First Start (2)

Kim Yi-seon's first start sent ripples through more places than one.

Take, for starters, the Eolppa fanbase that had been quietly swelling around him ever since the Bonghwangdae-gi.

The scheming, insufferable-prodigy persona Kim Yi-seon had so carefully crafted? Shattered on contact.

Because the truth was, the guy was catastrophically bad at managing his expressions or acting. In interview footage it was painfully obvious how excited and happy he was, and that unguarded giddiness turned out to be exactly what appealed to the female fans.

And so Kim Yi-seon found himself saddled with a brand-new image: a dorky high schooler who imagines himself looking impossibly cool and tries to act the part, only to come up hilariously short.

Meme templates along these lines were circulating so widely among the female fanbase that it was safe to say his character had drifted very, very far from anything he'd intended.

Then there was his other fanbase — the grizzled veterans of high school baseball fandom, the ones there for the game itself. In that corner of the internet, sentiment toward Wirye Jeil High had been souring ever since the interview videos with the Seoul Twins went up.

Because to anyone with eyes, the whole thing reeked of cheap emotional pandering. Maybe if their skill level had backed it up, but objectively speaking, Wirye Jeil High's record last year fell far short of anything you'd call good. Among the baseball-first crowd, who valued winning above all else, the impression that the team was skipping the actual baseball to milk tears out of people began to erode the goodwill they'd earned at last year's Bonghwangdae-gi.

But then came the first game.

Kim Yi-seon's start, followed by Kang Min-hyuk's start in the very next game, had flipped the entire atmosphere on its head.

Veterans who had seen it all were, by nature, the type to lose their minds over anything genuinely new — rare content, exotic skills. A high schooler like Kang Min-hyuk, reviving the dying art of submarine pitching at a legitimately high level, and Kim Yi-seon, whose very existence as a switch pitcher was a walking rarity, were the kind of stories that earned goodwill whether they performed well or not.

And it wasn't just that they were unusual — they were actually good? Some argued it was too early to get carried away over a single game, but as of that day, Wirye Jeil High had been crowned Gallery Boss of the Amateur Baseball Gallery.

And the buzz wasn't confined to the Aya-gal forums or the high school baseball boards.

For the record: "Fake" and "Goddamn Fake" are the internet nicknames for the Seoul Twins — the meaning being a fake team pretending to be from Seoul. The Seoul Dragons, by contrast, were called "the Real Deal." Less because they were authentic, and more because so many of their fans were hopeless shut-ins.

Why are all the nicknames like this? The only honest answer anyone could give was: that's just how the internet is.

In any case, in professional baseball, the rarity of a left-handed or submarine pitcher is a enormous asset. A submarine pitcher who clears a certain skill threshold is almost guaranteed a spot on a first-team roster as a gimmick bullpen arm, and a lefty remains competitive in the pros even with slightly lower velocity than a right-hander.

But this wasn't just a lefty throwing 150 — it was a switch pitcher throwing 150 with both arms, and a submarine prospect who wasn't some soft-tosser lobbing 120s, but a guy touching 138 at his peak and averaging over 130 on his four-seamer. For anyone who had watched baseball long enough, a certain thought began to take root: aren't those two already looking better than the arsonists lighting our own team on fire?

And so the virtuous cycle began: word of the two names spread beyond high school baseball circles to baseball fans at large, the video view counts climbed again, interest in the team documentary project grew, and the Twins' official MyTube subscriber count rose along with it.

How on earth did it come to this?

Han Seo-hee, PR Team Leader of the Seoul Twins, could not make sense of the situation she now found herself in.

In the beginning, her plan had been simple: approve Park Young-chul's proposal under the logic of not exactly doing nothing — hard to call me out for that — but making sure the workload stays light and easy so I can coast.

Coasting properly meant either running the existing duties with no new projects at all, or tossing off a few token ideas — but that would look suspicious, wouldn't it? So what she needed was something that sounded suitably grand while containing virtually no actual work.

Park Young-chul's enthusiasm ran a little too hot for her taste, and the man practically oozed affection for high school baseball, which had been off-putting. On the other hand, he was the sort who handled the bulk of the day-to-day work himself, which meant every task he absorbed was one lifted off her own plate. A net win.

So Han Seo-hee had left the practical work entirely in Park Young-chul's hands and simply hung the "project in progress" sign on the door.

Thanks to that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠arrangement, even at the team-leader meetings there was no pressure of "what is the PR department even doing?" — she could mechanically churn through the bare minimum and call it a day. This was it. This was the life. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠No need to venture into the incomprehensible mental landscape of the socially gifted; just process paperwork and go home.

"Team Leader! We've locked in the school!"

But then one day, Park Young-chul — the same man who had supposedly been wringing his hands over school outreach — came bounding in, chest puffed out, announcing that he had finally landed one. The school he brought back was Wirye Jeil High.

At first glance, it had looked perfect. They were no storied powerhouse, so there was no tiresome legacy fanbase to manage; their name recognition had only recently spiked, so the pick was defensible to the front office; and since they weren't particularly good at baseball, the season would end early, wouldn't it?

The project covered everything from interviews all the way through to the team documentary, which meant the end point was fixed — but the filming and production schedule was not. Minimal effort, maximum credit. The ideal target.

"So then why are the videos doing this well..."

