A Knuckle Changeup? (1)
"Aha, so this isn't some kind of faction—you're saying all of you gathered here because of a new technique... a power-up event, in other words?"
"For crying out loud, kid, how many times do I have to tell you to work on your Korean."
"I learned that one, though. Apparently it means something like dude?"
"*Sigh*."
Ever since the incident last time, Henry had essentially moved himself into the team facilities. Word was that contract signings with rookies were, in principle, supposed to happen after the season ended—he hadn't even put pen to paper yet.
Why he's living at our training complex when he's not even officially on the roster, I have no idea.
Whether Henry was aware of my thoughts or simply didn't care, he was boldly firing questions at Director Cho.
"So when you try to throw a changeup, the spin axis and finger involvement are the problem?"
"Exactly. For a normal human being, that tendency would actually be welcome—but this guy over-supinates to an absurd degree. And since his finger feel isn't exactly refined, he rips the ball with every finger from middle to pinky as hard as he can, which is why his backspin is monstrous."
All the while, the Director—clearly not a man whose study abroad in America had gone to waste—was freestyle-conversing in fluent English. I couldn't make out a single word of it. Only Henry, a native speaker, kept nodding along and reacting appropriately.
So the two of them went back and forth like that for a good while, while the interpreter, seemingly unable to keep up with such specialized terminology, stood there flustered for about ten minutes.
Then Henry suddenly turned to us with a supremely confident smile.
"Okay! I have no idea what any of that was about."
I'm hardly a master of English, but even I understood that sentence perfectly.
"That's it. You and me, right now. Today you get a beating."
And naturally, that confident smile and that oh-so-simple sentence provoked rage and violence even in my mild, gentle self.
"Wait! Stop! You can't assault a fellow player!"
"Yeah, yeah. Hold still."
It's been a long time since violence and hazing were purged from the baseball world, but for this particular guy, shouldn't we honor the traditional Korean spirit and physically engrave a senior's hot, burning love into him?
When I lost the battle against my rage and went looking for a bat, Henry hurriedly added, voice strained:
"But I think I know how to fix it!"
Of course, whether or not he had a solution, I delivered roughly three courtesy kicks to his backside as payment for being so insufferably annoying. Henry wore a genuinely betrayed expression, like he hadn't known I'd actually hit him—but did he really think that after pissing me off, dropping a solution would earn him a pass?
Bang Min-soo and Kang Min-hyuk tried to hold me back, warning that he might sulk and refuse to explain, but I ignored them. As if. A guy who lived that thoroughly off his own brilliance could never stop pretending to know everything.
"Honestly, you're a barbarian."
"Quiet. You're a grown man—getting smacked on the butt and whining about it."
"No sense of camaraderie, either."
Sure enough, after grumbling for a good long while, Henry shot me a glare and then started his explanation. His mouth must've been itching. Or maybe his pride won out.
Watching this, Bang Min-soo and Kang Min-hyuk both looked at me with something like admiration. This is customized psychological consulting for gifted children. I've decided not to hear comments like "Guess it's true that similar types think alike."
Anyway, the method Henry proposed was remarkably simple and intuitive.
"So if the spin is the problem, just take the fingers off the ball entirely?"
"Exactly. It's like batting—you know how if your bat control wobbles, some hitters choke up or take a finger or two off the grip? Same principle. If you can't control it, don't use it. Problem solved."
In other words: a statement practically begging to get smacked. Unable to suppress my violent impulses, I kicked Henry in the rear yet again.
"Kim! You keep kicking my ass—bats and kicks are banned even in bench-clearing brawls! And you're using it on a teammate!"
"This is the traditional Korean method of instilling manners. When in Korea, follow Korean culture."
I'd seen veteran players lamenting how corporal punishment culture had all but vanished from baseball lately, and back then I'd thought, what kind of fossil nonsense is that?
But having now experienced the reality firsthand, I understood instantly just how wise that argument had been. The elders truly are never wrong.
