Reasonable Doubt? (1)
"Hyung, I spent all that time drilling you on interview practice, and you still freeze up the second you're out there? That question was obviously one you'd prepped for."
We were on the bus to the Round of 32. Starting from this round, everything fell under the Central Rounds banner, so every match would be played at a proper stadium somewhere in the capital region.
And whether by the organizer's design or pure coincidence, the venue assigned to us for the Round of 32 was the Jamsil Auxiliary Baseball Stadium. We didn't even need the bus — it was close enough to walk if we'd wanted to.
"You'd get it if you'd been out there. The reporters talk like they're interrogating you, and..."
That's probably because you kept fumbling your answers, hyung, and they got impatient waiting.
It wasn't just the venue that changed from the Round of 32 onward. A handful of matches would air live on cable TV, and the rest would stream in real time on the official MiTube channel.
"Nobody cared about the Round of 32 last year, so why this year of all..."
"You're asking me that because you don't know?"
And of course, we were one of the teams with a TV broadcast scheduled this round. For reference — and this goes without saying — last year we'd been stuck on MiTube. At this rate, every match we played from here on out was probably headed for full television coverage.
Teams scheduled for broadcast had to send their manager and captain out for a media interview the day before the game, so Choi Kang-cheol had gone as the team's representative alongside the manager.
Yes. Astonishing as it may sound, the captain of the Wirye Jeil High baseball team is one Choi Kang-cheol. The manager had to hand the captaincy to a third-year, and after agonizing over the fact that nobody else was a suitable candidate, he gave it to Kang-cheol hyung.
"Alright, everyone, we're here! Off the bus and get your gear unpacked!"
"First time I've ever arrived on an away trip fifteen minutes after boarding."
"Wasn't the Hyesan road game five hours? Man, how did anyone survive that?"
The guys chatted among themselves as they readied for the game. Excitement far outweighed nerves on every face. Even I was in a decent mood. The Jamsil Auxiliary Stadium that those dirtball-playing jerks from Donghyun High had always treated like their own backyard — wasn't it our home now?
Staring at the gleaming form of that beautiful stadium, I could almost feel my distaste for NTL softening a little.
"Alright, everyone ready? Final check before the game — anyone feeling off today? Anyone so nervous they can't calm down?"
Not a single hand went up. The manager nodded, satisfied.
"Good. Let's go!"
Unlike Wirye Jeil High, riding high on a smooth run into the Round of 32, their opponents from Haeju Technical High were not in great shape.
"Alright! Let's play a game with no regrets. We've come this far — what's there to be scared of?"
But the whole dugout was wound tight. Their scheduled starter most of all.
"Dae-han, relax. Even if you give up ten runs, none of your teammates — and none of me — will blame you. Not for a second."
"No, sir! I'm confident!"
His mouth said confident, but his frozen expression said otherwise. The Haeju Tech manager gave the kid's back a gentle pat along with a bitter smile.
Haeju Technical was a middling-to-upper team that had taken third and fifth in the Hwanghae regional weekend league this year. Then again, in the Phoenix Flag, even a team at that level could ride a favorable draw a long way.
But luck had not been on Haeju Tech's side.
"Man, this stadium's nice. Seoul kids really do have it different."
"This isn't Seoul."
"It's not? Then why is it the home park of the Seoul Twins?"
Two students hamming it up as idiots to lighten the mood — the third-year starting duo who'd thrown as starter and reliever to win the last game.
That's right. In the previous round, Haeju Tech had thrown both of the starters meant for the next game, burning them just to survive that day.
"Hey, Shim Dae-han. This is Seoul, right?"
"Why are you messing with today's starter? No — never mind. Just get some rest."
Wirye Jeil High wouldn't know, never having been through it, but the Phoenix Flag is, at its core, a war of attrition where every game is do-or-die.
In the Round of 64, facing Busan Seomyeon High — a team far stronger than them — Haeju's manager had kept the score knotted at 0-0 through the seventh, weighed his options, and rolled the dice. He gambled the future to win the present.
The bloodbath ran a full sixteen innings before Haeju Tech escaped with a 1-0 win and a trip to the Round of 32. What they had left afterward were two exhausted frontline starters barred by pitch-count rules from taking the mound the next day, and a lineup running on fumes.
