Communication With the Batter (2)
"Yikes, that's nasty. Yi-seon barely ever puts that much into a pitch, does he?"
"No kidding. Even against the Dragons I don't think he threw quite that hard."
The Twins' keystone combo lounged in the dugout, shooting the breeze without a care in the world. Their captain, Lee Hae-ryong, watched the pair with an expression of pure disbelief before offering a single, flat retort.
"Hey, you little punks. Our rookie is out there dealing absolute filth from the mound, and you two can't score a single run, so you're busy playing talent scouts instead?"
Such was the fate of the Twins' offense, perennially branded the worst in the league. No matter how well the starter pitched, no matter that this was a home game, the bats simply refused to wake up.
"A soft fly ball, and that's an easy out."
And look at that—there went another batter, meekly retired and trudging back to the dugout.
"Aw, come on, Captain. We're the keystone combination, aren't we? So what if we can't hit? We cover for it on defense."
Jo Sang-goo cracked a joke, and by any conventional standard he had a point—a middle infielder's job description forgave a light bat. But on these Twins, such an excuse could not exist.
"Hey, dummy. Take you and Joong-yeon out of this lineup, and who exactly is left to swing a bat?"
"What do you mean? There's you, Captain. There's Myeong-gil. There's Max over there. And most of all, there's Byung-min."
Setting aside, of course, the fact that Captain Lee Hae-ryong himself was an outfield backup turned nominal designated hitter—an aging body whose bench starts were quietly piling up of late.
Choi Myeong-gil could deliver the occasional moonshot, but his average was lower than the shortstop's and his overall production only marginally better than Ha Joong-yeon's—a middling third baseman if there ever was one. Max, the foreign left fielder, was a decent gap-to-gap hitter with no pop whatsoever.
Their lone anchor was center fielder Joo Byung-min, the team's core hitter, holding the middle of the order together—
"Striiike three! Out!!!"
"On the outside corner! A called strike three! Joo Byung-min never even gets the bat off his shoulder!"
"Joo Byung-min came to the plate today with a patient approach, but things just aren't going his way."
"That's two outs now. Nobody on base. Park Myeong-gil is on deck."
His timing was completely off today. Byung-min was the classic umpire's hitter—the kind whose at-bats swung wildly between strikeout victim and breathtaking pitch recognition depending on how generous the zone was that day. With the ump calling a wide zone, he seemed utterly lost at sea.
And this is the textbook route to a Twins loss.
The starter deals a gem, but the lineup never gives him a single run of support. He hands over six innings of one or two-run ball, the bullpen coughs up exactly one run, and somehow the team loses anyway. That picture.
This pattern was poison. Baseball, in the end, was a mental game—pitchers were human too, and the more often a game rode on one man's shoulders, the less equanimity he retained. Every run conceded became a loss, so the pitcher would start chasing extremes, pitching aggressively to strand runners and grind out deep starts.
But high risk only paid off with high return when it actually worked—so there would be nights the pitcher imploded regardless of run support, and then came the truly horrific downward spiral of a man losing faith even in himself and rotting away the entire season.
That was exactly the cycle that destroyed last year's Twins. Both of the foreign arms couldn't eat innings, sure, but they threw well. Hyun-seok-hyeong had even enjoyed a renaissance, people were calling it his second prime—and the team still finished dead last overall.
Lee Hae-ryong found himself seriously weighing whether he should go ask the manager to put him in the game.
Where Lee Hae-ryong was only now starting to tremble with dread, Park Myeong-gil had been living in that trembling his entire career.
Since last year he had gradually carved out a foothold on the first-team roster—but his defensive position shuffled between first and third, occasionally even second base. Less a starter than an infield utility man, through and through.
True, his share of starts had climbed even past last year's, and he was in practice a fixed member of the first team now—but still without a confirmed position, drifting like a leaf on the current.
Some people said versatility was a blessing: if a strong competitor appeared at one spot, you could simply migrate to another and survive. To Park Myeong-gil, it felt like nothing of the sort. To him it meant he was still treated as a player not quite good enough for any position.
He walked to the plate chewing on those thoughts, and there behind the pitcher stood the shortstop—Lee Seung-kwon, planted deeper than the mound itself in Park Myeong-gil's field of view.
Like every infield utility man, Park Myeong-gil had once dreamed of playing shortstop. Though by the time he started getting real playing time, senior Joong-yeon had already locked down the position, so he'd never even attempted the competition.
Be that as it may—to Park Myeong-gil, a man of shabby talent still shuttling between first and third without ever having been given the chance to compete, Lee Seung-kwon was a shortstop of such staggering gifts that envy felt almost beside the point.