So there I was, administering light discipline while injecting some good old K-spirit into Henry, a child raised in the flat, freedom-loving society of America—and only now did I feel my irritation drain away. For a moment I thought I caught Bang Min-soo giving me a look that said, And you're the one saying this? But that must be my imagination.
"Damn it, Mr. Bang! Will you do something about your pitcher!"
"That one doesn't listen to a soul except his girlfriend."
"Didn't Kim just go on about the Korean hierarchy or whatever?"
"Would you trust a word Kim Yi-seon says?"
"God damn it!"
It stayed noisy for a while after that, but a few more smacks settled him right down.
Anyway—after a modest amount of physical instruction, I finally explained, clearly and logically, to Henry, who was now prepared to respect his elders and open his ears. Namely, why the absurd solution proposed by that dimwit Henry was impossible.
"Listen up, Henry. Hitting and pitching are completely different disciplines. The methodologies differ so much you could call them different sports entirely—do you really think a hitting approach translates to pitching?"
For one thing, isn't Henry a hitter? Sure, in both America and Korea, every kid plays both ways through elementary school—but that's another way of saying he quit pitching after elementary school. What would a guy like that know?
"And if this were any other pitch, I might give your idea some thought. But this is a circle changeup. You're already throwing it with your index pressed against the side of the ball, and you want me to take my middle finger off too? The ball would just squirt right out of my hand."
Besides, the circle changeup is already a pitch thrown with your most dexterous, strongest finger—the index—pulled off to the side. Remove the middle finger on top of that? That means fixing the ball with only two fingers, the ring and pinky. Forget control—the ball would fly straight out of my hand.
I have no idea what goes through his head when he spouts lunacy like this, but self-proclaimed geniuses are all the same. Right—this guy knows absolutely nothing about pitching, but because he's a genius, if it makes sense in his head then obviously it'll work in reality, and he just confidently barges ahead with his nonsense—
"Taking off the middle finger, hmm... that might actually be a better idea than I expected."
"I'm sorry, what?"
But Director Cho had just hit the gas with no warning.
"Hold on, Director. Even Min-hyuk only said to take pressure off the index finger, not remove fingers entirely, right?"
"He has a point. If you take them off completely, controlling the ball would be—Director, are you sure about this?"
The Director paid no mind to the objections from me and Kang Min-hyuk.
"The ball slipping out? That's your problem to solve, isn't it? The issue right now is that you can't do fine-grained control with your middle finger. So the answer is either your finger feel suddenly improves enough to manage that fine control—or you take the middle finger off entirely. Those are your two options."
What kind of logic is this—it's like a designer tormenting an engineer, and the conclusion is pure military-style problem solving.
The coaches, equally dumbfounded, tried to intervene, but the Director bent not one inch, calmly pressing his logic forward.
"Then give up and go back to throwing your old changeup. Look here, gentlemen coaches. If this kid rejects this and rejects that, what exactly am I supposed to do? If it bothers you so much, then live as you were. Fine by me."
"Ah... well, the Director isn't wrong, but..."
"Hmm... Yi-seon? There's really no alternative on the table anyway. Try it, and if it doesn't work, you just switch back. Simple."
And somehow the coaches were the ones who ended up persuaded.
Watching all this, Henry smirked like he was saying See? Told you I was right, and my blood began to boil.
"Pitch development isn't a children's game—how is that supposed to work mid-season?"
"You're the one treating it like a children's game, trying to fix it in the middle of a season. If you don't like it, then abandon pitch adjustments altogether. Keep throwing what you've got, let your hand adapt gradually, and wait for the moment of enlightenment—that's the actually normal solution."
A fact-bomb from Director Cho that left me with nothing to say.
"Under normal circumstances I'd never recommend something this strange to a pitcher. But the way your off-speed stuff came along during the knuckle curve training last time—your adaptation is faster than expected, on and off the field. I imagine this will go fine too."
"I really don't think this is a good idea..."
The Daejeon Bears were passing through a delicate stretch.
Last year: fourth in the division, seventh overall. This year: currently sitting fifth in the division in real time.
Judging by results alone, there was plenty to grumble about, yet neither the club nor the fans were voicing much complaint.
