Stealing the Spotlight

If you'd tracked baseball fans' reactions to this draft in real time, it was closer to a roller coaster than anything else.

Right at the start, as the draft was just getting underway—

People were enjoying the draft like they always did — arguing over their projected draft boards, debating who'd take whom and which franchise was sitting prettier.

Then the emcee's light pre-show formalities wrapped up, and the first pick was announced.

—"The Seoul Twins select Henry Dwight Irwin of Westfield High School."

A tidal wave of bewilderment and confusion flooded every head in the country. Just who was this Western player, and what on earth made the Twins take him?

Fans began digging up and circulating every scrap of public information released about Henry for the draft.

Henry's nationality, his school background, why the Twins had pursued him. With those broad facts laid out, they'd at least clawed their way out of total ignorance. But did that mean the questions were actually answered?

From that point on, every other storyline at the draft got swallowed whole, and the media and fan communities were plastered wall-to-wall with a single topic: what kind of human being Henry Dwight Irwin even was.

Credible reporters did their legwork, community users somehow dredged up Henry's high school numbers and laid them on the table, mixed in among them were trolls spreading rumors or outright fishing for bait — and on top of all that, baseball fans spun their delusion circuits over every tiny fact, dreaming up best- and worst-case scenarios until whether the current league was any good stopped mattering entirely.

And so the chaos churned on: the Twins made out like bandits, no — the Twins were gambling and bound to lose, the draft system itself was broken, no wait, actually it broke no rules at all. Every argument collided with every other argument in one glorious pileup.

And right in the eye of that storm, the Seoul Twins' PR team sat around grinning ear to ear, already sketching out their next marketing campaign.

Why? Well. They'd hooked the trolls, hadn't they?

I was currently holding a camera I had never asked for in either of my lives.

Not that I'm stupid enough to plan on making footage shot by a guy who's never held anything but a camera phone his whole life the centerpiece of official club content — it's just that thanks to that damn "no gatherings of ten or more" rule, bringing in a full production crew is difficult.

If we're going to slap a "This video was filmed in compliance with quarantine guidelines" sticker at the bottom, shouldn't I at least demonstrate the effort of manning the camera myself? Not that it'll matter — come next year or so, when some legendary evil law banning gatherings of four or more comes down the pipe, this will get hard too.

Swallowing those grumbles, I opened the door to the seminar room — the same one where I'd first met Hyun-seok sunbae-nim and the Manager all those years ago.

"...And so the player— oh! Everyone, a senior has come here today to welcome you all. You all know who he is, right? Please give a warm welcome to Kim Yi-seon!"

Four juniors clapped with parade-ground discipline as the host, running at a pitch of energy I still couldn't keep up with, whipped them along. And there in the middle, I spotted Jun-soo's face. It had been a while — good to see him, honestly.

Today's club content I'd been assigned was a meet-and-greet with the new rookies. Yes, the exact same thing Hyun-seok hyung did back when I joined. Except this time they'd scaled it up — apparently instead of the old two-man lineup of me and Kang Min-hyuk, they'd called in five players through the fifth round.

I'd asked why it couldn't be somebody else, but Kang Min-hyuk had pitched yesterday, Hyun-seok sunbae-nim was pitching today, and the position-player group claimed they were too busy — so here I was, out of options. What can you do? I forget it often, but I'm the youngest. I don't get a veto.

Still — the same Jun-soo who used to trail after me in school whining, "Hyung, play catch ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with me," now standing in the same club as a rookie... it's not really my business, but I felt oddly proud. So this is how school-clique factionalism gets started, I thought to myself.

Jun-soo aside, the eyes of every junior in that room as they looked at the KBO's reigning super rookie — the supernova, the rising star — were full of respect and awe. It felt pretty good, honestly. And also a little awkward, considering two of them were older than me.

But there was one man who didn't belong in that chorus of dragons taking flight.

