Spring Camp (1)
"Did you pack your passport?"
"Yep."
Ye-eun had been bustling around since the crack of dawn. Min-ah, who had just arrived for a visit, let out an exasperated sigh.
"And what exactly were you doing last night, if you're only getting ready now?"
"Curious?"
At Ye-eun's retort, Min-ah waved her hands as if to say never mind, then shot me a resentful look.
Sorry. It couldn't be helped.
"Don't go crying about missing me, okay?"
"We'll be seeing each other again soon enough, though?"
"You used to say it was torture not seeing me for even a single day. Was that a lie?"
Ye-eun looked downright delighted to keep up her relentless teasing.
"Please don't act like this is a vacation. This is, first and foremost, Yi-seon's spring camp attendance."
Min-ah seemed even more nervous than the man of the hour himself, stiff as a board.
"This is your first proper meeting with the professional players, so you'll need to be a little more careful than usual. Understood?"
"Relax. I'm actually good at that sort of thing."
After all, I'd survived mandatory military service and, however briefly, a taste of working life. When it came to interpersonal dynamics among men, I was confident.
Ye-eun and Min-ah shot me skeptical looks, but I stood my ground, chin up. My display of confidence must have been funny, because Ye-eun burst out laughing, gave my cheek a quick peck, and carried on in an excited tone.
"Still, this is nice. This is our first overseas trip together, isn't it? Does that make it our honeymoon?"
"Haah... As I keep saying, it is not a trip."
"Who cares. They're giving the families two whole rest days. That's basically a vacation."
The reason we were all frantically packing since morning: my attendance at the Seoul Twins' 2020 first-team spring camp.
Even a first-round pick, even the first overall selection, normally starts in the minors—well, the second division—during his rookie year. That's why the front office had only ever hinted at the possibility of me joining the first-team camp, never promising anything outright.
Had I started in the second division, I would have attended a short domestic camp down there, or skipped camp entirely and gone straight into the season.
But apparently the Seoul Twins weren't in any position to take things slow. Even though I was a rookie, they must have judged that my first-team prospects deserved serious consideration. Even the manager had grudgingly acknowledged the need to check on my condition firsthand.
And so here we were, with Ye-eun practically floating as she packed for Okinawa.
"By the way, Min-ah. Doesn't it seem a little weird for you to tag along on Kim Yi-seon business? You got invited as Kang Min-hyuk's family, didn't you?"
"Do shut up."
Unlike a national team call-up, a club's spring camp isn't nearly so rigid. Families are invited to watch practices, you run into them constantly during breaks, and there are rest days between the first and second camps where everyone can sightsee together.
Which meant I wouldn't have to mope around missing Ye-eun and Min-ah, and the two of them got an overseas trip with me on top of it. A win all around.
"Alright, we're off."
"Yeah. If we get there first, we'll catch up in no time. Our flight lands in the evening, so don't bother coming to pick us up."
"Then I absolutely won't."
Ye-eun beamed at that. Min-ah, for her part, got in one last word laced with worry.
"Yi-seon, is your body okay? You rested for two whole months—your feel for the game hasn't gone dull or anything, right?"
Even though I'd made a name for myself with the national team, I was still a rookie. Professional baseball clearly worried her, and she remained anxious right up to the end.
I couldn't blame her, honestly. Director Jo had recommended the rest, and I'd judged for myself that proper recovery mattered. So for two months I did nothing but rest, aside from my usual conditioning work.
Compared to players who, in sheer desperation, had been building their bodies and sharpening their feel ahead of time, my condition probably wasn't in perfect, game-ready shape.
"I'm fine. Honestly, I'm in perfect form."
Or at least, more than enough to claw out a spot on the first-team roster.
Jeong Jin-haeng, manager of the Seoul Twins, had a splitting headache.
He'd taken over mid-season in 2018, which made this his third year by the calendar, and a year and a half's worth of seasons at the helm of this club.
He'd received a promise that other managers could only envy: no matter how badly the team finished last three years running, he would not be fired.
The Seoul Twins had hired him for his tanking and player development, not his dugout genius. They hadn't asked him to coach anyone up—they'd asked him to give promising young players their chances and distribute playing time across the whole roster.
Manager Jeong had performed that role magnificently. So magnificently, in fact, that the fans had rewarded him with a string of unflattering nicknames: Gyudong-nim, Bbaekdong-nim, Randong-nim.
And now the final season of that promise—the 2020 season—was staring him in the face. That was the first reason his head hurt.