"Team President, you know as well as I do how tight things are at the parent company. Please, try to understand."
"I do understand. But next year, without additional investment, we're simply done for. Kang-hyun hits free agency next season."
The reason was the parent company's finances.
What had kept the Daejeon Bears a respectable club in the league all this time owed a great deal to an owner who genuinely loved baseball.
But with the company's finances deteriorating badly in recent years, for several seasons the club hadn't been able to spend serious money—not on external free agents, and not even on protecting its own players.
In terms of club revenue, Daejeon fell short of being a genuinely big market compared to true metropolises like Seoul, Pyongyang, or Busan—so the team had drifted beyond small-market status into something close to a selling club.
A full rebuild would have been an option—tank hard, stockpile prospects, and bounce back—but sinking deep enough into the standings to do it properly would wreck gate receipts, so that door was closed too.
So the Bears limped along with a refit that was neither one thing nor the other, maintaining a mediocre record, and now the pandemic had arrived to finish them off. The club was one step from asphyxiation.
The owner wasn't a bad man by any measure. Even now, in the depths of COVID hardship, he squeezed every last won out of the operation to keep the club running normally, and he was diligently searching for a buyer in better shape than himself.
But no suitable buyer ever materialized, and so everyone simply threw up their hands and accepted it. Who would you even blame—the owner? The players? The fans?
Still, for Daejeon Bears manager Choi Jeong-yong, this one was very hard to swallow.
"If we lose Kang-hyun, we have no catcher. Catchers are scarce on the trade market these days, and our odds of salvaging anything from this year's second draft are slim. Second baseman Hyung-wook honestly isn't starter material, and third baseman Kang-min is only a year out of high school."
Because their starting catcher hit free agency next year. Jang Kang-hyun was a 29-year-old catcher in the prime of his career. He didn't rank among the league's very elite backstops, but he was a solid, dependable catcher more than worthy of a starting job.
But there were other important free agents to account for, and the funds the club had set aside simply couldn't meet what Jang Kang-hyun's agent was demanding. As things stood, a move to another team was a foregone conclusion.
Faced with his general manager's earnest plea, the president of the Daejeon Bears had no choice but to lower his head.
"What can we do? We raise the kids we have. And that Kang-min kid—he's a local boy, popular with the fans, isn't he?"
"Kang-min needs more seasoning. The only reason he's even listed at third is that he can eat innings in place of Hyung-wook—you know perfectly well he's played all of two first-team games."
"General Manager Choi. This isn't a request. It's an order."
Hearing that much was enough to wring a long sigh out of the Bears' GM.
One catcher whose defense was passable at the first-team level but whose hitting would never, ever measure up—and another, a naturally gifted prospect whose bat could hang with first-team hitters but whose catching skills were so deficient that the front office was seriously considering converting him to first base.
Those two were supposed to carry next season? Forget fifth place like this year—the future might well be dead last in the entire league.
But what choice was there? They'd make it work somehow.
Dragging his deflated body out of the president's office, the general manager shuffled straight back to the clubhouse and sat down with the manager.
One look at his face told Manager Moon everything, and with an awkward smile he casually poured out some green tea.
"So that's how it went, huh."
"Nothing to be done. Parent company's struggling, apparently."
But the manager's reaction was far milder than expected. More like, too bad, but nothing we can do.
Here was the field manager—the man who actually commanded the dugout—showing less agitation than the GM, whose work sat closer to the front office than to the field.
Mildly bewildered, the Bears' general manager shot back bluntly:
"Manager Moon. Now that I think about it, apparently you can run this team fine without Kang-hyun? You look awfully comfortable for a man just told he's lost his starting catcher."
"Oh come on, what kind of talk is that? Even for me, having Kang-hyun as my backup catcher versus Hyung-wook is a big difference, you know."
The manager waved a dismissive hand and slurped down his tea.
Backup catcher?
"Manager, what on earth are you saying?"
"Look, I'd have liked to keep Kang-hyun, but signing an FA for a backup spot was never realistic. I understand. We'd better get ready to grab a compensation player or a decent pick, that's all."
