Chapter 62, Meeting Again
Manager Rodriguez watched Choi Seong’s pitches and thought.
He gets better with every passing day.
It was almost as if there was no limit to his physical ability.
His mentality remained steady, yet his physical ability kept growing.
I just hope he doesn’t get injured...
Choi Seong was honestly responsible for more than fifty percent of the team’s overall strength.
Manager Rodriguez usually considered a player excellent if he could contribute around fifteen percent of a team’s total strength.
But Choi Seong had gone far beyond that percentage.
Simply put, he was not human.
It was almost as if God had sent Choi Seong down to this place.
For reference, Manager Rodriguez was a devout Christian.
“He’s simply a genius.”
The top of the first inning ended, and the Busan Oceans began their offense.
Kim Beom-jin’s pitches were also quite good.
Manager Rodriguez looked at the two players who had entered the league as the first and second overall picks right before he joined the team.
“Out!”
Kim Beom-jin retired Kwon Geon-woo in only two pitches.
Kwon Geon-woo returned to the dugout looking frustrated.
Come to think of it, Rodriguez had heard that Choi Seong and Kim Beom-jin had faced each other in high school baseball.
If so, Kwon Geon-woo had probably faced Kim Beom-jin before too.
The reason for his frustration was obvious.
“They really are fiercely competitive kids.”
When Rodriguez first heard that the team had drafted three players from Saeum High School, he thought he had misheard.
Had a team that had spent years at the bottom somehow lost its scouting ability too?
But that was completely wrong.
The arrival of those players had changed the entire team.
One dominated both pitching and hitting.
Another became the leadoff hitter.
The other became the cleanup hitter.
If even one of those pieces had been missing...
Manager Rodriguez closed his eyes.
He might have been the first manager in danger of being fired this season.
He silently thanked Park Seong-hyeon, the Saeum High School manager he had never even met.
Kim Beom-jin clenched both hands.
Kwon Geon-woo had just grounded out in two pitches.
Nothing had changed since high school.
Kwon Geon-woo looked slightly intimidated, and Kim Beom-jin attacked that weakness.
He kept throwing fastballs, forcing Kwon Geon-woo to challenge him directly.
Kwon Geon-woo failed to adjust to the quick pace and was retired.
Next came the boss monster.
Choi Seong, the man who always fired up his team and now had all of Korea buzzing.
150 km/h.
Kim Beom-jin’s well-controlled pitch attacked the outside edge of the strike zone.
First pitch, strike.
His pitches were definitely good.
But they were far too honest.
His velocity had always been high.
The problem was that his pitches felt light, almost like feathers.
Kim Beom-jin knew that himself.
He had already faced the wall known as Choi Seong during high school.
And even now, Choi Seong stared at him without expression.
Second pitch, outside slider.
The catcher gave the sign.
Kim Beom-jin nodded.
He threw.
Crack!
Choi Seong swung without hesitation.
The ball flew away at high speed.
For a moment, Kim Beom-jin stared at Choi Seong.
As if nothing had happened, Choi Seong lowered the bat and slowly began walking toward first.
Slowly?
Kim Beom-jin instantly turned around.
It was exactly the same as high school.
The crowd erupted in cheers.
1-0.
Kim Beom-jin had definitely believed he had improved.
But that was not enough.
Choi Seong had returned as an even larger wall in front of him.
Only two pitches had been enough to show the difference between them.
Kim Beom-jin had spent months preparing.
Yet he still could not win.
Once again, he had no choice but to feel the wall.
Kwon Geon-woo was still intimidated by him.
Choi Seong was still completely calm.
“Don’t think about it too much. Let’s just focus on getting the next hitters, Beom-jin.”
The catcher sensed something was wrong and walked over.
Kim Beom-jin could not lose.
No, failure had never existed in his life.
And yet Choi Seong had shown him that wall again.
“I’ll beat him next time.”
“Right. It’s not like he only gets one plate appearance today. For now, focus on the game. Okay?”
“Yes, senior.”
For Kim Beom-jin personally, it felt enormous.
But looking at the entire game, it was only one small moment.
He quickly recovered mentally.
Things like this happened.
They always did.
He retired Go Gyeong-tae on an infield fly and struck out Yoon Jae-jun.
After returning to the dugout with his mentality under control, Manager Park Pil-seong motioned toward him.
Then Park Pil-seong entered the locker room.
“You called for me, Manager?”
Kim Beom-jin stood politely with both hands together.
Park Pil-seong often called players during games.
Whenever something displeased him, he had a habit of shouting at them.
A hot temper.
A stiff expression.
“Your pitches are good. Seriously, they’re good.”
Normally, Park Pil-seong would criticize someone loudly.
This time, he was strangely calm.
Kim Beom-jin felt an unexplained sense of anxiety.
“Yes. Thank you, Manager.”
“If you fail to beat him again next time, hit him in his third plate appearance.”
“What?”
Kim Beom-jin’s eyes immediately widened.
Just like during high school, managers always said things like this.
“Honestly, your pitches are good. You’re doing well. But right now, you can’t beat him, can you?”