So what if the team had no established shortstop during his post-high school rookie season—he'd been handed the everyday job on arrival. Current line: ten home runs, thirteen stolen bases? A .288 average? Absurd talent.
And turning his head slightly to the left, there stood the third baseman, Hwang Jong-moon.
One year younger than Park Myeong-gil, Hwang Jong-moon had, back in the futures league days, been no different from him—a thoroughly ordinary player whom Park Myeong-gil had at times actually led.
A former shortstop failure turned all-or-nothing slugger drifting around the infield. In a sense, the Northern District's Park Myeong-gil. The two of them were, oddly, mirror images.
Which was why Park Myeong-gil had felt a strange kinship with him—that very player had bloomed spectacularly last year, smashing a monstrous twenty-five home runs, and this season he was holding last year's pace, growing into a next-generation All-Star-caliber third baseman before everyone's eyes.
True geniuses charging upward with terrifying momentum. Contemporaries who'd once seemed to occupy the same rung of the ladder, now so far ahead of him he'd lost sight of their backs.
The anxiety that someday the Twins would produce a whole flock of such players and erase his spot entirely—that fear ruled Park Myeong-gil's head, always.
Thanks to it, his muscles went rigid with tension the moment he stepped into the batter's box. His heart hammered so violently he genuinely wondered if he needed a calming herbal remedy.
Park Myeong-gil's anxieties clung to him at the plate with dogged persistence—and they were helping to make his fears a reality, little by little.
The world drained to white, his vision tunneling. And so, shaking like a leaf, he faced the first pitch.
"Strike!"
"First-pitch strike."
"That's a curveball. Not one Jeong Soo-yul throws often, mind you. He sneaks it in to steal the advantage early."
"The count: oh-and-one."
With the world erased around him, he hadn't read the pitch at all. A curveball should have shown some tell the instant it left the hand—instead there was only that tunnel vision, the ball's trajectory registering only after it had already left the pitcher's fingers.
Sweat began running faster. With the count buried like this, an even harder battle was all but guaranteed.
Pitch two.
"Strike two!"
"Fastball away, and he swings through it."
"Beautifully located at the edge. And remember, Park Myeong-gil has legitimate home run power at all times—which is exactly why working around the zone like this, expanding it just a touch, is a perfectly sound approach rather than challenging him head-on."
"The count: oh-and-two."
Not even a breaking ball—just an honest fastball tailing away. But a head already packed to bursting with tension and panic had whiffed at even that hittable pitch.
The pressure was mounting to the point where he could barely see straight.
He stepped out of the box to catch his breath, but nothing loosened. Another out, just like this? If I go hitless today, that's fifteen straight plate appearances without a hit, isn't it?
Negative thoughts seized his mind, and just as the umpire, out of patience, was about to order him back into the box—
"..."
Lee Seung-kwon, who sat clearer in Park Myeong-gil's vision than the pitcher himself, was looking toward the Twins' dugout with an expression that felt somehow familiar.
Park Myeong-gil followed that gaze and turned toward the dugout himself, and there—
"Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!"
—was Kim Yi-seon, today's starter, going through some light shadow pitching, no doubt to keep his shoulder warm between innings.
He stared blankly at the sight for a moment, and Kim Yi-seon, apparently noticing the stare, turned his head and flashed a grin.
It looked like he wanted to say something—but what actually seized Park Myeong-gil's eyes just then was something else entirely.
"..."
Lee Seung-kwon's face had twisted into an expression Park Myeong-gil knew intimately well.
And seeing it, he understood. That familiar look was the very one he wore all the time—the expression he made when watching his peers pull ahead, or juniors charging up past him.
Ah. I see. So even Lee Seung-kwon—whom I'd written off as a walking mountain of impossible talent—has walls of his own.
Then, on a sudden impulse, he turned his head toward third base—and there was Hwang Jong-moon, watching Lee Seung-kwon with that same bitter look.
Yes. That expression, too, is the same one I'm wearing right now. So even a kid that loaded had his own struggles. An expression thick with that complicated feeling.
"Batter, to the box, please."
The umpire severed the reverie and finally ordered him back to the plate. But Park Myeong-gil's heart was no longer pounding the way it had been.
For reasons he couldn't explain, Park Myeong-gil stepped back in with a strangely settled mind.
He looked at the pitcher again. Now that he really looked, even the pitcher had his eye on Kim Yi-seon.
Right. I'm not the only one getting crushed by talent, cowering before teammates who've pulled ahead of me.
