Kim Yi-seon, Open for Business

Of course, it went without saying that the Incheon Mariners—the Seoul Twins' opponent in this Playoff—couldn't possibly have missed the rumors either.

But they were cautious. How many variables does a short series hold, how chaotic can it get? It was far too risky to lean on mere gossip, and even more so to get worked up over a single player.

"Ahem... Kim Yi-seon is obviously a tremendous player, but that's all it is right now—rumors. So let's not do anything rash and focus on our own preparation first. Don't go thinking you've got it easy just because he might be out."

"That's right. Even if he really did struggle with a cold, he could still take the mound. Ahem... post-season is when guys with real injuries go out there on painkillers anyway. Surely he's got at least that much fighting spirit in him?"

"Besides, if we were a team that would lose just because Kim Yi-seon shows up, we were never a team headed upward in the first place. Ahem! Let's win our way up there with our heads held high!"

The Mariners' players, manager, and coaching staff had gathered and declared this much resolve.

What a proud display of sportsmanship it was—so long as they hadn't been forcibly pinning down the corners of their mouths as they threatened to curl upward.

Honestly, it's infuriating. Of all people, it had to be that Kim Yi-seon.

As luck would have it, the Incheon Mariners belonged to the same division as the Seoul Twins. And because the two cities were so close, whenever rain cancellations threatened the schedule, games would simply be moved to the dome at Jamsil, so there were hardly any postponed games at all.

Which is to say: the schedule was already packed as it was, and thanks to the season ending without ever facing a well-rested Kim Yi-seon, they had taken every single punch head-on. Honestly.

Roughly speaking, the Mariners had donated about four wins to Kim Yi-seon, which arguably made them the single biggest contributor to his record-setting 17 wins as a high school graduate rookie.

A short series has too many variables, so who cares about one player? You say? Kim Yi-seon has long since transcended constants—he's a cosmic constant. What you need to be asking is what kind of lunatic that guy actually is.

First of all, Kim Yi-seon had not allowed five or more runs in a single game even once this season. His worst outing was four runs. Unbelievable.

And then there was that insane ERA. No, we're not talking about some lukewarm prospect who'd thrown two or three cup-of-coffee appearances in the majors—we're talking about a fixed rotation starter with over 140 innings pitched posting a 1.93 ERA.

For those who struggle to feel the numbers, here it is in plain terms: based on the six innings a starter averages, this guy was giving up roughly 1.28 runs per start.

Meaning: over four starts, he'd allow two runs once and one run in the other three.

Some analysts even pointed out that this figure was dragged down by his shaky start to the season, when his ERA briefly climbed to three—a suggestion that if the already-complete Kim Yi-seon had thrown a full season without that rest, the number could have dipped even lower.

And a guy like that is in poor condition? Best case he sits out, worst case he's just a little off his game?

The opposing starters due to face him in head-to-head duels felt inexplicably chipper, and the batters who would have to face him directly wanted nothing more than to throw themselves off the nearest rooftop.

Oh, to be fair, the rest of the rotation—Kang Min-hyuk, Matt Doland, Paulo Rodriguez, Kang Hyun-seok—were all excellent pitchers. Kang Min-hyuk in particular was a monster who didn't lose a step even compared to Kim Yi-seon.

Still, the pressure of two monsters versus one is a different beast entirely. Look at it through the lens of a best-of-three Playoff: in the first case, the two monsters ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠take two straight wins and you're swept 0-2; in the latter, you can concede one win to the lone monster, steal two for yourself, and take the series 2-1.

And so they said out loud, 'We mustn't neglect our Kim Yi-seon countermeasures either,' while quietly shelving those countermeasures in the backs of their minds.

After all, he wasn't a player you could counter just because you prepared for him—this was probably the right call on their end.

"Yi-seon, honey, if anything still hurts, you tell us right away, okay? Auntie's no stranger to you, so don't be so skittish about it."

"That's right, son-in-law. They say a son-in-law is the pride of his mother-in-law—so ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠speak up anytime. And above all, I am your agent, remember? Managing my player is part of the job."

"Player Kim Yi-seon. You seem to be in better shape now, but keep in mind that consistent, day-to-day management is what matters most. When I get back, I'll set up the air purifier and the antibacterial—"

Even after I'd fully recovered, the mothers-in-law stuck around for quite a while longer before the three of them finally gathered their things and left together.

I still have no idea why, but the three of them got along spectacularly.

And for reasons beyond my understanding, they also had me take a commemorative photo while holding a piece of paper with something strange written on it. What was it again? Thank you, Da-hee's mom?With Yi-seon's Auntie? Something along those lines...

Anyway, good. Peace had finally returned to this household.

I'd thought this villa was pretty spacious for its kind, but with three mothers-in-law taking up permanent residence in rotation, it had turned cramped, noisy, and an absolute madhouse.

Ye-eun apparently shared the sentiment, letting out a long sigh of relief. Even the look in Min-ah's eyes had turned serene again.

