Rigged Stadium (3)

Bottom of the ninth. Wonsan Saedaebugo's final turn at bat.

The fans who had cheered so passionately until now had begun drifting out of the stadium one by one, and those who remained had stopped cheering altogether — what spilled from the stands now was condemnation, laced with fury at the team itself.

A few of the more volatile fans had gone beyond condemnation and were hurling outright abuse, but the Saedaebugo players couldn't bring themselves to protest. They simply kept their heads bowed.

They weren't just losing. This was the first home run ever recorded at Wonsan Dome in a high school game since the stadium opened — and it had come at their expense.

On top of that, Kim Yi-seon, still standing on the mound at this very moment, had thrown only 92 pitches. He had more than enough left to finish off a complete shutout.

A pitcher like that had homered at the plate as well. It would hardly be an exaggeration to say Wonsan Saedaebugo had lost the game ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to a single man.

"Heads down, all of you! Is the game over?! I said, is the game over?!"

The manager roared himself hoarse trying to shake the dugout awake, but the players only hunched back into position, and the deflated atmosphere didn't change one bit.

"Strr-ike!!! OUT!!!"

And through it all, the umpire's call rang out crisp and cheerful. Son In-hwan, the Saedaebugo second-year starting in left field today, realized his turn at the plate had come around.

Watching Kim Yi-seon dominate the game from the mound even now, he felt none of the jealousy or fighting spirit you might expect — only awe. Was this kid really a second-year, same as me?

Better than me on the mound, better than me at the plate. Staring at that gulf, a question crept in — was someone like me even allowed to play baseball?

"In-hwan, boy. What's got you wound tighter than a spring? Gotta get that fire burning, ain't that right?"

"Coach."

The pitching coach had come up quietly beside him while he brooded.

"I know what the manager said, but the game's already lost — who's got the energy left to fuss? There's not a soul out there who'd curse you for striking out."

He thumped him on the shoulder pads and added one more thing.

"So go up there and take a big, clean cut. It's what you gotta do, ain't it?"

"Coach... your dialect is so thick I can't understand a word you're saying."

"Aigoo, you rascal. Go on, then. You're shaking like a leaf."

Still, some of the fire came back. He thought he understood what the old man was trying to say.

He gathered up his gear piece by piece, stepped into the on-deck circle, and took his practice swings. Unlike every at-bat before, these were big — long, free, uncoiled.

By the time even the on-deck round was finished and he stepped into the box, it was two outs in the bottom of the ninth. There wasn't even a runner aboard.

Under normal circumstances, he would have followed the manager's and hitting coach's instructions to the letter — forget extra bases, chop a down swing at a single, keep the ball on the ground.

Swing big chasing a long ball and they'd call it selfish. The seniors had followed the orders; who did he think he was, doing his own swing? The criticism would rain down before he even got back to the dugout.

But the game was a blowout either way. Just like the coach said — whether he made an out here or not, nothing about the outcome would change.

So couldn't he take his own swing, just this once?

He met Kim Yi-seon's eyes and refused to look away. He did not choke up on the bat gripped long in his hands.

Kim Yi-seon, with the faintest hint of a smile, went into his set and delivered the first pitch.

"!"

"Strr-ike!!"

Nearly a hundred pitches into his outing, and the velocity was still alive. The ball had planted itself dead center in the zone, and In-hwan hadn't even thought about swinging at it.

This was his fifth plate appearance of the day, and he still couldn't pick up the timing. Every pitch he saw was breathtaking.

He steadied himself again. Second pitch.

"Foul!"

A pitch far slower than anything before it came floating in, and he barely managed to slice it off. The curveball Kim Yi-seon had thrown only a handful of times today. Its break hadn't been quite as sharp as usual — if it had dropped any harder, he'd have whiffed entirely.

By the book, he should have been guarding against the curve from here on. Instead, he wiped the pitch straight out of his mind. At his level, there was no preparing for every option a monster like Kim Yi-seon had. All he could do was bet on what was most likely — stack the odds as high as they'd go, even if the fight was rigged against him.

The mechanical delivery hadn't changed an iota from the first inning to now. The arm slot that sent a 118 curve and a 150-plus fastball hurtling in on the exact same trajectory, at the exact same speed. There was no telling what was coming. Third pitch, released.