Even if the team tanked all the way through this year, he wouldn't be fired mid-season. Naturally, there was no crushing pressure to win, either.
The front office had shown little appetite for immediate impact players, having refused to invest in free agency or foreign players. Not a single outside FA signing, and of the four foreign players they'd brought in, not one was above journeyman grade—all serviceable, all unremarkable.
But if he truly went and finished dead last three years running, his contract would simply expire and he'd be shown the door with no extension. It was time to show some results.
And if he failed? Even for a tanking team, no other club would touch a manager who'd gone last three years straight with zero turnaround.
Put another way: he had to squeeze a turnaround out of the players he'd spent the last two years developing, and—
"Coach Choi. Is this really right? Are we doing this correctly?"
"Spring camp is a verification exercise, that's all. We look, then we judge."
The problem was that those two years of player development had been half success, half failure. That was the second reason his head hurt.
"Ugh... You're telling me that scavenging other teams' castoff prospects pays off as long as a few of them pan out? If a kid had real potential, would another team have let him go in the first place?"
For the record, none of this was really Manager Jeong's fault. At the very least, that's how he saw it.
Player development doesn't create something from nothing. When you fish a serviceable prospect out of the discard pile, the art of development is polishing him into the player he was meant to be. Which is to say, you have to pick the right players from the very start.
"Right. Let's take a look at the first-camp pitching list."
"We've called up twenty-five pitchers in total. All three foreign pitchers we signed this offseason will be able to attend, and veterans like Hyun-seok are obviously in. Then the rest of the list: Ha-seob, Ba-da—"
The names kept coming, one after another. By the time he'd heard them all, his head was throbbing again—because this pitching group was squarely on the failure side of that half-and-half ledger.
"And among them, the rotation-depth candidates?"
"Daese, Gwanyong-i, Ji-ui, Sang-jeong, Ye-han, Daegwang, Kang-pyo, and Ho-yeol—eight in total. Add the two youngest and that makes ten."
A typical team fields maybe four homegrown starters, rotation depth included. Foreign pitchers take two slots, leaving three rotation spots plus a swingman as the pool classified as starting-caliber arms.
Yet with Kang Hyun-seok—who already owned one of those rotation spots—this team had nine such arms, or rather, eleven once you insisted on counting the debuting Kim Yi-seon and Kang Min-hyuk among them? That was, obviously, not normal.
You could argue that a spring camp brings in anyone with first-team potential, minors or not. But every one of those pitchers had logged fifty or more innings last season as starters. They were quasi-established big leaguers, at minimum.
"How is it that not a single one of them do I trust to actually use?"
"They all prepared well this winter, though. A few of them even went to the States for private lessons."
"They'd better have. Things need to improve over last year. If they get any worse, the rotation won't be the problem—we won't be able to stay in the first division at all."
That many pitchers had thrown fifty-plus innings each, and yet the only homegrown starter to reach the mandatory innings threshold was Kang Hyun-seok. Set him aside, and not a single homegrown pitcher had even cracked 110 innings, let alone the requirement.
It was, plain and simple, a mess. There was a reason rookie high schoolers Kim Yi-seon and Kang Min-hyuk had been slotted in as rotation-depth arms from their very first professional season.
The Twins squad we met for the first time today was thick with tension.
"So you're Yi-seon? Welcome, good to have you."
"Yes sir, hello, sunbaenim."
Even the introductions felt cautious—one player sidling up at a time, taking his turn. Nothing like the national team, where guys swarmed over in a crowd, chattering away.
To be fair, we were the rookies, and wildly famous ones at that, so everyone was clearly trying to be polite. But there was no ease in them at all.
With Min-hyuk and me stuck in that suffocating atmosphere, Kang Hyun-seok sunbaenim walked over with a wry expression and offered a word.
"Our superstars probably won't deal with much of this going forward, but that's what spring camp is. For guys with a first-team spot locked down, it's a place to loosen up. For everyone else, it's a proving ground—you go all-out to appeal to the manager and the coaches."
And the Seoul Twins, riding the winds of a rebuild, happened to be a club where an unusually large share of the roster had something to prove.
Even now, as I talked, the players around us kept sneaking glances. Watching me chat comfortably with Kang Hyun-seok—the franchise icon, their most senior sunbae—some of them already looked suspicious, as if my first-team spot must be guaranteed.
I understood why every little thing got read so sensitively. It was still uncomfortable, though.