With nothing else on the horizon, I figured I'd start easing back into my return-to-play prep when—

"───♪♫~"

"Was that your phone?"

"Looks like it."

The phone that had been held hostage by the mothers-in-law for days finally rang. My vacation technically ran through today, so there shouldn't have been any calls coming in.

I picked it up—Manager. Puzzled, I answered.

"Hello?"

"No, sir. I know Mr. Han passed the word along to the club. Calling out of nowhere instead of the usual texts—is something the matter?"

I'm no fool. When a player nearing his return says he's feeling under the weather, the least he can do is report it promptly to the club. Yet for some reason, the Manager's voice was dripping with urgency.

"Er... yes. Did something happen?"

What on earth was this now. Sure, reporting directly to the club president rather than through the coaching staff wasn't exactly proper protocol, but Seo-hee was the club official closest to me, so it had seemed the surest way to get the message across.

Seo-hee might act a little scatterbrained when she's around me, but she's otherwise diligent to a fault and handles her work impeccably. Think Ye-eun's people skills combined with Min-ah's brains, roughly speaking...

Oh.

"Ye-eun. The Manager says he texted you and never got a reply, so he called me instead. You're not answering his texts? No, wait—since when are you and the Manager even texting each other directly—"

Under normal circumstances, this would be utterly impossible. This was Lee Ye-eun we were talking about—Lee Ye-eun leaving a message on read? If it were some meaningless fan DM, maybe, but from someone she actually knew? Unthinkable.

Though come to think of it, I was a little curious how she and the Manager had been communicating over my head in the first place.

Ye-eun cut me off and rushed to explain herself.

"Mom's been glued to the house nonstop lately. And she kept harping on about how pregnant women need to rest and take it easy. Thanks to her, I could barely even hold my phone."

"Same here. With Mom hovering over me, I genuinely had nothing to do but study. Sure, the CSAT's almost here, but it was miserable."

Seizing the opening, Min-ah also made her plea of suffering and nestled into my arms, but anyway.

So the long and short of it: with the mothers-in-law constantly watching, everyone was too busy tiptoeing around them to handle anything else. And Seo-hee—scared of her own mother more than any of the three—had been too busy fleeing to even remember passing my message along.

Hence the half-delivered word had spread, completely uncontrolled, in every direction—which was why, faintly behind the Manager on this very call, I could make out the voices of coaches and senior teammates.

To spell it out: an uncontrolled, half-baked version of the story—not that I was recovering, just that I was sick—had circulated to most of the club, with zero details about my condition.

And had that rumor really stayed within our own organization? It's human nature for a piece of gossip known to two or three people to spread with a chorus of 'You're the only one who knows, right?'—in a professional sports club, no less, where even dedicated beat reporters grind this kind of scandal into serious headline fodder?

I told the Manager I was now in perfect health and would report to practice the next day, hung up, and turned quietly to Ye-eun and Min-ah.

"Have either of you checked the community forums recently?"

"No? I just told you. Mom was hovering so hard I couldn't even read a single text properly—I had no choice but to lie there and rest like a good girl."

Min-ah nodded along, evidently in the same boat.

Without further explanation, I went straight to the baseball community sites—particularly the Twins fan communities.

And what I saw there was...

...a trainwreck in the middle of a glorious, flaming collapse.

Manager Jeong Jin-haeng let out a long, deep sigh.

"Good, good. What a relief. Healthy body, no stamina issues—truly a relief."

Lately, with COVID spreading on top of every flu strain under the sun, the warnings had been constant. And whether it was COVID or the flu, there were endless stories of lingering aftereffects even after a full recovery.

Thankfully, the word was that our Twins' cornerstone, Yi-seon, really had suffered nothing more than a simple cold, and he'd returned to the club in absolutely perfect condition.

The man himself might grumble about it, but if he had to get sick, falling ill during his vacation was better for the club anyway. Should we call this a blessing in disguise?

"Honestly, Mr. Han—Seo-hee-nim examined my condition herself and was supposed to pass it along, so I don't know how things got so tangled up. I'll give her an earful later."

Manager Jeong Jin-haeng made the deliberate choice not to wonder why Kim Yi-seon called the club president by her first name, why the president had personally checked on Yi-seon's condition while he lay sick at home, or why Kim Yi-seon felt entitled to give the president an earful.

He couldn't quite see what it had to do with the current situation, but the president's face—suddenly searching for Yi-seon mid-game—flashed through his mind, and he buried that too in the far reaches of his memory.

Manager Jeong Jin-haeng was a man of sense. He knew all too well that getting entangled in matters like these never ended well.

Anyway, back to business. The club's reaction—trembling with anxiety until now—had all been one big farce, and while nobody knew the exact state of Yi-seon's body, he looked perfectly fine on the surface, and he himself insisted he was fully capable of starting Game 1 of the Playoffs.

Any ordinary manager, at this point, would think something along the lines of: Phew, thank goodness. Time to slot Yi-seon into the starting rotation and get back to practice. But Jeong Jin-haeng was no ordinary manager.

