The Last Hope, Born the Moment the Season Opened

Thankfully, the KBO season was approaching on a track not all that different from the timeline Kim Yi-seon originally knew. Public fatigue with pandemic restrictions had piled up, and as calls for breathing room grew louder, the government had begun easing its quarantine measures step by step.

Watching it all unfold, Yi-seon knew perfectly well that this was the government getting ahead of itself — that fate would inevitably force another round of restrictions. But thanks to that recklessness, baseball was opening on schedule, and he chose to count it as a blessing.

Perhaps riding that same momentum, Manager Jeong Jin-haeng had thrown social distancing and quarantine protocol to the wind and summoned the entire roster — all sixty-two players across the first and second teams. Clearing his throat briefly in front of the assembled players, he began the team's final pre-season meeting.

"Right, the season starts tomorrow. Is everyone ready?"

"""Yes!"""

Even here, the gap in experience showed — the veteran first-team players answered with a perfunctory murmur, while the second-team rookies roared.

Apparently satisfied with the sheer volume, Manager Jeong nodded.

"Good. I believe our players have prepared extremely well this season. Show your real ability and finish dead last? Absolutely not happening. I'd say a trip to the fall playoffs is well within reach."

With that, he made eye contact with each player in turn, lingering longer on the ones he was counting on most — me, Kang Min-hyuk, Ho-yeol hyung, guys like that.

"But above all, what matters is mental readiness. I'm not talking about outdated grit-and-guts nonsense. We are the underdogs here, and there are plenty of teammates fighting for a chance to play. A player who coasts, who settles, will produce nothing — and I have no intention of putting him on the field. Give everything, every single time. Understood?!"

"""Yes!"""

"Good. You're dismissed — except the tentative starting-squad members. Stay behind."

The roster poured out the door. What remained was around twenty-five players, hitters and pitchers combined. If he meant to make it the first team, why not just call it the first team? The manager clearly couldn't let go of the pretext of "ongoing competition," hence the "tentative" label. No wonder people called him Randong-nim, the grandmaster of the roster roulette wheel.

The manager swept his gaze over those of us remaining, quietly checking each player's condition one by one without a word.

"Yi-seon. You're certain there's nothing wrong with your body?"

"Yes, sir. I could take the mound right now without a problem."

I'd lost count of how many times I'd had to repeat that exact sentence — to the second-team pitching coach, the first-team pitching coach, the battery coach, the bullpen coach, the bench coach, and finally the manager himself. Sure, I understood the concern after two weeks locked in quarantine, but I'd already passed a live test right in front of them. A little trust, please.

After that, he cracked a joke at Kang Hyun-seok sunbae about whether the old man was still holding up at his age, boomed at the bullpen crew that the starters would be eating so many innings this year they should go ahead and book their vacations, and even tried out his clumsy English on the foreign players — only for the interpreter to translate it all over again anyway.

Having run every check he could think of, the manager finally looked like a man who had shed his anxieties. His eyes held a hard, settled resolve.

"Good. As you all know, our opening opponent is the defending champion, the Gwangju Phoenix. Well? Nervous?"

"""No, sir!"""

Ho-yeol hyung, just notified of his first-team promotion, was at full military bearing. His voice was the loudest of anyone's.

"Let's go! Our goal this year is October baseball!"

Wow, public opinion is wrecked.

Granted, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the site I was browsing was the most spiteful, most nitpick-happy corner of the internet, but even the more genteel sites weren't saying anything substantially different.

Then again, fair enough. No matter how loudly a team declares a rebuild, if a club that used to play October baseball suddenly craters into back-to-back last-place finishes and then gets swept in the very first series of the next season, the fans aren't going to be in their right minds. Any normal baseball fan turns into a howling lunatic at the prospect of three straight last-place years.

"What's going on? Is something the matter?"

At the voice in front of me, I closed the tab I'd had open and casually stuffed my phone into my pocket.

"Nothing. Just eat your food."

Sitting across from me was Kang Min-hyuk. He was the only one around to train with, so we'd ended up eating together after the workout.

For the record, I wasn't at the second-team dorm as usual, but at a certain hotel in Incheon. It's standard practice for starting pitchers to arrive at the road city ahead of time and fine-tune their condition when their turn comes up in the rotation.

"Are you perhaps nervous?"

"Who, me?"

Nervousness is the single emotion furthest removed from Kim Yi-seon's emotional spectrum. But I knew exactly why he was asking.

The reason I was eating with this insufferable guy instead of my girlfriends. The reason I'd arrived at the road hotel ahead of time instead of staying at the second-team dorm. Obviously, my debut had been set for the upcoming three-game series against the Incheon Mariners.

