A Rookie In The Baseball Team Is Too Good [EN]: Chapter 93

#The Baseball Team’s New Recruit Is Too Good Episode 93

Chapter 26: How to Increase Views (3)

That same evening.

[Sports Hanseong] Newsroom.

Park Jong-il, a reporter from the baseball department of this newspaper, was transcribing an interview brought in by his senior.

Typing, typing, typing.

Reporter Park, known for his speedy work, quickly produced a transcript of the hour-long interview.

Still, he couldn’t afford to do a sloppy job, especially since his senior had requested it.

Just as he was rereading the completed interview transcript,

“…Pfft.”

Reporter Park inadvertently burst into laughter. Realizing his mistake, he quickly covered his mouth, but his ‘senior’ sitting across from him had very sharp ears.

“What’s so funny?”

Reporter Hwang Young-joo, Park’s senior, asked. “What is it? Let me in on the joke.”

“Ah, no. It’s not so much funny as… a bit absurd.”

Reporter Park scratched the back of his head.

“When I asked if the work was tough, he suddenly answered ‘super easy’.”

“Oh, that?”

Reporter Hwang Young-joo clicked her tongue.

Reporter Park cautiously tested the waters, watching his senior’s reaction.

“Senior, it seems like you’ve been outsmarted?”

“…”

“To win over the manager’s translator and reveal KH Cannon’s internal problems… wasn’t that the purpose of this interview?”

“You’re saying I didn’t achieve that purpose?”

At Reporter Hwang Young-joo’s question, Reporter Park nodded with a bitter smile.

“You said before, Senior, that even leading questions require the other person to have some sense.”

“…”

“But Kim Ji-seop, was it? This guy is… it’s like he lives without a single thought in his head.”

Reporter Park continued, looking at the interview transcript.

“When I ask if the work is tough, he says ‘super easy,’ and when I ask who he’s close to on the team, he says ‘he’s practically an outcast’.”

“Oh, you human [exasperated expression].”

Reporter Park shook his head.

“How a guy who blurts things out without thinking like this ended up as Arthur Freeman’s translator… that’s even more amazing.”

“…Hmm.”

Reporter Hwang Young-joo stared out the window without saying anything.

Reporter Park seemed to interpret his senior’s expression as regret over the failed interview.

“Hey, Senior! You don’t have to look so serious!”

“Hm?”

“Still, this interview… it seems like there’s a lot of usable content.”

“Really?”

“Of course! Look here, look here!”

Reporter Park turned the laptop around.

“The story about Jimmy Morris eating spicy fish stew like he hadn’t eaten in days at the Cannon’s team dinner, surprising everyone… that’s interesting, isn’t it?”

There’s more.

Reporter Park’s eyes gleamed.

“The story about Ryu Jang-ho gifting the car he won at the home run derby to Kim Ji-seop… that’s a great human-interest story too!”

That’s already two articles!

Reporter Park had a beaming expression, but Reporter Hwang Young-joo, looking at her junior, simply let out a long sigh.

“Reporter Park Jong-il.”

“Yes, Senior.”

“What am I going to do with you?”

“Yes? What do you mean…”

“Didn’t you notice something strange even as you were talking?”

Reporter Hwang Young-joo swept her hair back with a frustrated expression.

“Kim Ji-seop… he didn’t give me any of the answers I wanted, did he?”

“No.”

“Thanks to that, I couldn’t write a single line of the article I had originally planned.”

“That’s right.”

“But in the meantime, he rattled off all sorts of trivial episodes? And only material that would be good for Cannon’s human-interest stories.”

“…Oh?!!”

As the story reached this point, Reporter Park Jong-il’s eyes widened.

“Th, then are you saying…”

“Yes.”

Reporter Hwang Young-joo nodded.

“That guy knew everything from the start. What intentions I had when I requested the interview, and how to crush those intentions.”

“He’s just… a translator?”

Reporter Park had an unbelievable expression.

“You’re saying a rookie who joined the baseball team for the first time this year, not a veteran front office member who’s been in the baseball scene for decades, used such tactics?”

“That’s right, you find it amazing too, right? If you find it amazing, what should you do now?”