The tunnel vision was gone, replaced by a view wider even than his everyday sight. His dynamic vision, his eye for detail—sharpened to the point that he could see the pitcher on that far mound glancing, ever so slightly, toward Kim Yi-seon.
But best of all: his muscles had stopped locking up. Loose and limber, moving with fluid ease, as if he'd just climbed out of bed.
The pitcher, by contrast, hurled the third pitch with everything he had, body stiff as a board.
The ball's trajectory bloomed in Park Myeong-gil's vision. With two strikes, the pitcher had chosen a bait pitch over a head-on battle.
A splitter, diving toward the bottom of the zone. Textbook.
It amazed Park Myeong-gil that he could read it at all—but what amazed him more was that, despite recognizing the bait, he somehow wanted to swing.
An inexplicable confidence that simply bringing the bat to that predicted path would produce a good swing, a good result.
And so Park Myeong-gil swung from below, upward and hard, like a golf swing—
CRACK—!!
"A towering drive! Sky-high! Ah—it's off the roof of the dome!"
"Did that clear the home run line? And forget the distance—the sheer force on that ball! In a few open-air parks, that might have left the stadium entirely!"
"Ah, the review is in. Home run! It's a home run! A solo shot that shakes Park Myeong-gil right back into balance—his fourth of the season!"
"Park Myeong-gil had been mired in a slump, you know—fourteen consecutive hitless plate appearances coming into tonight. And here he breaks the vicious cycle with an emphatic home run!"
"Huh?"
Even after contact, he could only stand there in a daze, watching the ball fly.
That went over?
"...What are you doing? The bases aren't going to run themselves."
The Rangers' catcher, senior Sung Yeon-joon, spoke up quietly, with a trace of displeasure—and only then did Park Myeong-gil come back to himself. Ah. I've been staring at the ball this whole time.
He scrambled off, threw out a hasty apology, and rounded the bases at nearly a full sprint.
Back in the dugout, his teammates erupted.
"Hey, you saw that, right, Captain? Who says the shortstop and second baseman are allowed to go hitless? Their third baseman's out here doing the heavy lifting!"
"Oh, get over yourself, you show-off. Myeong-gil—told you yesterday to swing with confidence, and look, you found it. That's it. Don't overthink anything, just let it fly."
Teammates swarmed him, slapping his helmet, each offering a word of congratulations—and just as he was getting a little misty-eyed over it all, one more player came over. Huge frame, boyish face.
"Hyung. My advice helped, didn't it?"
It was Kim Yi-seon, striding over with Kang Min-hyuk in tow, the two of them jostling each other in a way that made their closeness plain.
Well, I suppose in a sense he did manufacture this home run. Time to muster some gratitude.
"Advice? Yi-seon, when exactly did you give me advice?"
Gratitude aside, though. When did this kid ever advise me about anything?
"Kim Yi-seon. I'm telling you, this 'communication with the batter' thing of yours does not exist."
"That's exactly what I'm saying—it does! Myeong-gil-hyung was just being shy about it."
No, seriously, this is so unfair.
Today's game was going precisely as I'd designed—I'd handcuffed their entire lineup inning after inning and dragged us here scoreless. I'd given up a few hits, sure, but keeping Lee Seung-kwon off the bases had been a big part of it.
But even if I completely shut down Lee Seung-kwon today and banked a mountain of All-Star Race points, what good was it if the man just flipped on crazy mode over the remaining two days and out-scored me anyway?
So I'd tried to pass a tip to tomorrow's starter, Kang Min-hyuk—and this dense idiot understood exactly none of it.
"Huh? Does it seriously have to be words for you to get it? Like I said, you can communicate through eye contact, intensity, spirit—stuff like that."
"What on earth is that supposed to... is that some scientific-sounding theory of yours too?"
It's not scientific analysis, but I feel it out there on the field! This is the same guy who insists dependency pitch-framing and gyro-ball theory are real just because his gut says so, and now he ignores field sense?
Dude. If communication didn't exist, do you really think Hwang Jong-moon-hyung would have just brushed off that massive bruise on his forearm—not a serious injury, sure, but still?
And Myeong-gil-hyung only swung free and easy because he read my message—"even if the batters can't hit, I, Kim Yi-seon, will throw a shutout, so swing without a care in the world."
But this heretic, Kang Min-hyuk, agreed with none of it.
"With Hwang Jong-moon-hyung, he probably let it slide because you're a rookie and a kid... or he avoided you because you just looked like a lunatic."
"What kind of garbage is that? A lunatic?"