He was clapping — lazily, leisurely, a thoroughly relaxed expression on his face. But those eyes weren't relaxed in the slightest. Eyes like a beast eyeing its prey.

Typical round-eyed foreigner, too — those big bulging peepers boring into me like that. One glance and I could tell exactly what he was thinking.

"...Hey, Han, tell him—"

"Mr. Henry says it's a pleasure to meet you."

He couldn't manage a word of Korean, rattling on and on in English while the other kids stood there flustered. Ah — not because of what he was saying. They were all guys who'd done nothing but play baseball their whole lives; this was pure foreign-language aversion, nothing more.

Meanwhile ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the interpreter had wedged himself in, a light sheen of sweat on his brow. He'd packaged it up ever so dutifully — but there was no way that entire soliloquy compressed down into one tidy little sentence. I wasn't born yesterday.

Yes, sure, they'd edit all this in post — but even with the cameras rolling, this guy wandered around with exactly zero social awareness. He was, without question, every bit as uneducated as Walker.

Walker was older than me, and a mercenary on a standard one-year deal, so fine — water under the bridge. But wasn't this guy my junior? Drafted and everything?

"Mr. Interpreter. Translate it exactly as I said. Tell him to go learn some manners."

If he's going to act like that, then somebody's got to educate him properly.

Henry Irwin's choice to come to Korea had been the product of many factors working at once.

He'd grown up under reasonably well-off parents in New Jersey — and precisely because of that, he burned with the adventurer's urge to escape his parents' shadow and the sprawl of American cities, to prove his own worth through challenge.

The visible traces of Asian blood — that one-quarter inheritance. The stubborn defiance born of the casual discrimination he'd suffered for it as a child.

Memories of the maternal grandmother who had loved him when he was small, and his curiosity about the homeland she had, only recently, finally traced back to.

And then the cold, rational calculation: even if he signed with an MLB club, he'd spend years toiling in the minors first — so wouldn't it be better to play in Korea, where the salaries ran higher and the fans burned hotter?

With those and a few other important reasons stacked on top, Henry Dwight Irwin shook off the love calls of every MLB team and prepared to put his signature on the contract of a club he'd never once heard of: the Seoul Twins.

"Han, what are those kids saying?"

"That they're excited. That they're nervous. That they can't believe this is real."

Perhaps his expectations had simply been too high, because the young men he found fell short of what he'd imagined.

When he'd first stepped off the plane and taken in the Seoul cityscape and the colossal home stadium, he'd allowed himself a flicker of hope — a metropolis that didn't kneel even to New York. But if this was the caliber of the players he'd actually take the field with...

The players he'd met at that absurd tryout held just to qualify for the draft, and the high-round picks who'd come here alongside him through the same draft — in the States, you could find a handful of talents like theirs in any local high school league.

Right. Think positive. He'd heard this country was about the size of a single state. By that measure, even these guys presumably counted as prospects worth keeping an eye on.

He forced the reasoning down and moved on. Whatever his purpose was, he couldn't care less how many small fry like these happened to exist.

"Han. Tell them I'm tired — jet lag. As for the personal questions, my agent already put everything out through the press, so they'll only be asking things I've answered a hundred times anyway."

"Henry. This is a form of fan service. Don't push back too hard — just give them reasonable answers."

"I fail to understand why I must repeat the same story for the umpteenth time. Fine. I shall play the idiot parrot."

And this idiotic interview was no different.

He'd heard something called a "rookie camp" — a training camp for assembling the rookies — was on the schedule, but only after the signing, apparently. And this interview wasn't for some broadcaster or newspaper, not even regional media — it was for the club's own YouTube channel.

He understood, in principle, that baseball was also an entertainment business built on a devoted fan base. But these amateur gatherings, like a child's make-believe tea party, looked clumsy and tedious to him. That was simply the reality.

Still, he filed this grievance away too, with reasonable understanding. A club below the big leagues couldn't help itself. Think of it as a minor-league franchise's itinerary and it all made a certain sense.