Reporter Hwang Young-joo didn’t wait for her junior’s answer.

She simply took out her phone and made a call somewhere.

“Ah, Manager? This is Young-joo from Sports Hanseong!”

She continued.

“It’s just that Coach Jang of the Cannons… was he a junior [underclassman/alumnus] from your university?”

* * *

The next day, morning.

Ji-seop, who had come to work at the baseball field, was meeting with Deputy Kwon Dae-woong from the PR team.

“Amazing, amazing, totally amazing!”

Deputy Kwon Dae-woong, who had heard about the interview with Reporter Hwang Young-joo from Ji-seop, was overjoyed, his mouth agape.

“As expected, Ji-seop is amazing! Wow… how can you do such an interview against the infamous Hwang Jo-mi?”

It seemed it wasn’t just because they had safely gotten through this interview.

The KH Cannon’s PR team had suffered so much at the hands of ‘Hwang Jo-mi’ in the meantime.

“Don’t even mention it. It’s not like it’s only happened once or twice that stories I told without thinking ended up with the ‘exclusive’ title.”

Deputy Kwon Dae-woong stuck out his tongue.

“I was so scared of ‘Hwang Jo-mi’ that I would wake up in the middle of the night… Haha! Thanks to Ji-seop, I think I’ll be able to sleep soundly for the next few days.”

“…Just in words?”

When Ji-seop poked Kwon’s plump side with a ‘poke,’ a groan quickly came back.

“Ah, Ji-seop! Why are you doing this? I thought my eyes were going to fall out translating the article to show the manager today! To a coworker who has to do this for the next three months.”

“Oh, that’s strange? From what I heard, it didn’t even take you 10 minutes thanks to the translator…”

“Hey, a translator is like a pre-cook for meat! After using the translator, I open my eyes wide and check everything myself…”

“Hey, good! Good!”

Deputy Kwon patted his belly and continued.

“Our Ji-seop blocked the infamous Hwang Jo-mi, so it wouldn’t be right for me to be so stingy. I’ll treat you to lunch today!”

Where should we go?

Deputy Kwon rolled his eyes.

“Since we’re talking about pre-cooking, how about the pork belly restaurant across the street? Their pork belly set meal… is amazing!”

“Sounds good. Very good.”

“Okay! Then let’s meet at the baseball field entrance later…”

That’s what happened just as he was making lunch plans with Deputy Kwon.

“Oh, is Kim Ji-seop here? Deputy Kwon is here too?”

A man appeared from the bottom of the stairs.

It was the pitching coach of KH Cannons.

“Ah, Coach!”

“Have you arrived?”

Ji-seop and Deputy Kwon Dae-woong bowed to the pitching coach.

“Coach, you’re a bit late today?”

Deputy Kwon continued, checking his wristwatch.

“You usually come to work right at 9 a.m…. Did you have something else to do today?”

“Ah, actually, that’s…”

The pitching coach suddenly gave Ji-seop a strange smile, looking at him.

He tapped Ji-seop on the shoulder and opened his mouth.

“Ji-seop, you have to buy me a meal later to thank me, okay?”

“Yes? What are you suddenly talking about…”

“I… I went and did an interview with a reporter early this morning to get you some media coverage! No, how could I not go? I’ve received so much help from Ji-seop in the meantime!”

“Re, reporter?”

He was a PR team employee after all.

Deputy Kwon reacted to the word ‘reporter’ faster than Ji-seop.

“No, Coach! Why are you doing this again? I told you, you must go through our PR team before meeting with reporters…”

But perhaps he had a ‘bad feeling’.

Deputy Kwon stopped nagging and changed his expression, asking.

“But Coach… if it’s a reporter, who from which media outlet did you meet?”

“Hehe, if you knew who it was, Deputy Kwon wouldn’t be able to say anything to me! Because she’s the most influential reporter in our country!”

The pitching coach said.

“Reporter Hwang Young-joo from Sports Hanseong!”

And the following words.

“Reporter Hwang said she wanted to write an article about our Ji-seop… so I said I’d go right away! No, how could I not go? I’ve received so much help from Ji-seop in the meantime!”