Historic Kim Yi-seon's professional debut coming as a start — I liked that. But drawing the number four slot in the rotation order stung a little, admittedly. Still, I'm a rookie. I'll let it slide.

And the reason Kang Min-hyuk was sitting across from me was that he pitched the day after me. Which meant Seoul Twins' five-man rotation plan for the year was, for the time being: Kang Hyun-seok, Paulo, Matt, Kim Yi-seon, Kang Min-hyuk.

Anyway — whatever the results of the other games were, none of it was my business right now. A starting pitcher is responsible for his own starts; why would I lose sleep over anyone else's game?

"But you haven't been able to take your eyes off your phone all day."

Kang Min-hyuk pointed this out with a grave expression.

Anyone listening would think I was a certified smartphone addict. How much do people think I actually look at this thing? I was just casually checking public sentiment because I was bored, that's all. There was no other reason—

♪♬─!!

"Oh, Ye-eun! Me? Yeah, I was eating. Mm, I miss you too. Yeah, okay. Really?"

The call I'd been waiting for — from Ye-eun. I answered it in a perfectly normal, perfectly natural way, and yet Kang Min-hyuk's face contorted.

"Knew it..."

Knew it, my foot. You shameless bastard, Kang Min-hyuk. You're looking at me like I'm pathetic. You've got three girlfriends yourself, you know.

♪♬─!!

"Hello, this is Kang Min-hyuk speaking."

"Yeah, don't worry about me. Actually, how are you, Song-ah? Right. Oh? Se-yeon and a sunbae are there with you too?"

And right on cue, his phone rang. See? You go scampering for your calls too. We're exactly the same kind of people, the pair of us.

So there we were, chatting away lightly on our phones in the hotel restaurant for a good half hour, until a second-team coach approached us with a complicated look on his face.

"Uh... boys? This is all fine and good, but shall we start wrapping up? We need to clear the tables..."

Manager Jeong Jin-haeng was, at this very moment, agonizing all over again over whether he should really be calling those two up.

In short, public sentiment was anything but calm. In Manager Jeong Jin-haeng's original blueprint, Kim Yi-seon and Kang Min-hyuk had indeed been penciled into the first-team rotation, but they were still high school rookies, and he'd had no intention of heaping pressure on them.

The plan had been to ease them into first-team experience for the future's sake, alternating them with whatever replacement starters were currently in decent form — effectively running a seven- or eight-man rotation.

The problem was that the opening series had turned public opinion poisonous, and patient, long-term choices were no longer survivable.

Two straight last-place finishes, and fine, the champion was a tough opponent — but a sweep in the opener? And it wasn't just any sweep. Across three games, the old ace Kang Hyun-seok had shown evidence that his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠decline had progressed beyond the point of no return, and both foreign pitchers had left serious question marks hanging over their heads.

Under these conditions, having the entire team's expectations collapse onto two high school rookies was an absolutely terrible signal. Excessive pressure from fans and the front office is exactly the kind of thing that breaks young players.

Worse, the report from the advance-party coach who'd traveled ahead to Incheon had poured gasoline on those worries.

"Those two... they're clearly under strain, sir. They ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠can't bring themselves to hang up on their girlfriends — three hours on the phone a day. It hasn't meaningfully interfered with training or rest, so I've left them to it for now, but mentally they don't look great."

So. Even if it meant disciplinary measures or eating some criticism, Yi-seon would come out early today, and they'd effectively run the start with Ye-han instead. Yi-seon's outing would be treated strictly as first-team experience and nothing more.

That was the plan the Twins traveling party and Manager Jeong Jin-haeng arrived in Incheon with — intending to gently suggest that Kim Yi-seon throw a reasonable number of pitches today and then hand the ball over.

POW—

"Hey! Attaboy! NICE pitch!"

That was the plan — before watching his pre-game bullpen session, that is.

How is anyone supposed to pull a kid throwing that early?

A manager should never think this way — but in the privacy of his own head, Jeong Jin-haeng was thinking exactly the same thing as every ordinary Twins fan.

Incheon Mariners Park.

It was May 8th, Parents' Day — but there wasn't a single family in sight, out honoring their elders. Naturally. It was an empty-stadium game.

The vast ballpark sat completely hollow, and the only thing echoing through it was the shouts and grunts of players loosening up for the game. It created a strangely surreal feeling. Even back in high school, we'd had crowds of a few thousand.

I was zoning out on that thought when the manager came sprinting over in a flap.

