Big Things Begin With Small Ones

Fans were starting to notice, a little slowly, how the momentum on the field was shifting.

"Grandpa. Isn't this, like, a perfect game in the making?"

"Don't say things like that, you'll jinx it."

The grandfather-granddaughter duo, old Lee Young-gil and Miss Lee Yeon-joo, were once again watching the Seoul Twins game, even if only on broadcast. Watching Kim Yi-seon take the mound again in the seventh and pitch essentially no differently than he had all game, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Yeon-joo felt a flicker of a dangerous hope. But Lee Young-gil was not a man who had watched baseball for just a year or two.

"Baseball, you see, is a sport where the more you obsess over a record, the less the record comes. Kim Yi-seon is no ordinary specimen, but what record ever came just because someone wanted it? The position players look stiff as boards right now. Keep tensing up like that and one of them's bound to botch something."

"Doesn't saying it that way jinx it even more?"

"What, you're the one always going on about 'reverse jinxing' to hold back the excitement."

However much the times change, the way people think stays much the same. There's a reason that for decades, fans have refrained from idle commentary in front of a historic record in the making.

And this was a perfect game, at that. When was that ever an ordinary milestone?

It had never once happened in KBO history, and even in MLB, whose history stretches past a hundred years toward a hundred and fifty, it was a rare feat achieved only twenty-three times.

It came up relatively often at the amateur level — Kim Yi-seon himself had thrown a staggering three perfect games across his high school career — but this was the pros, and crucial autumn baseball on top of that.

By Lee Young-gil's reckoning, it was a record difficult enough even for a no-hitter, let alone this.

His granddaughter understood the old man's pessimism, but it still rubbed her the wrong way.

"So what you're saying is, even if Yi-seon pitches out of his mind, the perfect game might not happen."

"That's right. Even if he throws absolutely flawlessly and strikes out every single batter, if the score sits at nothing-nothing, what can even Kim Yi-seon do? Drag it into extra innings and a complete game becomes a challenge all on its own."

As bitter as it was to admit, Grandpa had a point. Thanks to ample rest, the Twins players didn't look outright terrible today — but they didn't look good, either.

The offense, living up to its bottom-of-the-league reputation, was swinging away to absolutely no effect, and while the defense hadn't committed any outright blunders, close calls kept popping up all over the field.

Lee Yeon-joo thought to herself: if the youngest, Yi-seon, was pitching that brilliantly and his so-called seniors lost the game because they couldn't score a single run? She was confident she would never, ever forgive those salary thieves.

Fans with that same resolve weren't limited to one grandfather and his granddaughter. In fact, most Twins fans felt exactly the same way.

They hadn't gone into this postseason with any real expectations. Honestly speaking, even if the team had been swept 0-2 in the first round, they'd have grumbled and raged (rage they could not help — a fan who doesn't rage isn't a fan) but ultimately accepted it.

This was a team that had finished dead last in the division two years running. Expecting an instant turnaround would have been plain greed.

Some fans openly said they'd be satisfied just getting a taste of a good stage — the fanbase had already gotten more than enough out of the pennant race.

That was how lightly they'd been watching — right up until they noticed there was something deeply unusual about Kim Yi-seon's pitching.

Admiration spilled freely from the mouths of the veteran broadcast crew. And there was something on their minds — something they kept conspicuously circling around — a strange, awkward silence between calls.

Even fans who'd been watching casually had no choice but to check the scoreboard. It was that kind of signal.

And what was plastered across that scoreboard was an unbroken procession of zeros.

Zeros in runs allowed, zeros in hits, zeros in baserunners. From that moment on, the word began to seep, insidiously, into the fans' minds. And the word's dark magic wiped away their reason, sweeping out of their heads all those soft, reasonable sentences like 'even if we lose, it's fine — just give it your best.'

For the fans now, there was no "valuable experience" and no "next season." If they failed to complete Kim Yi-seon's perfect game here and take Game 1, all that would remain was a large-scale riot.

Already the community was flooded with the anxious fury of Twins fans, and with outside trolls deliberately poking at them for sport.

The players couldn't browse the forums mid-game, but they didn't need to check to predict exactly what the mood would be.

Bang Min-soo was once again living a simple truth: whenever he got tangled up with Kim Yi-seon, he ended up exhausted.

Make no mistake — Yi-seon's stuff today was unhinged. Whatever he'd been doing during the break, his fastball was overflowing with life, and he appeared to be throwing at full effort pitch after pitch with no discernible pacing, showing no sign of fatigue even deep into the innings. He had clearly come to steal the show.

But that was the view from the hitter's side of things. As the catcher tasked with receiving those pitches, Bang Min-soo felt like he was losing his mind.