With every move under scrutiny, conversation became difficult, so I simply stood there in silence. The other players, apparently finding the imbalance of our group—two rookies clustered around the team legend—too awkward to approach, gradually drifted away. And then one cluster of people headed straight for us.
"What's this? Hyun-seok hyung, bullying the rookies?"
"Hey, punk. What's there to bully about a rookie?"
"Hyung, you're old enough that just standing next to them counts as bullying. If hyung had pulled this in high school, wouldn't these two be your grandkids' age?"
"...Huh. Fair point."
"The young guys here will take care of them. Off you go, hyung."
While most of the squad stood wound tight as springs, these three were positively dripping with ease. Pitchers with nothing left to prove—the Twins' established big-league arms.
"Man, seeing your face in person is surreal. You're Yi-seon, and you're Min-hyuk, right? You two know who I am?"
"Hyung, who's gonna recognize a benchwarmer like you?"
"Why am I a benchwarmer? I logged fifteen holds last year!"
"Nobody remembers bullpen scrubs who aren't the closer. Eh, don't strain yourself trying to make us remember your name."
Such was the banter, but all three of them were quietly hoping we'd know their names.
And I did. Names that even I—a guy who was terrible with players' names—could never, ever forget. Kang Min-hyuk, wearing his most earnest expression, recited each one in turn.
"Ji Ha-seob sunbaenim, Lee Ba-da sunbaenim, and Park Ha-neul sunbaenim, is that correct? It's an honor. I'm Kang Min-hyuk, rookie pitcher for the Seoul Twins."
The three of them broke into grins as wide as kids' at the answer.
Ji Ha-seob, Lee Ba-da, Park Ha-neul. These three were known, collectively, as the Olympus Trio.
Granted, the reason I remembered them was partly the distinctive nicknames. But baseball fans don't slap group nicknames on a trio just because their names sound quirky.
These three were the guardian deities of the Seoul Twins bullpen. The winning-setup trio.
Looking at the sorry state of the rotation lineup, you'd never believe it, but the Seoul Twins were actually known for having a keen eye for pitcher development.
How could a team that hadn't unearthed a single homegrown starter besides Kang Hyun-seok in years claim to develop pitchers well, you ask? Because pitching is more than just the rotation.
Take a pitcher with some visible flaw, maximize his strengths, hide his weaknesses, and rebuild him into one genuinely useful bullpen arm.
Doing exactly that—taking pitchers other teams had thrown away, or low-round draft picks, and growing them past first-team level into elite setup men—was what the Twins organization did best.
Park Min-woo, traded away for the draft rights to Kang Min-hyuk, was a textbook product of that very development machine.
And even now, with the rebuild blowing through, the Twins' bullpen winning-setup corps—young, gifted, and still years from decline—remained with the club.
"The nicknames really are a perfect fit. People never forget us because of them."
"Yes sir, Hades Ha-seob sunbaenim."
"Why of course, Mister Poseidon."
The three of them were so full of mischief that the conversation never left silly territory. Seen like this, they looked like a bunch of overgrown kids.
But these were the men who had grown rapidly after establishing themselves in the pros and helped deliver the Twins' 2015 championship.
Still in their fourth or fifth year of service time, with some runway left before free agency, they were the pillars around which the club's future would be built.
Which meant I'd probably be seeing plenty of them in the first division. Best to get close while I could.
I delivered a rookie's sincere admiration with maximum lip service.
"Oh no, sunbaenim. I knew your nicknames well enough—they're famous—but even without them, I've followed your games closely. I know exactly what you've done."
In truth, I hadn't watched those games by choice so much as by osmosis—my father, a diehard Twins fan, always had them on the TV. But it wasn't a lie.
They seemed a little touched, letting out a long, pleased kwaaa~.
"Our rookies are already working the flattery? My, my, quick learners, aren't they?"
"Right. Hyun-seok hyung's all washed up and due to retire soon anyway—you two should latch onto someone still in his prime."
"More importantly, what do we get these two into? Hey, you know anything about Greek mythology?"
Unlike the rigid atmosphere on the other side of the facility, warmth blossomed around this group. The stares that had been fixed on me at the start thinned out quickly too—everyone seemed conscious of the sunbaes watching.
You see that, Lee Ye-eun, Kang Min-ah? Even if I was a friendless shut-in in my past life, I had the survival chops of a working adult. Winning over hyungs like these? Easiest thing in the world.
Ji Ha-seob, eldest of the Olympus Trio, had begun to wonder if maybe, just maybe, he was getting old.
