What a Cocky Bastard
['Perfect Switch' Kim Yi-seon Hits 100 MPH Even in National Team Open Practice... Could He Become the Youngest Adult National Team Debutant?]
[Baseball National Team Exhibition Games Announced for Late October. First Opponent: KBO Futures League All-Star Team]
[Manager Ban Il-soo's Surprise Decision! Wirye Jeil High's Kim Yi-seon Announced as Starter for the National Team's First Exhibition Game!]
It was a day in late October, the month nearly over.
By now, almost all twelve clubs had finished signing their rookies and wrapped up their induction ceremonies. One of the players whose professional debut had been sealed — Lee Seung-kwon of the Uiju Rangers — arrived at Jamsil Dome with a rigid expression on his face.
Today was the day of the national team's exhibition game. The opponent was the Futures League All-Star team. These weren't entrenched first-team regulars yet, but they were future stars — players who shuttle between the first and second squads, or who had dominated at the second-team level.
Lee Seung-kwon was being hailed as a historically great position-player prospect, but the standard practice was to let a high school rookie spend about a year in the minors adapting to adult baseball.
Which meant that the level clubs and fans expected from next year's Lee Seung-kwon was roughly that of the Futures All-Stars warming up down there.
But...
"...That insufferable bastard is grinning even down there."
The pitcher on the mound, Kim Yi-seon, looking down on those very players — not as his targets, but as stepping stones beneath him.
They'd faced each other only once in high school, but he'd been rubbing him the wrong way ever since. When Sung Yeon-joon, a senior on the team's position-player side, had asked him what kind of guy Kim Yi-seon was, it had been nearly impossible to describe him objectively without letting his emotions bleed through.
And that guy was now standing on a national team mound as the starting pitcher. This, at the very moment when he himself had only just finished his induction ceremony and was still debating whether to join his club's spring camp.
So he had come. If he was going to beat this guy, he needed to take in every detail of what put him ahead.
He'd practically begged the still-unfamiliar national team seniors to get him a staff ticket.
"What brings you here, Seung-kwon? Come to watch the game?"
"It's an honor to see you, Manager."
It was Manager Han Min-hwa, settling into the seat beside him. True to his reputation as a man who never forgot the names and faces of any player he'd ever coached, he recognized Lee Seung-kwon immediately and struck up a conversation.
"Ah right, you came to see your friends, didn't you?"
For a moment, Lee Seung-kwon couldn't process who he meant. Friends?
But looking at the manager's kindly smile, he realized exactly who he was talking about. A flash of anger surged up.
"...I'm not particularly close with Kim Yi-seon or Kang Min-hyuk. We're not friends."
"Oh, you'll see. Before long, you won't have anyone closer than your classmates. You should get along with them."
The manager chuckled with that good-natured smile of his. Only barely — thanks to sheer restraint — did Lee Seung-kwon manage not to raise his voice. This was the man who had led him and the U-18 national team to a WBSC U-18 championship, after all.
"Then are you here to watch Kim Yi-seon and Kang Min-hyuk, Manager?"
"Hmm... I suppose? Well, this is just between you and me, but Manager Ban says this tournament will be his last with the national team. His successor will most likely be me."
That made sense, Lee Seung-kwon conceded. The Han Min-hwa he'd experienced firsthand was a manager who truly deserved the title of master tactician. If a man like that became the next national team manager, then he absolutely had to make the national team.
"After I take over, there's a major international tournament every year — the Olympics in '20, the WBC in '21, the Asian Games in '22. I'll need to scout out the players well in advance."
Manager Han Min-hwa looked absolutely delighted as he said this. And it was easy to see where that delight came from — at last, he would get to coach Kim Yi-seon.
Fine. You're ahead of me right now, Kim Yi-seon. But this isn't where it ends. The further ahead of me you run, the more my value rises when I finally catch up.
With burning eyes, Lee Seung-kwon glared at Kim Yi-seon, who was busy playing to the crowd, and steeled his resolve.
I'm in a fantastic mood today.