Even with the fans slandering him—when he'd driven the team to back-to-back last-place finishes overall, when blowing this season would have endangered not just his contract renewal but his entire professional career, when the fourth-place team had chased them right to their heels—he had always spun the player roulette wheel without hesitation.

A normal manager would have given those players a bit more seasoning in the minors first, and no one would have blinked. But he did what he did. Which is to say: they called him anything but normal.

He was a born gambler—a man who knew exactly when to slice open the belly of the game and exactly when to strike at his opponent's blind side.

And that was precisely why no one understood better than he did what needed to be done at this very moment.

"Yi-seon. Listen carefully, and don't misunderstand me."

"Yes, Manager."

"You've got three extra vacation days. Handle your training on your own until the day before the game. Don't come to the club."

"Excuse me?"

It was, quite simply, a shell game.

Manager Jeong Jin-haeng's gambit rested on a remarkably simple idea.

The Art of War teaches: to deceive the enemy, first deceive your own allies. And by pure accident, Yi-seon had deceived his own allies—and by virtue of those deceived allies, deceived everyone.

"Manager Jeong, is Kim Yi-seon really in that bad of shape?"

"No comment."

Even now, look—no one from the press had poked at him directly, and neither had the Mariners, his next opponent. But people with connections to Yi-seon and ties to that camp were lined up, each prodding with a carefully casual question.

Any normal manager would declare right then and there: Our Yi-seon is in perfect health. Instead, he made a show of being deliberately vague.

Of course, on its own, this might not fool the opponent. No—normally it wouldn't. Even if your pitcher really were hurt, you'd bluff and insist he's fine. Leaving an opening like that? It only makes them more suspicious.

But what if you layered other moves on top of it?

"For this post-season, we're going with a three-man rotation for now: Min-hyuk, Matt, and Paulo. Hyun-seok, I'm sorry, but I'll need you grinding it out in long relief."

"I'm old enough that you couldn't make me throw more even if you begged."

"Uh... Manager? Is Yi-seon really not playing?"

"This is the plan as of right now. If anything changes, I'll let you know then."

First, Yi-seon's vacation was extended. No matter how compressed the post-season schedule gets, the Playoffs don't start the moment the pennant race ends—there are always a few days of buffer.

On top of that, with a dome stadium as their home field, the Twins—whose games were rarely postponed—tended to finish earlier than everyone else. Which meant there was a comfortable stretch of time before Playoff Game 1.

During this window, Yi-seon would stay away from the club and sharpen his game feel through private training. Sure, infield defense drills and various other bits would get a little rusty, but after a full year of playing in sync, a bit of lost touch in the small things could be forgiven.

The players, having clearly heard that Yi-seon was fine, would be thrown into confusion by his continued absence from practice. His vacation extended all the way to the day before Playoff Game 1? Now the situation was truly incomprehensible. And that confusion would leak out through the beat reporters.

Then, one final nail to drive in.

A pre-game event held before the press, where the two sides traded psychological jabs and exchanged entertaining stories to drum up public interest.

The standard lineup was three per club: the manager, the team captain, and the biggest star. Normally, Kim Yi-seon would have been seated between Manager Jeong Jin-haeng and Lee Hae-ryong at this very table. But instead—

"Hello, everyone. I'm Kang Min-hyuk, pitcher for the Seoul Twins."

They brought Kang Min-hyuk instead.

By rights, the press should have erupted in fury. Kim Yi-seon was hardly your garden-variety star. Kang Min-hyuk was no slouch, but measured against Kim Yi-seon—the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠most popular player in the KBO at this very moment—he fell just a shade short.

Yet the eyes of the assembled reporters, watching a lesser player take the Media Day stage while that star sat at home, were filled not with anger but with fascination. Naturally.

The chaos inside the club, unintended though it was, had already let the story of Kim Yi-seon's health slip beyond the walls. It wasn't just the reporters—even ordinary community users knew that Kim Yi-seon's condition was in question.

And while the club had officially declared it wasn't COVID, didn't positive and negative results flip back and forth more easily than people thought? Or even if it hadn't been COVID at first, his weakened immune system could have let it turn into COVID along the way.

The reporters would naturally press further questions about Kim Yi-seon's health. Those questions would travel to the opposing club. And those questions just might pierce a crack no one had noticed yet.

Manager Jeong Jin-haeng sat there, savoring the strangely grinning reporters in front of him—and, from a different table, the gaze of the Mariners' manager fixed upon him.

Truly, he couldn't wait to see how those expressions and those stares would contort when the starting pitcher announcement dropped like a bombshell the day before the game. An entrance your opponent cannot predict—that is what you'd call the true Random, wouldn't you say?

And so, silently recalling his own nickname—a moniker that had once made him shudder with loathing—Manager Jeong Jin-haeng howled with laughter in the privacy of his own skull.

Randong-nim. The Random Manager, at last, lived up to his name.