And this time — he never would have felt it under normal circumstances, but this once — the instant the ball left Kim Yi-seon's hand, intuition struck. That's a high fastball.

He didn't know why he knew. But when instinct speaks, you don't hesitate.

He swung. With everything he had.

CRAAACK!!!

The feeling in his hands was good. Whether it carried — he couldn't tell.

The stands around him erupted into commotion and shouts, but he couldn't make out a word of it. Nobody stood in his way as he ran, so he just kept running, touched third, and charged for home.

"...It's over, son. You've suffered enough."

There was no opposing catcher waiting at home plate ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠— only his pitching coach, who had come all the way out to meet him. Only then did In-hwan turn his head and look back. The opposing right fielder was leaping up and down with his glove raised. Right at the fence. Practically on top of it.

"I thought it was going out."

He didn't know whether the fielder could have caught it from that spot. But assuming he did — the distance between the fielder and the wall was maybe three or four meters. If the ball had flown just that much farther.

"What's a grown lad blubbering for? Can't you turn off the waterworks?"

He'd been told to stop crying, but he wasn't sure he could — he hadn't even known he was crying until the coach told him. It was just that those three or four meters looked exactly like the gap in talent between himself and Kim Yi-seon. A gap that would never close.

He sat slumped on the home plate with his legs giving out beneath him, and from the stands that had gone quiet, one voice, then another, began to sing.

And as the song swelled — one voice becoming ten, ten becoming hundreds — the sound of clapping rose up with it. By the final line, thousands of people were belting the school anthem in perfect unison, and a thunderous standing ovation came pouring down on Son In-hwan.

Wow. I honestly thought that one was gone.

It was a face I remembered from the manga. When he stepped in with that earnest look, dead set on a head-on duel, I couldn't help myself — I just fired the fastball at full throttle.

"Yah, Kim Yi-seon, you punk — ran out of gas at the end, did you? If this hyung hadn't caught that, it's a triple at minimum, and if the ball had bounced right, an inside-the-parker. You hear me?"

Talk about exaggerating. When you caught it, Son In-hwan wasn't even halfway to third base. How exactly was he supposed to come all ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the way home?

Still, the catch itself had been a genuinely good one, so I gave him a high five by way of thanks.

As I walked into the dugout, the cheers came pouring down.

I traded quick high fives with my teammates and made my way over to Seo-hee-noona, waiting off to one side with the cameraman.

Technically the interview was supposed to start after the MVP announcement, but if a guy wasn't the MVP after throwing a shutout and homering, then who on earth was?

We exchanged a brief smile with our eyes, and I gestured that we should get started.

Seo-hee-noona cleared her throat, and her questions began — measured and polished, far more composed than when it was just the two of us.

"Kim Yi-seon-ssi. This was your first game in three weeks since the final weekend league match. How was your condition?"

"Perfect. I'm grateful to Coach for giving me three weeks of rest, but I also owe thanks to Yeeun, who made sure I actually rested properly during the break, and to Mina, who managed every single meal and detail of my daily life. I want to tell them how truly thankful I am — and that I love them, always."

"Well, once again an answer just brimming with affection for your girlfriends. Let's move on to the next question. Kim Yi-seon-ssi, what stood out to you most about today's game?"

What stood out, huh.

If I answered honestly, it would be the rigged ballpark itself — but bring that up and it stops being a baseball problem and drags the political world into it, so better left unsaid. However much of a no-filter loudmouth I am, I do know where the line is.

Which made this about the safest answer available.

"Ah — the opposing team clearly prepared very hard for this game. Rather than playing to their own strengths, it felt like they built their whole strategy around baiting mistakes out of us. Unfortunately for them, Jeil High is a team that doesn't make mistakes. I think that's why we were able to win today."

As it happened, that interview hadn't been edited after the fact — it had gone out entirely live. Fans wanted to watch the games, but before the Round of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠32 there was no official broadcast channel, so the Twins organization had set up the coverage as a live stream doubling as fan service.

Which meant Kim Yi-seon's interview spread far and wide in real time, without so much as a frame of editing. The communities that got their hands on it rejoiced at the fresh fodder.

Crude as it was, that was more or less how the entire internet read Kim Yi-seon's interview. No — it wasn't just the internet. Everyone felt the same way. The news was flooded with articles making much the same argument.

