, right? Kid's still a rookie. He wouldn't blow the whole place up... would he?
Rookies were unstable, sure — but rookies could also freeze. Nothing much had happened the last time he'd hit him, and Lee Do-ryeon decided that meant there was a chance.
But then—
A blink.
Choi Seungtaek ripped Kang Pung-gi's mask off with his left hand.
A blink.
Thud!
Seungtaek's fist cracked across Kang Pung-gi's temple in a blur.
A blink.
Choi Seungtaek locked onto Lee Do-ryeon with a look that could kill. Cold sweat started rolling down Lee Do-ryeon's back.
A blink.
Choi Seungtaek started running.
"Aaaahhh!"
Lee Do-ryeon had been coming down off the mound toward home plate to throw up an apologetic gesture. He spun and bolted the other way instead.
"Where—do—you—think—you're—running—you son of a bitch!"
Choi Seungtaek's voice chased him from behind. Lee Do-ryeon ducked in time behind his shortstop and second baseman as they came to meet him.
"Hey, hey... calm down!"
The second baseman and the shortstop stepped in front of Choi Seungtaek, and for a second Lee Do-ryeon thought the whole thing might actually die down.
But then—
"Move! You don't move, you're gonna get hurt!"
"Hey—"
Thud!
What the hell was that...?
They dropped.
"This guy's insane. You can't just throw punches like that. What the hell do you think you're doing right n—"
Thud!
They dropped.
"Huh?"
In a heartbeat, the Busan Seagulls' second baseman and shortstop were on the ground.
Justification. The Busan Seagulls didn't have any — not enough of it to put their hands on Choi Seungtaek however they liked. And Choi Seungtaek was throwing with a seriousness nobody had seen coming, so the Seagulls players went down like bowling pins, helpless to do a thing about it.
"Grab him!"
"Seungtaek, hold it!"
Three men were down. The Magpies players who had come charging out just as furious a moment ago saw Choi Seungtaek drop three already and came sprinting to stop him instead.
It was too late. Choi Seungtaek was already standing in front of Lee Do-ryeon. Terror hit Lee Do-ryeon like a wall.
"Hey, pal. You can't go throwing fists like that."
Choi Seungtaek was looking at him with those same murderous eyes.
"Uh..."
There was no mercy in it. Choi Seungtaek was telling him, flat, that he was going to hit him.
You couldn't just stand there and take it.
Lee Do-ryeon lunged first, and the two of them went at it for real.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
It was a street fight — ugly, scrambling, no technique. Then Choi Seungtaek got him in a pound, dumped him on the dirt, and the beating turned one-sided from on top.
"Hurry, grab him! This is gonna get ugly!"
"Hey! Somebody stop them!"
"You guys, pull them apart already!"
The players from both clubs who had come out looking for a fight made splitting the two of them their first job instead. The Busan Seagulls outfielders hauled on Lee Do-ryeon. The Magpies pouring out of the dugout hauled on Choi Seungtaek.
"Cool it, man."
"Seungtaek!"
At last they got them apart. Lee Do-ryeon was in bad shape. A bruise was already rising on his forehead, and blood was running from his nose. The uniform hid it, but he'd taken more than it looked like — his upper body was a mess of welts and sore spots.
Yes. God, that felt good.
Choi Seungtaek was a half-second from a victory grin when it hit him: a baseball stadium had cameras everywhere.
Shit! Face. Control your face.
He was laughing on the inside. On the outside he kept the look of a man barely holding himself back as the seniors dragged him off.
"Hsssss. Hsssss. Let go of me!"
Choi Seungtaek went straight into method acting. The Magpies players who had thought the storm had passed lunged to haul him back again in a panic.
They dragged him toward the dugout still furious, still hissing through his teeth, and the game fell into a brief, stunned lull.
After that, the Magpies took the win without much trouble.
The Busan Seagulls had lost Kang Pung-gi behind the plate and two more in a blink, and they played the rest of the night in a rattled fog. They got beaten badly. The Magpies weren't untouched — Jo Oosoo had to rush in for Choi Seungtaek, and the extra innings of catching piled onto his legs — but they had to get the fired-up Choi Seungtaek out of there. There was no other choice.
Choi Seungtaek watched the rest of the game in comfort from the locker room, and inside he wore a deeply satisfied smile.
Ahh. That sat right. You drill a guy twice, you'd better be ready to eat that much in return.
Give flesh to take bone. His punching would ding his reputation a little, sure — but the next two games were going to roll very, very easy.
Starting catcher, starting shortstop, starting second baseman — three position players in one shot. We'll take the next two without breaking a sweat. And I ate two hit-by-pitches first, so whatever they hang on me won't be much. Beautiful.
"Seungtaek."
"Yes, Manager."
The team manager found Choi Seungtaek where he was stretched out easy in the locker room.
"After the game you're going to have to do a separate interview with a reporter, alright?"
"An interview?"
Choi Seungtaek tipped his head.
"Yeah. You kicked up a huge mess again, so we need to get an article out and read the room a little."
"Ah..."
Media Play. Short for working the press. In English they called it media play: the people in the middle of a story using the news, the papers, the internet — any outlet they could reach — to tilt public opinion their way.
Justification or not, Choi Seungtaek's fists had not looked good on camera, and the club had hastily decided they needed the press handled. A little fear crept into Choi Seungtaek's chest.
"Before the game's over, you're going to slip out and head to our team hotel."
"Yes, sir. Understood."
"A reporter will be waiting for you there. You've met him before, so nothing's going to go too far off the rails."
"Yes, sir. When should I get ready?"
"Uh... right now. Shower and pack your stuff."
Choi Seungtaek came out of the shower a little scared.
The Magpies had come out of this with a fat win. The Seagulls had not. At Sajik Stadium, one of their own had gotten beaten down. The Seagulls' record could be as ugly as it wanted — this had happened at home, and Choi Seungtaek was going to have to sit through whatever the hardcore Seagulls fans decided to scream at him.
A little rattled, he searched it up on his phone before he left.
The internet write-ups were more or less all in that vein. It had been a bench-clearing with something like a real grievance behind it, so a fair number of the pieces stayed relatively neutral.
Hah... at least this much is a relief. I should check the other places too.
Choi Seungtaek started digging through the communities — not the major outlets, but the ones where the fans' blood ran closer to the surface.
They're going to lose their minds, probably.
Instead, the reaction waiting for him was so far from what he'd expected that he could only stare.
Huh?
He was, without a doubt, on a Busan Seagulls community site. A few fans were tearing into Choi Seungtaek's behavior. Most of the posts were treating him like a hero.
What the hell... I just took out several of your guys.
Ah. Right.
Lee Do-ryeon. Choi Seungtaek remembered what the fans had been saying about him for years.
He was a fifth starter, and barely that — and the truth was the Seagulls had better arms available. The Busan Seagulls manager kept running Lee Do-ryeon out there anyway, and the fans had been losing their minds watching it.
Once word got around that the other players' injuries were nothing, the praise for Choi Seungtaek only swelled. He could do nothing but stare at the screen, dumbfounded.
Hey! You bastards. Your own player got hurt. Why the hell are you laughing?
That same current ran, strangely, through the Seagulls clubhouse too. With Lee Do-ryeon out, their morale actually jumped — and they beat the Magpies in both remaining games and stole the winning series right out from under them.