Thirty this year. Old enough that calling yourself young was a stretch—yet practically a spring chicken next to Hyun-seok hyung, who turned thirty-eight this season.
Still, he'd figured he got along with the young guys better than that old man did, which was why he'd rushed over to look after the newcomers the manager and coaches had specially flagged.
"Yi-seon, what are your hobbies? Hmm? Any interest in clubs? Okinawa's actually got some decent spots, you know..."
"Reading manga, sir. Dancing and clubs aren't really my thing."
"Huh? Oh. Uh, right..."
"Min-hyuk, want to grab a meal with me sometime? I know a place that does incredible wagyu—nearly impossible to get in without a reservation. I've got a spot booked; my treat. Add a glass of whisky to that and, mmm~"
"I'm sorry, sunbaenim. I'm managing my diet, so I'll have to decline dining out."
"Well, I'll be. Impressive..."
These kids were harder to connect with than he'd expected.
At first he'd assumed it was just their model-citizen discipline. And the invitations weren't an attempt to lead them astray, either—
They were the standard senior-to-junior education: keep the kids from wandering off somewhere, tangling with a fan, and landing in the gossip columns; keep them from getting photographed with a drink in hand. All of it passed down from sunbae to hoobae, generation after generation.
Anyway. He could tell they were good kids who didn't need any of that moral instruction, but beyond the sermon material, conversation just... refused to flow.
"Hey? The rest of my game may be whatever, but my slider is a thing of beauty. I'll teach it to you sometime."
"Thank you sincerely, sunbaenim."
"Yi-seon, your stuff is that electric and you somehow still throw strikes? What's your secret?"
"No big secret, really. I just try to keep everything in balance."
Every answer came out soulless. Compliment, question, or a question turned back on him, the kid clearly put genuine effort into a socially appropriate reaction—and it was transparent as glass.
He could tell they found it tiresome, but demanding they grovel wasn't right either. He couldn't find the words.
And the second problem: the moment a particular topic came up, they went completely off the rails.
"First spring camp, huh? So who'd you bring with the family invitations? Your parents?"
"No, sir. I brought my girlfriend."
"Your girlfriend?"
"Yes. We've already filed the marriage paperwork, but since I'm still a rookie, we're holding the wedding until I've settled into my spot on the roster—"
Was this really the same kid who'd been running on empty until thirty seconds ago?
For the next thirty minutes, the boy rattled on breathlessly—his girlfriends' personalities and cutest qualities, naturally, followed by an aggrieved lament about how much other men's wandering eyes bothered him, and then even a question about what kind of wedding rings would look best.
Kang Min-hyuk was cut from a different cloth, but cut from the same fabric all the same—the instant one of his pet topics surfaced, he went galloping off just the same.
They say kids these days are self-absorbed... Honestly, I can't keep up.
And so Ji Ha-seob repented, in his heart, for having slighted Hyun-seok hyung.
"Hyun-seok hyung. Kids these days are not easy."
"They weren't easy for me or Ba-da when we first met them either. Ba-da and me to you and Yi-seon and Min-hyuk—that's exactly the same age gap."
True. A gap of more than ten years was substantial, no matter how confidently you faced it.
"Haah... At this rate, I don't know if the bullpen crew can get along with them going forward..."
"Hm? What's that supposed to mean?"
Kang Hyun-seok looked baffled.
"This year's winning-setup corps is us three, plus Yi-seon and Min-hyuk, right? Add that Walker kid and that's six?"
"What bullpen? Yi-seon and Min-hyuk are supposed to be starting."
Now it was Ji Ha-seob's turn to look bewildered.
"It's their first season. Min-hyuk throws submarine, and Yi-seon's breaking-ball repertoire is thin even if his stuff is nasty—perfect bullpen fits, both of them."
"Kids who throw four, five innings a game for the national team do not have a bullpen profile."
"A full pro season is different."
Slowly, the bafflement curdled into something that threatened to become an actual argument.
"...C'mon, Hyun-seok hyung. You've got ten hoobae starters between the first team and the minors. Let the rookies go to us."
"Says who? We don't have a single starter who can turn over a rotation properly yet."
The de facto leader of the Twins rotation and the de facto leader of the Twins bullpen. The tug-of-war between two men just old enough to ache for lively young hoobae had officially begun.
Had the manager overheard, he would surely have snapped: I'm the one agonizing over where to slot them, what business is it of yours?