Everyone here was a passing club. Every opponent here was a passing opponent. His final goal was neither these people nor this place.

And so, with that in mind, he was fielding questions half-heartedly and making small talk with the teammates seated beside him when—

"Ah! Everyone, a senior has come to welcome you all!"

Finally. There he was. The target.

Kim Yi-seon. Once the number one name on the international prospect board — and still, today, a player who could reclaim that spot the moment he so much as declared for posting.

A player the storied big-market franchises — the Yankees, the Dodgers — had managed their international bonus pools around, and had even, it was said, weighed trade packages to acquire.

A player whom scouts from all thirty clubs were still shadowing to this ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠day — so relentlessly courted that you'd genuinely wonder why he wasn't in the big leagues already.

And that Kim Yi-seon glanced around the room with an easy, dopey smile and started chattering away in bright, cheerful Korean.

"Well, well, who's this! Jun-soo, that you? It's been forever!"

"It's an honor to see you, sunbae-nim!"

"Yeah, good to see you too. Manager doing all right? How's school treating you?"

"Manager Choi Sang-ho is the same as ever, sir! School... it's not quite what it was back when you sunbaes were there, but the atmosphere's still good!"

"Glad to hear it."

Their conversation, filtered through the interpreter, was boring enough to induce a yawn. Hardly the time for such trivial pleasantries — was it not?

He had assumed Kim Yi-seon would recognize his intent. Which was why he asked the interpreter to pass along his next words.

"Han, tell him this. Rather than trade nostalgia with some high school classmate, shouldn't the stars who are going to lead Korean baseball be having a somewhat more meaningful conversation?"

Yes. This was why Henry had come all this way to Korea.

He wanted to be a star. Not one middling baseball player among many.

Not the kind of "fine player" who was simply good at baseball and nodded politely at the home crowd's devotion — the kind of star whose own personal fans screamed his name, the kind whom all eyes followed.

In America, that was impossible. He did not undervalue his own talent — but objectively speaking, players who were "pretty good at baseball" poured out by the dozens every single year.

There was no scarcity. Short of dominance at a once-in-a-generation level, skill alone could not purchase star power. Perhaps even that level of skill didn't exist.

And while he was wrestling with exactly that problem, the Seoul Twins had come calling.

"So this player, Park—"

"Yes. Through his fan base in Korea he secured numerous sponsorships, which in turn generated substantial revenue—"

"No. Not that part. Is it true that he became a national hero?"

And there he found it. My scarcity.

In America, he would have been one mixed-Asian ballplayer among many.

But Korea was different. There, Henry became something truly singular — a man endowed with a star quality that would earn the fans' love. Even if he returned to America afterward. What reason was there to refuse?

On top of that, Henry had learned of the existence of one Kim Yi-seon.

It was a fact proven by the film industry: people preferred a team-up of heroes over any single hero. A fine choice, too, for raising Henry's own profile.

And beyond that — watching the arc of Kim Yi-seon's career had given him the gut instinct that this man was the same breed as himself. A human being whose goal was not money, but the cheers and love of the crowd.

Had their characters overlapped completely, they'd have been rivals — but Yi-seon was a pure-blooded Asian, while Henry was a mixed-race man closer to white. Yi-seon was a pitcher; Henry was a hitter.

A team-up with nothing left to desire. Delighted, he had extended his hand in exactly that spirit—

"No, Mr. Interpreter, not that attitude... Ah, damn it, this whole 'cheeky bastard' thing just doesn't translate, does it."

Kim Yi-seon's face looked as though he'd bitten into something foul.

"You know, thinking about it, this really pisses me off. This punk comes to Korea — why am I the one who has to speak English? Hey! Your senior's speaking Korean to you — did it never occur to you to actually learn the language?"

And in that moment, Henry realized that something had gone slightly, importantly, different from his expectations.