Public opinion toward Wonsan Saedaebugo — the team everyone assumed Kim Yi-seon had taken aim at — was the worst of all.

At first the debate stayed confined to communities that actually knew baseball. But as the outcry over Wonsan Dome grew louder, the cyber wreckers hauling screenshots across to other forums spread the argument until it reached even the female-dominated communities and the general public.

Wonsan Saedaebugo, the party at the center of it all, technically still had the national tournament ahead of them — but they pulled the nuclear option of firing their manager mid-season, and public opinion settled down. It hadn't been a difficult call; the man had never been popular internally and had survived purely on results. And once Wonsan Saedaebugo cut off its own tail and escaped the crosshairs, the controversy sparked off in a completely unexpected direction.

It began as a small controversy in a female-dominated community with friendly feelings toward Wirye Jeil High. But the fact that Jeil High had been shortchanged in their recent games was easy enough for even complete outsiders to recognize, wasn't it?

The stir they had started casually grew and grew, mutating into an ever-wilder thicket of conspiracy theories: Wirye Jeil High was being discriminated against. Deliberately kept in check. Even the tournament draw itself had been rigged.

These theories began to circulate as though they were established fact, and it took less than three days for ordinary people, picking up the story piece by piece, to start believing every word of it.

"What in God's name is all this nonsense!"

Sports director's office, Goryeo Ilbo — the newspaper hosting the Phoenix Flag. The sports director, who had been grinning from ear to ear over the tournament's box-office success, was now bellowing like a lion.

"Who does this tournament's success belong to? Wirye Jeil High, doesn't it? Then why do I keep hearing this drift in my own ears, I ask you!"

The weekend league system had been reorganized under the KBO, but the newspapers that had long hosted the national tournaments still retained a measure of their old authority. As the tournament's principal sponsor and the party responsible for broadcasting and media coverage, they wielded considerable influence.

The Phoenix Flag was no exception — the host paper Goryeo Ilbo's wishes could not simply be ignored, and even now an official from the Korea Softball–Baseball Association stood before the desk, fidgeting and bowing at the waist.

"Ah, of course it's all baseless rumor. As you well know, we have no reason to do any such thing. If we had truly wanted a team eliminated, we'd simply have fed them nothing but powerhouses — why on earth would we bother with anything so convoluted?"

"And yet look how much is being said. Do you have any idea how many articles we have already buried within the industry?"

The articles in question hadn't been properly fact-checked, but that hardly mattered now. What mattered was that the newly arrived fans felt the present situation was unfair — and that this perception was a major stumbling block for the tournament's success.

"Let's write off what has already happened and move past it. But the Central Rounds are about to begin. If this kind of controversy flares up again from here on... you understand what that means, don't you?"

"Yes, of course. And from the Central Rounds onward, there'll be no more talk of unfair ballparks, will there?"

The sports director, wearing a distinctly dissatisfied expression, lowered his voice slightly.

"But tell me. It really isn't true, is it?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"The talk that no-name upstarts muscled their way into the game, and the old baseball establishment found them so odious they decided to knock them down a peg."

The association official shot up, sputtering denials.

"No! Absolutely not. Our association's profile is rising these days and the mood is better than it's been in years — why would we possibly do such a thing?"

"Really? Then explain the umpires to me."

"I beg your pardon?"

Twice in a single conversation now, the official had produced a boneheaded reply.

"From what I read on the internet, the umpires' calls were somewhat questionable at times... You can assure me there will be none of that going forward, yes?"

To be fair, there had been no shortage of strange calls. But these had stemmed not from any intent to favor one side — merely from a shortage of umpiring competence. Dozens of schools played their games practically simultaneously; how exactly was anyone supposed to assign a first-rate umpire to every single field?

The association official answered with an expression of pure exasperation.

"Director, with all due respect — if you're asking us to grant special treatment to Wirye Jeil High of all teams, that's..."

"Tsk, special treatment? Nothing of the sort! Fairness — I am asking for one thing only: that the games be conducted fairly. When a bad call gets made in a game drawing this much attention, whose name takes the abuse? The association's, does it not?"

Faced with the director's velvet-wrapped pressure, the association official had no choice but to nod, his face sour.