I didn't realize it at first, but thinking back on it now, I'd never once spent a whole week apart from Ye-eun and Min-ah. With the people who were always at my side suddenly gone, it went beyond just missing them — I was getting genuinely down.
It's not like we were far apart, since I'm staying at a hotel near the house — if I really wanted to see them, I could. But I'm on the national team, and there are a lot of eyes watching, so I kept second-guessing any move like that.
So every night I soothed that ache with phone calls alone — and now, there in a clearly visible section of the stands, sat Ye-eun and Min-ah.
I can't help smiling as I glance their way. Under the flimsy pretense of acknowledging fans, I sneak little waves. If I pitch well today, the manager says he'll officially grant us leave time — which means a date is on the table.
As I keep waving, Min-ah gives a timid little wave back amid the cheering crowd. She really is the shy type.
"Kim Yi-seon! Kim Yi-seon! One-Man Army Kim Yi-seon!"
It wasn't intentional, but my fans erupt into thunderous cheering the moment I wave. True to form — this is Wirye, my home turf, and plenty of fans have shown up.
In a thoroughly satisfied mood, I pat down the dirt on the mound.
I have no particular grudge against the Futures players, but there are fans who came out today, and Ye-eun and Min-ah are watching. No pacing, no scouting, no practice pitches — I'm going full throttle.
The Futures All-Star dugout was seething.
"Hey, doesn't your Twins organization manage their kids at all?"
"Manage them how? The guy hasn't even signed yet."
Min Seung-ho, batting first in today's lineup, demanded answers from a fellow player affiliated with the Twins, like he was lodging a formal complaint.
Fine, he got it — the guy was popular and riding high. But what exactly was this behavior?
Whipping up the crowd, grinning like an idiot at seniors who were preparing for the game, and now openly raking his eyes up and down the seniors taking batting practice?
Taken one by one, none of it was quite grounds for complaint, but the cumulative effect was outrageously provocative. If this hadn't been a national team exhibition, a bench-clearing brawl might have started before the first pitch.
"Ha, first overall pick, so baseball must look easy to him, huh?"
It wasn't that he couldn't understand, exactly. Back when he himself had been rated the biggest position-player prize in his class and drafted in the first round, the seniors rotting away in the minors had looked pathetic to him too.
But assuming that a hyped prospect could just storm his way up immediately was a delusion. Professional baseball wasn't that soft a place.
Right now, of the seventeen players called up as All-Stars, twelve were first-rounders — four of them first overall picks. Guys who had once raged about being prospects, about having talent, had ultimately failed to claim a first-team spot and were still grinding it out in the minors.
The game began, and he stepped into the batter's box. The opposing catcher was Sung Yeon-joon — a league star and a senior from his own organization. Unable to hold his tongue, he tossed out a complaint.
"Senior. Is that punk always that disrespectful?"
"It's the middle of a game. Quit yapping and hit the ball."
Sung Yeon-joon was more curt than usual. Apparently the senior didn't care for that guy much either.
He bobbed his head and loosened his shoulders lightly. Then he settled into his stance, focusing on his swing. In the end, the only way to school an insolent brat was to show him that high school baseball and adult baseball were two different worlds.
As he set himself and looked toward the pitcher, he met Kim Yi-seon's eyes — glaring as if to devour him whole. He'd heard the guy had a routine of holding eye contact with hitters for a long beat, but experiencing it in this situation only stoked the irritation.
The brief staredown ended, and Kim Yi-seon slipped into the set position. They said he threw everything from the stretch with no windup, and sure enough, his first pitch was ready in the blink of an eye.
And the ball came flying —
"Striiike!!"[154 km/h]
"First-pitch strike. Velocity on that one: 154 kilometers per hour."
"I've only ever seen him on video — this is my first time calling him live — but that ball is genuinely vicious. According to the data we were given, that last pitch registered 2,691 RPM. That's elite major-league-caliber spin."
"Kim Yi-seon, going right after the hitter from pitch one."
The stuff was undeniable, so the confidence made sense. But this much was a pitch you'd see occasionally even in the first team. It was no invincible, unhittable missile.
And the location hadn't been some cleanly painted corner of the zone — he'd just thrown it right down the middle.