“But I can still handle the other hitters...”
“Do the other hitters matter to you right now? Don’t you want to beat Choi Seong?”
“But winning like that...”
Park Pil-seong let out a quiet sigh.
Then he started shouting.
“Then you should fucking pitch better! Aren’t you embarrassed that another pitcher hit a home run off you?!”
His voice grew louder.
Kim Beom-jin simply endured it in silence.
“Why do you think I keep wishing we had finished last last season? Are you going to keep doing this? Are you going to keep being useless like this?”
If he talked back here, he would immediately be sent to the minors.
It would not be too late to fight back after becoming more important to the team.
This manager, who casually insulted people like this, was trash.
A man who ran his team using nothing but his obsession with winning, jealousy, and envy.
“I’ll do my best.”
“Good. I’m not telling you to throw a beanball. Wake up and beat him mentally. There was only one draft spot between first and second overall, so how can the difference in ability already be this big?”
Kim Beom-jin could only nod.
He had to win.
He had to overcome this.
If he failed to defeat Choi Seong now, then nothing would remain.
I calmly sat on the bench after hitting a solo home run.
Kim Beom-jin’s stuff and velocity had improved, but he was still at the level of a baby chick.
If anything, his pitches were too focused on showing off against me.
That made swinging even easier.
He never made me seriously consider the possibility of a ball.
“You already passed ten home runs a while ago. At this rate, aren’t you going to become the home run king?”
Yugam laughed awkwardly.
Recently, after hitting a lot of all-or-nothing home runs, his confidence had grown considerably.
Of course, as his home runs increased, his strikeouts also increased dramatically.
But that was simply the type of hitter he was, so I did not say anything.
Still, he ranked third in home runs on our team.
Because of that, he occasionally seemed to keep an eye on me.
Rather than caution, it was probably closer to envy.
“It would be nice if I could.”
Still, Yoon Jae-jun’s recent rise was no joke.
Now that his strength was being combined with precise contact, he was becoming terrifying.
“Strikeout!”
Unfortunately, he still had not escaped his fear of Kim Beom-jin.
He seemed to still think of himself as the person he had been in the past.
Kwon Geon-woo was the same.
Both hitters were intimidated by Kim Beom-jin and could not take proper swings.
Even though they had already beaten ace-level pitchers much better than him.
This was why mentality played such a huge role in baseball.
“Don’t lose the mental battle.”
I spoke to Yoon Jae-jun while he was putting on his catcher’s mask after the inning.
“Yeah. It’s harder than I expected.”
Yoon Jae-jun still did not seem to understand that he had already escaped the small world known as high school baseball.
“Just imagine he’s Senior Noh Jae-hyeon. He’s nothing special.”
I said it lightly, then climbed onto the mound.
One scoreless inning.
That would help firmly keep my ERA below 1.00.
People called this a miracle.
But it was not a miracle.
To me, it was simply natural.
160 km/h.
A fast four-seam rushed toward the fifth hitter.
He sighed while watching it.
It had gone right down the middle, yet he still could not hit it.
But I needed to be careful this time.
This batter focused more on contact than home runs.
On top of that, he was a veteran who had survived in Korean baseball for more than ten years.
120 km/h.
A screwball broke at an awkward angle.
He confidently swung.
Swing and miss.
Two strikes, no balls.
Yoon Jae-jun seemed to be thinking carefully about the next pitch, but I had already decided.
140 km/h.
Recently, I had been working hard to properly apply my high-speed slider.
Three-pitch strikeout.
The batter dragged his bat back toward the dugout with a disappointed expression.
I glanced toward the opposing bench.
Manager Park Pil-seong was looking at me and smiling.
For some reason, it sent a chill down my spine.
He was the kind of insane manager whose thoughts were impossible to understand.
Some players were ground down while being cursed at.
Others were ground down while receiving that man’s smiles.
Either way, they were still being ground down.
He was simply a lunatic who treated players like machines for maintaining his own results.
People like that rarely had good endings.
Memories of my previous life with Manager Park Pil-seong kept coming back.
It did not put me in a good mood.
Why did I never say anything back to a man like that?
There was no point regretting it now.
I simply kept pitching.
I recorded one strikeout and two other outs, then left the mound.
Now Park Pil-seong was actually clapping.
It looked as though he were showing respect toward me.
In reality, it was completely different.
He’s seriously pissed off.
He was acting completely differently from the last time we met.
His team had been destroyed by me twice in a row, so he was furious.
Whenever he reacted that strongly, he would probably start tearing into his players after every inning.
Of course, I was not one of the people forced to endure it.
But the players who did endure it would eventually create a dugout atmosphere ready to explode at any moment.
Simply put...
He made players hate baseball.
Once again, I realized it.
Park Pil-seong was the kind of manager who should never appear in baseball again.
I would make sure we won all three games and pushed his team toward the lower standings.
That would bring him closer to being fired.
People who had sacrificed everything just to play baseball...
Should never reach the point where baseball stopped being fun.
That absolutely...
Could never be allowed to happen.