Tournament baseball makes today's win feel like everything, sure — but they'd sold their tomorrow to claw into this spot. Now, on the big stage of the Round of 32, the arm tasked with carrying the team's mound was first-year Shim Dae-han. The manager hated dumping such a crushing weight on a first-year, but there had been no other choice.
"Good afternoon, baseball fans across the nation. We're back once again with the Goryeo Ilbo Phoenix Flag National High School Baseball Tournament. I'm Lee Ho-jun on play-by-play, and joining me in the booth is analyst Jung Sung-ho. Good to have you with us, Mr. Jung."
└ First!
└ Bro, when was "first" ever a thing??
└ Not wrong tho
"Good to be back. Was it almost a year since the Golden Lion tournament? High school baseball season's here already."
└ fr, time is flying
└ We're already past halfway through 2018?? For real?
└ It's fiction.
"Right, exactly. Today's Round of 32 matchup is Wirye Jeil High versus Haeju Technical High. What's your read on this one, Mr. Jung?"
"Neither team has much of a national tournament track record to go on. Wirye Jeil at least made the Round of 32 last year, but most of that roster has graduated since. Honestly, I don't think anyone can call this one until the first pitch."
└ Straight facts, no sugarcoating
└ Haeju Tech torched all their starters last game. Fake Jeil's got this in the bag.
"An unpredictable matchup makes for a thrilling one. Top of the first — taking the mound now is Seo Jun-soo."
└ GO GO GO GO GO
└ Let's gooo
Today's game would open with Jun-soo pitching as the opener.
I couldn't play — pitch-count limits, obviously — but I'd be cheering from the stands while watching anyway, so I figured I might as well watch from the dugout and settled into a corner seat next to the manager.
"Why are you sitting in here? Go sit with your girlfriends."
"You want me to bring Min-ah and Ye-eun into that crowd? Not happening."
I looked up at the stands of the Jamsil Auxiliary Stadium. Packed. The fans were deafening.
I knew the place seated over five thousand. Our popularity really was something else. Anyway — finding seats would've been a hassle, and even if a teammate gave up a spot for them, I had zero confidence those two could sit quietly among that crowd and do nothing but cheer us on.
"Jun-soo! Over here — give us a wave!"
For the record, Jun-soo had a decent fanbase of his own, being the pretty-face lead of a manga and all. The fans were squealing their hearts out for him right now.
And yet he barely acknowledged any of it, just quietly went about preparing for the job in front of him. I will never understand how that guy falls apart the moment the sixth inning rolls around.
The opposing batter stepped into the box, and the cheering doubled in volume. Jun-soo, just like always, twisted his body through that explosive crossfire delivery and fired the ball from his hip.
"Steeee-rike!!"
"Ooh, a called strike on the very first pitch. That one came in on a pretty nasty corner."
└ ???
└ How is THAT a strike?
└ Camera angle probably makes it look iffy. His delivery's pretty unusual too.
"Seo Jun-soo. That delivery is unusual, and honestly, quite effective. When the ball comes out of a motion like that, hitters have a hard time picking it up."
"Now, one and oh. Here's the second pitch — called strike on the outside corner!"
└ ?
└ Seriously, why is THIS one a strike?
"Beautifully placed, apparently. Judging by the catcher setting up well off the plate, they were fishing for a chase — lucky to get the call there."
└ That's not luck, that's a clear waste pitch he bounced out there, no?
└ Wasn't that WAY outside?
└ Camera must be making outside pitches look weird.
"Third pitch, in tight on the hands — and it's a breaking ball, strike three! Seo Jun-soo, the Wirye Jeil first-year, opens his outing with a three-pitch strikeout!"
"Wow, the batter couldn't touch a single one of those three. That ball's got serious movement."
└ ???
└ Wasn't that one way up and in too?
└ THAT'S a strike?
Jun-soo closed out the first inning cleanly, three up, three down. But a question lingered in the minds of everyone watching.
Were those actually strikes? Isn't that zone a little... generous?
Granted, high school umpires tend to be more forgiving than their adult counterparts. Enforce the rulebook with a razor edge at this level and you'd drown in walks with games that never end.