"Striiiike!"

Rising halfway out of his crouch, he'd snagged the ball as it sailed in above his head, knees straightened, glove barely catching up.

At a glance, it looked like a fat, hittable pitch up in the zone — except it floated so tantalizingly that the batter had swung a good foot and a half beneath it.

Frame it one way and it was clever use of the rising fastball's principles — deceiving the batter's eyes, functioning as a sort of bait pitch. Frame it another, and the spot where the hitter had whiffed was, in fact, exactly the spot Kim Yi-seon and Bang Min-soo had been aiming for all along.

Which is to say: Kim Yi-seon's control was deserting him right now.

Granted, some wildness didn't really matter. Even at his worst, he seemed to have enough command to land more than half his fastballs somewhere in the zone, and his breaking balls were wobbling even more, so he appeared to be leaning on them as little as possible — but Kim Yi-seon's fastball was simply not something you could sit on even when you knew it was coming.

Which meant that normally, this degree of inconsistency would have been a complete non-issue. But with a historic record on the line — one that could make even the coldest, most businesslike Bang Min-soo sweat — it was another matter entirely.

"Striiiike! Out!!"

That one had been a curveball — one that dropped nearly a foot into the dirt, so suddenly that he'd almost failed to snag it. If it had rolled away behind him, that would have been a strike-em-out-throw-em-out situation, and if the throw had been off... first base, safe...

Cold sweat ran down his back. It wasn't just any game — a perfect game in the postseason? The first perfect game in KBO history? Attempted by the league's ultimate super-rookie superstar, Kim Yi-seon?

He could guarantee one thing: if this broke up on his error, it might genuinely be better for him to retire for good once the season ended. Cutting off the internet wouldn't save him from a thorough egg-washing in real life.

Maybe he wasn't the only one thinking it. The infielders — hardly lazy in ordinary times but usually defending with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a certain relaxed ease — were visibly wound tight. They knew exactly what fate would await them if they got unlucky and muffed an infield grounder right now.

And here was the great irony of it all: Kim Yi-seon's reaction.

"Ha... what's going on? If there's a pattern I should be reading, it's about time it showed itself, no?"

He was the kind of guy who, once fixated on one thing, couldn't rest until he'd chased it down — so right now, he wasn't even thinking about the perfect game. No, scratch that — Min-soo suspected the thought was, he knows, but does he even care? This guy was quietly, stubbornly indifferent to records.

Where was the justice in a record the man himself couldn't be bothered to think about, while everyone around him burned with anxiety?

The defense, at least, was manageable — just don't make any big mistakes, and it was fine. But even if the defense held up somehow, one enormous problem remained.

"Get ready quick and let's go!"

"Yes."

Kim Yi-seon had once again shut down the Mariners, and with the Twins' half of the inning arriving, the hitters filed to the plate like oxen being led to slaughter.

Tension had sharpened their focus, but it had robbed them of their touch — their practice swings looked less like measured loosening-up and more like full-blown cuts, muscles straining at nothing.

"Out!"

With those men stepping into the box in that state, how much offense could anyone possibly expect? Swings overloaded with tension did nothing but stiffly loft pop-ups, spray fouls, and roll over grounders, and the Mariners' infielders were handling that level of contact without breaking a sweat.

The lineup turned over in the blink of an eye, and it was his turn.

Bang Min-soo fumed at how the burden kept rolling downhill — all the way to the bottom of the order, all the way to the catcher himself — but there was nothing to be done. Even a rank-and-file employee fears a customer complaint. With customer satisfaction about to get stamped at a single star, this was no time to quibble about fairness.

He steadied his breathing and stepped into the box.

Two outs already. Nobody on base. And on the mound, still, Riley Harrison.

Unlike Kim Yi-seon, he'd allowed his share of baserunners today, but he was a fine pitcher, still guarding the mound without surrendering a run. Was this what separated a former MLB regular from the pack?

With that brief thought, he gripped his bat — along with the conviction that what mattered wasn't a monster extra-base hit, just a single to keep the inning alive.

First pitch.

"Striiiike!"

Just as expected, Riley Harrison leaned on his signature sweeping slider to seize the momentum from the very first pitch.

A pitcher who mixed slider and cutter — a veteran, thoroughly American repertoire. Word was his slider usage actually exceeded his fastball, and it had the bite to back that up. Add in a fully mastered changeup, and he was a nightmare of a matchup.

Bang Min-soo abandoned any pretense of covering everything. The changeup he would ignore without hesitation; on sliders, if the angle looked bad, he'd bail immediately. The cutter was the one and only pitch he'd hunt.

Second pitch.

"Striiiike!"