I can do this.
He re-timed his swing and readied for the next pitch.
Kim Yi-seon's delivery was certainly quick, but there was almost nothing you could call deception. It came at him honestly, on an honest rhythm.
If he just swung on that timing—
"Foul!"
[151 km/h]
"Pitch two, and Min Seung-ho fights it off with a nice cut."
"Wait, at that velocity, the trajectory was... a sinker? Ah, on the slow-motion replay, it's a changeup. Haha, a pitcher throwing a 151-kilometer changeup — and he's come out of Korea, of all places."
"A genuinely terrifying breaking ball."
He'd nearly whiffed. The movement hadn't been huge, so he'd barely tracked it and chopped it away — a hair less bat control, or a few inches more drop, and he'd have cut empty air.
But flip that around, and it meant he could handle even that changeup with a single swing timing.
Good. Down 0-2, but his confidence was climbing. The next one, he could absolutely put in play.
If Kim Yi-seon followed textbook sequencing, his third pitch — the curveball — should come as a chase pitch. But according to the scouting reports, Kim Yi-seon's curve wasn't especially dangerous, which was why he rarely used it as an out pitch.
And Sung Yeon-joon prioritized a pitcher's individual traits over textbook sequencing when calling a game, which made a curve even less likely. If he'd wanted to throw one, he'd have done it on the previous pitch.
Fastball again.
It was settled, then — all he had to do was time it. He squeezed the bat hard and refused to take his eyes off Kim Yi-seon's hand. The third pitch came with zero hesitation.
He swung hard, right on time!
"Striiiike! You're out!"
[161 km/h]
"He swings through it! Strike three! Min Seung-ho's bat cuts nothing but air!"
"Haha, there it is — the legendary 100-mile high fastball we've only heard rumors about. You rarely see a pitch like that even in Major League Baseball."
"That ball just kept rising and rising, even on camera!"
"I'm watching it right now and I still can't believe it, but the data says that pitch registered 2,845 RPM. Normally that's a number you only see on curveballs..."
"And the man throwing it is still eighteen years old — a high schooler. Kim Yi-seon's first strikeout in his unofficial adult-level debut — a player whose future only grows brighter from here."
An invincible, absolutely unhittable pitch had come screaming in.
Yeah. He's earned the right to be a cocky bastard.
Manager Ban Il-soo casually turned to pitching coach Jung Eon-young seated beside him.
"Well? Still think the adult stage is too much for him?"
"Why would you ask me that, of all people? That's not a matter of ability, is it?"
"I'm not talking about ability, son."
Kim Yi-seon had just spent three innings cooking the Futures All-Star hitters without allowing a run. He'd given up two hits, sure, but he'd racked up five strikeouts — more than half of his outs had come by way of the K.
That raw dominance was astonishing in its own right, but what pleased Manager Ban most was something else entirely: the kid's mentality.
"That boy is simply a born star. You get one of those every generation — the kind whose heart grows along with the stage."
Making his adult debut — on the national team, no less — most players would tighten up. Yet not a single thing about his behavior changed. Some guys overcompensate with exaggerated antics when they're nervous, but this wasn't that either.
Like a seasoned veteran, he naturally played to the crowd, and when he racked up a strikeout he showed a restrained showman's flair. He threw his fastball with conviction, and even when he got tagged, he came right back with the same pitch in the same spot.
It was only an exhibition, so a bigger stage might change things — but Manager Ban's gut told him, with total certainty, that it wouldn't.
That bastard would be exactly the same if you brought him in for the ninth inning of a Korea-Japan WBC final, or handed him the ball to close out Game 7 of the World Series.
As if he wanted that hunch confirmed, he put the question to Sung Yeon-joon, the catcher who'd been working with Kim Yi-seon all day.
"Yeon-joon. What's your read on this Kim Yi-seon kid?"
"Kim Yi-seon? He's got no manners."
The words came out crisp and cool, with no real emotion behind them at all.
"A disrespectful punk who doesn't so much as flinch looking at his seniors. Disrespectful enough that he shakes his head at every pitch his own catcher calls. Disrespectful enough that when you make eye contact, he doesn't back down — he just stares you down."