"Yi-seon! Nothing's wrong, right? If you feel even a little dizzy or worn out, you tell me immediately. We can swap out an announced starter if he's injured."

Why was he like this? Ever since we'd arrived at the hotel last night, he'd been hovering anxiously over mine and Kang Min-hyuk's condition. Was he worried that a pro debut might put crushing pressure on a normal player?

Well, here's the thing. I'd already played baseball in front of thousands as a high schooler. I'd played in national team games. I'd played in the Korea-Japan series. Compared to all that, an empty stadium was, if anything, less tense.

The Mariners, our opponent, had finished third in the Southern Division last year — a legitimately strong team, so I wasn't about to get careless — but there was something almost underwhelming about my debut. Less butterflies in my stomach than a simple desire to wrap this up quickly and go see my girlfriends. Seo-hee noona got cuter every time I saw her these days, and being apart meant I was missing out on it.

"I'm fine, sir. More importantly, how's Min-sang sunbae's condition?"

"Er... Yi-seon. It's not Min-sang. It's Min-soo. Bang Min-soo."

Right, right. Min-soo sunbae.

For the record, today's catcher was Min-hwan sunbae. The starting catcher was up there in age and had completely collapsed after the opening series, and with the second-string catcher injured, the third-string guy, Min-jun sunbae, had drawn the starting mask for today.

Most catchers — even that sly old fox Nam Kang-min — at least try to build some rapport with their pitcher beforehand, but this sunbae prepared for the game without so much as a word to me.

He didn't even break down the opposing hitters beyond a casual memorization of the data, and we never had a sit-down about pitch calling. As a result, the total sum of my conversation with Min-sik sunbae probably wouldn't crack a hundred words by first pitch.

According to the manager, he was very shy around strangers and prone to nerves. Sure, whatever.

"Min-soo prepared well today. Looks to be in good condition too. Yi-seon, all you need to think about is throwing the ball."

What could I do? This was the weight of being an ace. Fortunately, the starting pitcher is the single position in all of team sports best equipped to carry a game alone. If I did my job, we could win today no matter what. In other words, I'd just have to show them. Show them exactly how much I'd prepared.

"Good, my friend. So that rookie — he's the one who tore it up like that in the big leagues, eh?"

"Yes, Riley."

Jang Soo-hyuk, the Mariners' starting catcher, was answering in his best broken English despite barely speaking the language, relaying what the interpreter had passed along. He was the sort of catcher who believed communication and rapport with his pitcher mattered above everything.

And so, despite mediocre school days and a stubbornly dense head, he kept grinding away at his English and never stopped trying to talk directly with the foreign players every single year. His English ability had been parked in neutral for years, but still.

Perhaps that sincerity got through, because Riley Harrison chuckled.

Riley Harrison had held a spot in a big-league starting rotation until two years ago. His numbers were nothing special, and it was a bottom-tier club, but he'd been more than adequate as a number five starter.

Then last year he got traded to a team out of left field, bounced between the bullpen and spot starts as a swingman, and completely lost his rhythm.

Which was how he'd finally traveled all this way to a distant corner of Korea — chasing a guaranteed rotation spot and real innings.

At first, his only thought had been to prove himself fast and get back to the bigs. But Korea had turned out to be a country he genuinely liked. The salary wasn't bad either — he'd even caught himself thinking he wouldn't mind settling in long-term.

That said, entirely separate from all that: the rookie standing in front of him today did not sit well with him at all. Here was Riley, crossing an ocean to claw his way back to the big leagues — and there was some kid who'd had the big leagues within reach and turned them down to stay in this backwater...

"People who've never been to the big leagues talk easy. 'Top-ten BA prospect,' 'top-of-the-pipeline talent,' 'conquering the big leagues is simple.' Reality's a little different."

For every prospect swimming in hype, there were ten more whose careers ended before they ever bloomed. And the story of the talented kid who got drunk on his own gift, refused his draft selection to go to college, and then never got drafted again? Practically a genre of its own.

"So today, let's school that cocky little rookie. Show him what a real big-leaguer looks like."

And Riley Harrison had climbed over that towering big-league wall and survived there for years. There was no better teacher on earth for delivering a dose of reality to a prospect drunk on his own talent.

Hearing the line a beat late through the interpreter, Jang Soo-hyuk broke into a ferocious grin and wholeheartedly agreed.

"Okay. Let's facking teach 'im, Riley!"

"...Facking?"

"Ah— facking, eh... teach 'im a facking... lesson. Sorry."

"...Ah."

Both men, true to their profession as baseball players, possessed intellects not entirely suited to the noble art of education.