"No—that's exactly what I'm asking. What do you mean, Jang Kang-hyun is the backup catcher?"
At that, Manager Moon Ji-hwan blinked those enormous eyes of his and replied in a voice of magnificent bafflement.
"What do you mean, what am I saying? You've had your wires crossed this whole conversation. Ah—well, obviously our starting catcher going forward is Nam Kang-min, so even if we keep Jang Kang-hyun around, he'd be the backup, wouldn't he?"
"Nam Kang-min?"
The kid who couldn't even properly play catcher in the second division was going to be the first-team's starting catcher?
But utterly indifferent to the GM's stunned disbelief, Manager Moon Ji-hwan of the Daejeon Bears just grinned and said:
"Matter of fact, the timing's perfect. Our very next series is against those Twins fellas, ain't it? I'll throw him out there as the starter then. See what he's got."
"I'm sorry, what?"
The upcoming three-game set against the Twins was an away series running Paulo, Kang Hyun-seok, and Kim Yi-seon. He was going to trot out a rookie against a Twins team that—after losing its early momentum—was oddly content to coast lately? With the series sitting at one win apiece and every game precious?
"Why's that got you so rattled? Our Kang-min's finished cooking. He's ready."
Despite the general manager's reaction, Manager Moon Ji-hwan offered no further explanation. He wasn't looking at the man across the desk at all—in his mind's eye he was watching Nam Kang-min, the kid who kept dropping balls in the second-division games lately.
Judged on those moments alone, Nam Kang-min was a subpar catcher. But if you'd sat down with him often enough, and watched his training closely, you'd know.
He was already ready.
"That punk Nam Kang-min disappears for ages, then pops up at exactly the worst possible time."
The season was genuinely winding down now. Unless we spiraled into a massive losing streak or an absurd winning tear, the standings had reached the point where they wouldn't budge.
Put another way: if our losing streak dragged on, a team like the Giants or the Bears sitting in fourth or fifth could ride a hot streak and claw their way up to third.
It was too real a possibility to wave off—our losing streak already stood at three games.
"Kang-min was a fine catcher. I always figured he'd do well in the pros, too."
"Fine catcher, my ass. The guy could only catch if you literally aimed the ball into his mitt."
And two of those three losses had been built squarely on Nam Kang-min's back.
In the first two games against the Bears, Nam Kang-min had started at catcher and shown solid, if slightly imperfect, defense. The problem wasn't the glove. It was the bat.
"So even if his defense had a few cracks here and there—two home runs and five RBIs should be enough to make up for it, no?"
Did this lunatic chug a potion or something? Two home runs at Jamsil. Plus extra-base-hit RBIs on top of that.
Truly, the guy is full of surprises. Slipping out with an injury before a crucial game back in his second year of high school, and now this—somehow he keeps making my life difficult.
"And Kim Yi-seon, for the record, you talk a big game but you're not exactly unhappy to see him, are you?"
"Spare me the commentary and go get ready for the game."
If I pitched today, Kang Min-hyuk would take the mound tomorrow. Normally, with the series finale behind us, he'd already be preparing for the next opponent—but since this stretch was all home games, there was no travel, and so here we were, stuck together in the dugout.
"So. That changeup of yours—is it coming along?"
"No idea."
That wasn't me being coy. I genuinely didn't know.
It had gone through plenty of process, but since the approach kept the original pitch and only overhauled the grip, it had come together faster than expected. There was barely anything to tinker with in my delivery or balance.
But using it in a real game was a different animal from practice, and with my proficiency still nowhere near polished, I couldn't get a feel for whether this thing would actually work.
"Fascinating pitch, honestly. All you did was swap out one finger."
"That's breaking balls for you."
I gave Kang Min-hyuk a half-hearted acknowledgment and turned my gaze toward the opposing dugout, where Nam Kang-min was loosening up.
That punk's form looks sharp today, too. No question about it.
Right. Decision made.
My new changeup's live test subject is going to be that guy.