And then, delivering the last part, his stone expression finally cracked into a grin.
"And of all of it, the ball is the most disrespectful thing out there. He throws it so his seniors can't touch it. Shouldn't we be telling that punk to hurry up and get himself to America? Why is a guy like that playing in a Confucian country? He should be living that free-wheeling American lifestyle."
He looked over at coach Jung Eon-young with an expression of clear satisfaction.
"Well? By majority vote, I'd say it's two to one."
"Ha... Do as you see fit, Manager. Still, from what I saw today, it'd be best not to push him past three innings. He's unmistakably a raw gem, but his repertoire isn't deep enough to manage a long outing yet."
"Ah, of course — I'll defer to the expert pitching coach. By the way, is Dae-hee ready to go in the fourth?"
"Yes. Word is his arm's already fully loose."
Manager Ban nodded along absently and, apparently in high spirits, began humming a tune to himself.
"If Min-hyuk could give us just this much too, that'd be just perfect~"
Naturally, the reaction to Kim Yi-seon's national team call-up hadn't been universally positive.
[What does Kim Yi-seon have besides a fast ball?]
Some people say his control must be good because he doesn't walk anyone, but everyone knows the high school strike zone is generous. The adult zone is a whole different animal.
In high school, hitters couldn't touch his fastball even when he buried it down the middle, so it looked like he had command. Adults hit middle-middle fastballs no matter how hard they're thrown.
So if he pitches careful and nibbles, his command falls apart. If he tries to brute-force everything with raw stuff, he gets hammered the moment he catches too much plate, and he ends up as an inconsistent closer who can't start.
Bottom line: unless his command and breaking-ball repertoire are guaranteed, Kim Yi-seon isn't first-team material.
[Every "all-fastball, nothing else" scrub who reached the first team has followed the exact same path]
Either they can't find the zone to save their lives, or they barely squeeze strikes inside the zone while not a single breaking ball besides the fastball fooling anyone, so they get lit up.
First-team hitters aren't suckers — they'll crush a fastball that's only fast even today. Guys who got attention in the first team for throwing mid-150s and then got shipped back down to the minors? There's more than one or two of them.
He needs at least a year or two of seasoning in the Futures league before anyone can judge whether he'll make it. The national team call-up was way too early. Most kids rushed up to the first team like this either break down or end up bullpen-only.
It was hard to flatly label them "antis," because even they agreed that Kim Yi-seon had talent. Their argument was more that the talent wasn't as monumental as everyone claimed, or that he was still too green for the adult level and needed time in the minors first.
In a way, that was the conventional, reasonable take. Prospects rushed onto the big stage and ruined weren't exactly rare — and this wasn't even the first team, it was the national team? It should have been a textbook recipe for destroying a young player, and yet—
[Baseball National Team Defeats the Futures All-Stars 15-0 in Exhibition Game]
[Kim Yi-seon Makes His Unofficial Adult-Level Debut... He Walks Away With a Perfect Line: 3 Innings, 5 Ks, 0 Runs!]
[Now It's the Adult Stage... A Historic High School Rookie's Confident Battle Cry]
["All Talk"]
(photo of Kim Yi-seon raising his fist)
"The adult stage is different, you say? All talk."
[BREAKING: Kim Yi-seon Goes on a Date With His Girlfriends After the Game]
(multiple eyewitness accounts of Kim Yi-seon posted on social media)
Beyond having nerves of steel, this guy's brain is wired differently lmaooo
Dude genuinely has zero situational awareness lololol
All Kim Yi-seon had really done was prove, once again, that he simply played by no one's rulebook. With the Futures All-Stars already thoroughly demolished, arguing further about what the pros or the adult level would hold was just ugly.
Kim Yi-seon's personal fans cheering him on, baseball fans worried about him, antis who couldn't stand the sight of him — everyone with an interest in Kim Yi-seon moved past this topic and turned their attention to the next question.
He'd held up against adult-level competition, even if it was only the minor leagues. So what about the first team? What about the world stage?