This time it came in on his hands. And it was the changeup — the one he'd sworn off.

Had the man read his mind? Or had he just tossed it up casually, planting the seed for later?

Bang Min-soo's planning was being cornered. The count already had him buried; at this rate, the pitcher could pump three decoys in a row and there would be nothing Min-soo could do about it.

In a spot like this, there was only one answer. Brace for the strikeout, and if a pitch looked even roughly predictable — swing, no questions asked.

Third pitch. He'd sit on the slider. A weirdo like Kim Yi-seon might fire a fastball right down the heart even here, but a textbook pitcher doesn't take that kind of risk for nothing.

Convinced the steady Harrison would think the same, he hardened his resolve and stared straight down the middle.

And the ball came flying in.

A fastball.

He'd been tracking the timing and trajectory of a slider — Harrison hadn't suddenly lost his mind; he'd simply thrown a four-seamer right down Broadway.

Min-soo swung in a panic, hopelessly late. The bat lagged, his contact point a shambles.

Bang Min-soo flailed at it in a cold sweat, baffled beyond words at what could possibly have driven that decision — but in truth, Harrison had never planned on this either.

It was the memory of facing Kim Yi-seon in his debut, and the sight of him even now dominating the game with a perfect game intact, that had lit a fire under Harrison.

That punk trusts his stuff and challenges hitters down the middle — and I'm supposed to play scared, with a far longer big-league résumé? In a backwater league like this?

And so, in the spirit of Kim Yi-seon himself, he fired one clean and true right down the middle. The fact that the batter was a bottom-of-the-order catcher may have played a part too.

Crack—!!

And so Bang Min-soo's batted ball — clipped off the end of the bat — sailed out on a trajectory much closer to a chopper than a line drive.

Harrison's pitch had been a good decision. Whatever the process, it had caught Bang Min-soo completely off guard, and he'd been left flailing just to avoid the strikeout, desperately trying to get a piece of anything.

The resulting ball failing to travel true — drifting sideways, launch angle actually negative — was itself proof of how well Harrison had pitched.

But the world does not always reward correct decisions with correct outcomes. A few trivial accidents piled on top of each other, and this ball bounced out a result neither man could have predicted.

First accident: Bang Min-soo's mishit, after one hop, got warped by the spin and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the quirks of the field's surface into a new trajectory that stayed fair, curling instead straight toward third base.

Not figuratively — literally straight at the bag. In any ordinary world, a ball the third baseman fields without thinking.

The problem was who was manning third: a rookie making his first postseason start. A perfect game puts pressure not only on one team but on the opponent too. And Bang Min-soo, a spray hitter whose balls tended to travel all over the field — including straight up the middle — was at the plate.

Short on experience and cowed by the moment, the third baseman had shaded a little closer to second than usual, following the dugout's instructions and the pre-scouted data.

One bounce or not, a ball hammered off a fastball with real force came screaming in, sailing over third base.

And so a ball that should have been a routine groundout leaked out into the outfield grass.

The second accident was even more absurd.

Already mishit, the ball — its spin disturbed by the field's uneven surface — didn't simply hop over the bag at third as it passed. It clipped the base and careened off in a completely different direction.

Because it had merely grazed the bag rather than slammed into it, its speed barely dropped — but its direction bent wildly.

The left fielder, sprinting in hard toward third, watched the ball suddenly swerve in a sharp arc right in front of the bag — and froze for an instant, too stunned to even think about chasing it.

And then, the final accident.

As established, Bang Min-soo was a spray hitter. The reason the third baseman had shaded so aggressively toward the middle was precisely that tendency — and in response, the shortstop had retreated a step deeper to cover the extra ground.

Even now the shortstop was standing well behind second base, and as the ball curved, it was flying toward a spot he could absolutely run down. A catch was there for the taking; a throw to first was a stretch, but second was doable. With that judgment made, he set off in the right direction—

One more thing, while we're at it: Bang Min-soo wasn't a burner on the basepaths, but his speed was nothing to sneeze at — and despite having it, he was the type to trust the third-base coach's judgment entirely rather than decide for himself whether to advance.

A data-first man through and through — which meant, unlike the other hitters, he wasted no time sneaking glances at the defense mid-swing. And combine that with a Twins baserunning coach who demanded aggression loud enough to make a broken traffic light blush...

Bang Min-soo stepped on home plate in a daze, not entirely sure how he'd gotten there.

The broadcast crew was flustered, the Mariners fans were watching their team's funeral in real time, and even the Twins fans could only stare, dumbfounded at this bolt of sudden fortune — but

whatever the case, the scoreboard read one to nothing.

And the Twins' momentum swung, all at once, for the better.