Where else are you going to find a rational man like me?
"And besides, you think anyone reads 'shadow pitching while grinning once' as some kind of coded message? You just look like an embarrassed rookie who happened to make eye contact."
"Ugh... you're so stubborn about all the wrong things. You're a baseball player and you don't know this? Between competitors dueling over pride and the will to win, there's an unspoken spiritual bond. I'm telling you."
Then what do you call everything I've felt trading glances with hitters out there?
Fine. This isn't working. I'll have to demonstrate it right in front of his eyes before this guy believes me.
"Okay, watch closely. The top of the sixth means their one-two-three hitters are due up. My instincts locked in with Lee Seung-kwon today—I'll show you exactly what I mean, so pay attention."
I'd felt a spark with Hwang Jong-moon-hyung too, but the one where minds truly met was Lee Seung-kwon. So this is what they mean by kindred spirits, huh?
We'd never met before today, and yet we'd exchanged greetings before first pitch, and now it felt like we were already old friends.
"Kim Yi-seon. We faced Lee Seung-kwon at the Blue Dragon National Championship. You were the one pitching that day, so how have you forgotten?"
Ignoring Kang Min-hyuk's nonsense, of course.
"Seung-kwon. What did your hyung used to tell you?"
"...Even if a hitter fails seven times, three successes make him a great hitter."
"Right. Go get him."
My seniors were all watching me sideways with concern. Fair enough—two straight three-strikeout at-bats would make anyone assume I'd taken a hit to the psyche.
And in truth, I had been shaken. Those were pitches I had no business swinging at.
Even back in my second year of high school he'd been a monster, but here in the pros he'd grown so much stronger that I caught myself wondering if beating him was even possible.
A 164 km/h fastball? I'll stake my word on it: even if another major-league arm threw a heater at that velocity, it wouldn't carry Kim Yi-seon's kind of menace. There's something else in that ball—something you can't see.
"Now stepping in, Lee Seung-kwon. Oh-for-two on the day."
"Lee Seung-kwon—as his surge in the WPA-based All-Star Race shows, this is a hitter who grows stronger in clutch situations and deep in games. Definitely one to watch."
But I'd been shaken, not defeated.
The bat gripped tight.
Kim Yi-seon locked eyes with me hard, then delivered the first pitch.
"Strike!"
"First pitch, down in the zone—called strike."
"Lee Seung-kwon. Taking a look this time?"
Kim Yi-seon tilted his head at me. Right. The me of every day until now would have burned with fighting spirit right there. Watching a fastball drift slightly toward the middle, with the fire already dimmed in the eyes facing me? As a hitter locked in a duel, maybe I'd have it all wrong.
But I had understood something. Right now, I was not a man who could fight Kim Yi-seon head-on.
"Kim Yi-seon delivers pitch two!"
"Ball."
"Just off the edge. A changeup that time, was it?"
"Lee Seung-kwon is working this at-bat with remarkable composure."
A fight is only a fight when each man is truly the other's equal. What the current Lee Seung-kwon needed was the humility to give his absolute best from the challenger's position.
So I pressed the fighting spirit down. Chose calm over aggression.
Kim Yi-seon stared at me for a long beat, as if my change had surprised him. But I met his gaze openly.
Choosing not to fight is not the same as giving up. It means the contest is no longer against the man on the mound—it's against my own limits.
The Lee Seung-kwon of today cannot hit Kim Yi-seon's 164 km/h fastball. He cannot tell Kim Yi-seon's breaking balls from his heaters. So rather than a duel with the pitcher, I must focus on the one thing within my reach: the limits I can push past.
The target: the fastball, without exception. This time, and only this time, I would time up that 160-plus heater.
A faint, sharp smile.
And Kim Yi-seon, as though he'd understood everything just from watching me, smiled back and gave a small nod. Yes. You got the message.
Then no fancy tricks were needed.
I set my stance. Kim Yi-seon readied the next pitch.
The third pitch left his hand.
Crack!!
"Ah, a tipped ball—it trickles toward second base, and the throw to first... he's out."
"Exquisite timing, though. When a changeup comes in like that, it's nearly impossible to react to."
...Weren't you the one who wanted a head-on battle?
"See that? Even Seung-kwon was sitting on something other than the fastball at the end there. Normally you never tip the pitch you're expecting, but he requested it with his eyes so brazenly that I figured, if he can hit it, let's see him try—so I just threw it."
"I don't think that's what happened."
What do you mean, 'I don't think so'?!
Kang Min-hyuk, you really are hopeless, you know that?