Even granting that, though, this umpire's zone looked absurdly wide. Draw an ump like this, and with Kang Min-hyuk slated to pitch today, it could actually work against us.
Min-hyuk can pitch with any zone as long as it doesn't swing wildly from at-bat to at-bat — wide or narrow, he adjusts. But if the opposing pitcher gets to work in a zone that generous, wouldn't our lineup go cold?
Leading off today, as always, was Sung In-hoon. Fundamentally a guy who plays everything — defense, hitting, all of it — on pure instinct, which made me a little nervous. Could he adjust to a zone this wide?
The opposing starter took the mound with something desperate burning in his eyes. Clearly not an ordinary resolve. And here came the first pitch.
"Ball!"
"First pitch, ball."
"Ah, that one looked like it caught the heart of the zone, but I suppose it missed just off the edge."
└ ?????
└ Wasn't that WAY closer to the middle than the strike a minute ago? Why is it a ball?
"Second pitch, in tight — called ball again."
"Is his command starting to waver?"
└ His command isn't wavering — the umpire is, no?
└ Total opposite of the calls in the top of the 1st??
└ What is even happening
"Shim Dae-han seems to be deliberating — the sign conversation with his catcher is dragging on. And here's the third pitch. Oh! He pulled it! Over the shortstop and into left-center — base hit into left-center field!"
"He surrenders a double to the leadoff man. This is exactly when composure matters most — stay calm and focus on the next pitch."
└ The ump wouldn't give him a single call so he had to force one over the heart of the plate and got tagged for it, right?
└ Look at the pitcher's eyes shaking;;
On the bus home after the game, something hung heavy around the manager.
"Good work out there! That makes the Round of 16 — just four more wins and the championship is ours! Feeling confident?!"
"YES, SIR!"
He tried to lift the mood and the team dutifully answered, but the sour aftertaste wouldn't go away.
Wirye Jeil High had steamrolled Haeju Tech, 8-0. The MVP was Kang Min-hyuk, who threw seven scoreless innings and then collected two hits at the plate for good measure.
Min-hyuk sat with his eyes closed, replaying the game in his head.
"Kim Yi-seon."
"What."
"Just like you said, I pitched as if the strike zone were as small as possible... but even so, two pitches that should have been balls got called strikes."
Jun-soo had thrown the first two innings, and Min-hyuk had come in from the third. That was when I'd told him to pitch as though the zone were as tight as it could possibly be.
"Nothing you can do about it. Although — great, now this is going to be a whole thing."
That said, a guy who throws ninety-plus pitches over seven innings and misses his intended spots on exactly two of them really is an alien. At that level, it'd just read as an ordinary umpire's error.
The problem was Jun-soo, who'd already thrown his two innings...
What, did the organizers hand out a comeback-bonus call for all his suffering so far? No, wait — what kind of comeback bonus works on a per-game basis?
(Multiple GIFs comparing strike and ball calls, side by side)
Well then... judge for yourselves.
└ Absolutely degenerate fake umpiring lmaooo
└ Isn't this blatant, out-in-the-open rigging for Fake Jeil High?
└ Why even play? Just declare a forfeit win lmaooo
Wait... was the weekend league like this too...? Gasp!
└ Full game footage exists for the entire weekend league and every pre-Phoenix Flag game, stop making shit up
└ Wirye Mothers' Association clocking in again?
└ If they're rigging the Phoenix Flag, the weekend league is small potatoes lol
(Clip of his eyes trembling violently)
(Footage of him eventually coming off the mound in the fourth)
└ This one's actually kind of sad;;
└ Another victim of the star-manufacturing machine.
└ Kid's a first-year, apparently. Grown adults, seriously...
After the game ended, the internet was pure chaos. However much buzz Wirye Jeil High carried, not that many people had bothered watching our regular games before — and with our first-ever TV broadcast drawing in a flood of new viewers, the moment those incomprehensible calls started coming, the situation got ugly fast.
Wirye Jeil's core fanbase argued hard that nothing like this had happened in any previous game, that today was a one-off anomaly — but to internet ghouls who'd already decided they were here to hate and stir the pot, it didn't register so much as a blip.