The pitching coach laughed, unaware of what was going on.

“…”

Ji-seop and Deputy Kwon looked at each other with indescribable expressions.

* * *

To put it bluntly,

Ji-seop and Deputy Kwon couldn’t go out to eat that delicious pork belly set meal that day.

People who had interviewed with ‘Jo-mi’ Hwang Young-joo continued to appear.

“-Hwang? Yeah, I met her. She said she wanted to ask about Ji-seop… so I gave her some answers.”

“-Why didn’t I report it to the PR team? Hey, don’t be so strict! It was just a few words…”

It wasn’t just one or two people who had responded to the interview.

Starting with the pitching coach of KH Cannons, the hitting coach, and the head coach.

Front office members such as the scouting team leader, operations team manager, and development team leader.

Even players like Chun Jin-woo, Ryu Jang-ho, Lee Soo-bin, and Jimmy Morris.

And they were all saying the same thing.

“-She said she was writing a human-interest story about Ji-seop… how could I pretend not to know?”

“-I only said good things. Only good things! In the first place, there’s nothing bad to say about Ji-seop, right?”

People who had met Hwang showed a nonchalant reaction.

But the opponent was ‘Jo-mi’, a reporter obsessed with views.

Deputy Kwon’s insides seemed to be burning up.

“Oh, these annoying people… is it so difficult to go through us before meeting a reporter?”

He resented the Cannon’s people for not listening.

He was also anxious about what kind of article ‘Hwang Jo-mi’, who had already been outsmarted, would use to retaliate against the Cannons.

As he anxiously fretted, time passed by indifferently.

“…”

Before they knew it, Ji-seop and Deputy Kwon had reached the time when Hwang’s article was scheduled to be published.

“5 p.m. today… right?”

“Yes, when I first coordinated the interview with Hwang Jo-mi… that’s what we agreed on.”

Deputy Kwon looked like he had aged about 10 years in just a few days.

Deputy Kwon Dae-woong, who hadn’t slept well last night, stared at the clock on the wall with a haggard look.

“57, 58, 59… Ding.”

As soon as it was exactly 5 p.m., Deputy Kwon picked up the mouse and pressed the ‘refresh’ button on the internet browser.

The opponent was Hwang Jo-mi. A reporter who had mastered even the tastes of the portal site AI [search engine algorithm].

The expectation was that if she had written an article, it would definitely be at the top of the sports section of the portal site.

But,

Right then.

“…Hmm?”

Deputy Kwon blinked.

Ji-seop turned to him and asked.

“What’s wrong? Didn’t Hwang upload the article?”

“No, it’s up. It’s up, but…”

Deputy Kwon scratched his ear with his finger and looked at Ji-seop.

“It’s not an article about our team?”

“Yes?”

Ji-seop looked at the monitor screen.

What came into his view was an article with the following title.

“[‘Is this real?’ Collected wood scraps and earned 20 billion [KRW, approx. $15 million USD] in 1 year?]”

“[The person Hwang met: Lee Chang-joo, CEO of baseball bat company ‘Perfect Swing’]”

“[Technology that is not inferior to the United States and Japan… “We will do our best for the development of Korean baseball”]”

“Th, this is…”

It was an advertisement article.

An article about [Perfect Swing], where Ji-seop’s college senior was the sales manager.

It was strangely amazing to see such a blatant advertisement article placed on the front page of the portal site, but at this time, Ji-seop couldn’t be amazed by such talent.

‘What is it? She said she was going to write an article about me… did she give up in the end?’

Ji-seop tilted his head.

Deputy Kwon also tilted his head.

Just as they were tilting their heads at the unexpected development,

“Deputy, Deputy Kwon!”

One of the PR team employees who was monitoring the article next to him called Deputy Kwon.

“The article is up! An article about Kim Ji-seop!!!”

“What? Where?!!”

“It’s not on the first screen! If you press ‘View All Articles’, it’s down there…”

“Down there? Hwang Jo-mi’s article is down there?!!”

Ji-seop turned his gaze to the screen that the PR team employee was pointing to.

An article with the following title was floating there.