Baseball was a popular sport, sure, and every team was jumping on the trend of launching official MyTube channels these days — but it was still 2018, the raw infancy of the video content market. Compared to independent MyTubers, a club had institutional backing, and yet their subscriber counts and view numbers were pathetically low for it. She'd expected the interview videos to maybe, maybe limp past a hundred thousand views.

It had gone viral. Massively, spectacularly so.

The video spread across every community, interest in the team exploded, and the Seoul Twins' official MyTube channel was now seeing meaningful subscriber growth. When she last checked, the count was up roughly thirty percent from before she'd taken the post — and with the season not even started yet, there was no ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠question it was all down to that one video.

Her uncle had seen the numbers and practically lit up, telling Seo-hee to run the project however she pleased. He attached not only the scouting team but even pulled in staff from the game-analysis department. And he kept heaping support on her from every direction.

Uncle. What I want to do is coast for a decent while and then go back to being a couch potato.

But when adults placed their hopes on her, Han Seo-hee had never once been able to bring herself to refuse. And so, for the first time since the negotiation, she found herself personally visiting Wirye Jeil High, watching games in person, conducting interviews with her own hands — pivoting, at full speed, toward working hard.

To Han Seo-hee, who had lived her life as a shut-in corner-dweller, the sight of energy-drunk teenage boys and the white-hot passion of high school baseball was enough to suck the life right out of her just watching it. If she kept coming to places like this, she was going to wither away and die.

But then again — Wirye Jeil High was a weak team. They'd keep losing, the interviews would dwindle out of consideration for team morale, the popularity would fade. Just hold out a little longer, she told herself.

That modest little hope lasted about as long as it took to watch one game.

"Wow, Team Leader. That kid is the real deal. Even setting aside the whole switch-pitching thing, just his fastball alone — there's real weight to it. And it's not a control issue either, from what I could see he barely ever misses the zone."

"Th-then... where does something like that rank, for a high schooler?"

"Hard to say? We only got to see the fastball today, so I can't tell you yet — but that fastball alone? I'd say we need to start rethinking our draft strategy already. Seems our PR Team Leader is doing better scouting work than my own team. Hahaha!"

That had been Kim Yi-seon's performance the day she first went to watch. Han Seo-hee didn't understand baseball at an expert level, but even she knew that a switch pitcher was a rarity.

And this wasn't some half-baked novelty — this was a performance professional scouts were falling over themselves to praise? This popularity was never going to cool off. Something had gone very, very wrong.

Am I actually going to have to come here every single week?

Technically she could have used her authority as team leader to palm the work off onto her own staff — but Han Seo-hee was too soft-hearted to shove a project she had insisted on handling herself onto someone else's shoulders.

And so, week after week, Han Seo-hee found herself returning to Wirye Jeil High in person, personally overseeing the interviews and the documentary filming.

The evening of my very first start, I sat down for a consultation with Dr. Jo Sang-shik.

"Right here — the moment you throw pitch number twenty-six. Your hips opened up a touch too early. I noticed the same tendency on your first pitch after switching from right hand to left during practice, so this is the part I'm going to have you drill with extra focus."

The footage on the screen was my delivery from the game — filmed on the ultra-high-speed camera the director owned, with Min-ah holding it. He dissected my mechanics nearly frame by frame, breaking down each movement and flagging every balance issue. It was the same training I'd been doing for the past six months, but having it narrated over real game footage somehow made it feel fresh all over again.

"Alright, that's enough analysis for now. So — how was your first game?"

"You watched it yourself, didn't you?"

"You little punk. Baseball is a mental game. You can't understand everything just from what the eye can see. Tell me what you felt out there."

Did he minor in sports psychology along with rehabilitation medicine?

My impression of the first game, honestly stated... yeah, it was something like this.

"I honestly wasn't thinking about much of anything. I was pretty happy about throwing a perfect game, but that hit me after it was already over — while I was actually out there, I just emptied my head and threw."

At my answer, the director threw his head back and roared with laughter. Hey — you asked for my impression, so why are you laughing?

"I told you the fastball alone would be enough for now, but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine you'd empty your skull and ram thirty-two straight fastballs down their throats. A pitcher proud of the fact that he wasn't thinking about anything? Really?"

"Well, you and the pitching coach both kept saying the breaking balls needed more refining."

I knew this from playing as a batter — a half-baked breaking ball was worth less than a fastball the hitter already knew he couldn't touch.

"That's fair. Still, you can't live on fastballs forever, so we'll start the fine-tuning — and alongside it, you should probably get two secondary pitches ready. We'll have to try everything eventually, but do you have any preference?"

A preferred pitch...

The original-story Kim Yi-seon had been a four-seam-slider two-pitch pitcher — though calling it that hardly does him justice, since "slider" there was actually a three-way split of horizontal sliders, vertical sliders, and high-velocity cutters. Not exactly your garden-variety two-pitch pitcher.

And among all breaking balls, the slider is the easiest to learn and put to use. So I had been mulling over whether I should learn the slider too.

But there was one thing gnawing at me.

"Director. Do certain pitches actually cause injuries? In real life, I mean."

"Hm? You know full well that's a hotly debated topic. About all anyone can say is it varies person to person and delivery to delivery."

That was the problem. When Kim Yi-seon got hurt in the original story, it was from throwing too many breaking balls — speed sliders in particular, pushed way too hard. Was I actually safe?

"I get what you're worried about. But then the answer's simple: we throw a little at a time as practice, and run the analysis and testing all the more rigorously. If you don't have a strong preference anyway — then let's just try them all."

So we throw everything.