And so, amid a storm of every cheap joke imaginable — fake umpires, a fake nation, how much money changed hands — an employee of the Korea Softball–Baseball Association ran to the Goryeo Ilbo sports director's office, cold sweat pouring down his back.
"Director, this was unmistakably our error. We simply emphasized calling the game more carefully and precisely than usual beforehand, and the nervous umpire went and..."
"Oh, you're here. No need for that — sit down, catch your breath. You there! Bring us some coffee, would you?"
The sentiment had gone completely off the rails, yet the director showed not a flicker of rage — remarkable composure. The employee could only guess how furious the man must be inside, and meekly accepted the coffee. A sip or two in, once his breathing steadied, he ventured carefully back into the fray.
"W-we were certainly not asking for special treatment, only fair and accurate calls, but with the crowd's energy in the stadium, and given how much we emphasized that one boy... he must have gotten nervous and made some mistakes early on. The internet is carrying on like it was one-sided the whole game, but as our own data shows, the umpire collected himself after three innings and held a consistent zone from there—"
"Aiyo, why are you working so hard to explain yourself? It's fine. Truly, I'm not concerned in the least."
The director waved it off as if it genuinely didn't matter — and the corners of his mouth were curling upward with what looked suspiciously like delight.
"So. Wirye Jeil High suffered no harm from the calls, did they?"
"...Pardon?"
Every time he set foot in the sports director's office, this man's answers turned him into an idiot. He simply never saw the response coming.
"In any case, Wirye Jeil High took no damage from the umpiring, correct? Then are the fans really going to blame us? Stirring up a controversy is the last thing we want, obviously — but do you think it'll only be outside fanbases attacking each other?"
The smile kept widening, until it was a full, beaming grin. It occurred to the employee that a human smile could look that sinister, that predatory.
"The tournament itself becomes the talk of the town, while none of the fury lands on the host — isn't that simply perfect? Fans fighting among themselves? Passionate sports fans do that sort of thing. It's only natural."
In other words: as long as the fans tore each other apart, the host was untouchable, and the extra buzz was pure profit?
He understood, once again, why sportswriters weren't even treated as real journalists in this industry. And his head began to swim. The biggest gutter rat among gutter rats really does think differently from birth!
From the Round of 32 onward, the number of remaining teams was small, and the Phoenix Flag's nature — everything wrapped up before summer break ended — meant the schedule packed tight. The Round of 16 was set for just two days out, and the starter that day would, naturally, be me.
Which was why, as a stopgap measure, I first banned Ye-eun from the community forums.
"Ye-eun, don't touch the forums until my next game is over."
"Kim Yi-seon, if you knew what people were saying about you online right now—"
"That's exactly why you're not looking. Don't go reading that stuff ahead of time. Once I've played the game, I'll deal with it then."
While sentiment was burning white-hot like this, trying to plug the dam was pointless. And judging by the sheer viciousness of the posts coming out of moments like these, Ye-eun — who had a lot of soft spots, whatever else you could say about her — might genuinely be shaken by it.
Had Kang Min-ah heard this thought, she'd have stared at me in disbelief and deadpanned something like, 'Soft...? Who?' — but Kim Yi-seon truly, sincerely believed it.
Anyway, with the most urgent matter handled, Kim Yi-seon went straight to find the manager.
"Coach. Who's our next opponent?"
"Daehwa High. It's all over the internet, isn't it?"
"Then could I get the complete scouting file on Daehwa's players, starting now?"
"You? Scouting analysis?"
Ordinarily I followed Nam Kang-min's timeless advice to empty my head — I'd skim the scouting reports lightly and never dig into deep analysis.
"Yes, sir. I need to do the analysis myself this time."
Because if public opinion was turning like this, an ordinary win wouldn't be enough to flip it back.
"You're not thinking of chasing a perfect game because things have gotten weird, are you? Big records like that — the more you fixate on them, the worse the game goes."
"It's nothing like that, so don't worry. Just hand them over, please."
A perfect game? A monumental record, sure — but it's not something you can simply will into existence by being good, and to the ghouls dead set on tearing me down it'd be no excuse at all. What are they going to say — the umpire gift-wrapped every strike so I could be perfect?
I needed something surer. Something bolder.