A Rookie In The Baseball Team Is Too Good [EN]: Chapter 102

The Baseball Team’s New Recruit Is Too Good—Episode 102

Chapter 28: Can’t Buy It Even with Money (3)

Cannon’s home game tickets.

It wasn’t just one or two.

“Wait, this is… a ticket too?”

Tickets were stuck between Ji-seop’s laptops, about three or four.

There were another three or four tickets on Ji-seop’s desk.

“Hey, Ji-seop! I heard you needed tickets for next Tuesday’s game? If you needed something like that, you should have told me first! Why did you make me hear it through someone else?”

Here, Arthur Freeman, the manager, tossed over another three or four tickets as he came to work.

“Ah, Ji-seop! I heard your father wanted to see the Cannon’s home game? Here, I brought you a ticket.”

“Hey! You don’t have to thank me too much! Considering that you blocked the Hwang Jo-mi article… Is a ticket a big deal? Haha.”

If you add up all the tickets provided by Deputy Cha Jong-min of the scout team, Deputy Kwon Dae-woong of the public relations team, and other employees—

‘Thirty… six tickets?!’

Of course, what Ji-seop needed were two tickets to give to his father’s colleague from his police days.

In fact, anything more than that was useless, so Ji-seop sometimes said this to his colleagues who brought tickets.

“It’s okay, Deputy. I already got the tickets to give to my father.”

“I already received tickets from other people. I don’t need this many.”

So please take them back.

I’ll gratefully accept your kindness.

Ji-seop tried to decline while saying this, but the people at the Cannons all showed the same reaction.

“Just use them as you see fit, Ji-seop.”

A reaction as if they had made an appointment in advance.

“I worked hard to get this to repay Ji-seop for his help… I’d be so sad if you gave this back!”

“That’s right, are we going to give this back to the original owner? Ji-seop, you use it. You can give it to your friends or share it with your acquaintances.”

And one word that always followed.

“Just take it, Ji-seop. You can’t even get this with money these days!”

“Is that so.”

Thus, Ji-seop ended up holding a whopping thirty-six tickets without returning a single one.

“…….”

Ko Chang-deok chuckled as he looked down at Ji-seop, who was silently standing and looking down at the bundle of tickets.

“Wow, Ji-seop, you’re so popular! When I said I was looking for tickets last week, I only managed to get one at the last minute.”

Tuk tuk.

Ko Chang-deok patted Ji-seop on the shoulder.

“Ji-seop, now that it’s come to this… it wouldn’t be bad to start a side job.”

“A side job?”

“…Ticket scalper.”

Ko Chang-deok raised the corners of his mouth like a catfish.

“Even if you put a premium of only 10,000 won [approximately $7-8 USD] per ticket and sell it… I think it would be quite profitable as a side job?”

“…What kind of scheme are you trying to get me into.”

* * *

Around lunchtime the next day.

Ji-seop met his father at a cafe near the KH Cannons Field.

It was to deliver the tickets he had been asked for.

“Ji-seop, over here.”

His father waved his hand towards his second son, sitting by the window.

Ji-seop went and sat across from his father.

“Why did you ask to meet here?”

Ji-seop continued, checking the time on his phone.

“Since you came all the way here, why don’t you have lunch with me? There’s a decent pork belly set meal place across the street.”

He wanted to introduce the restaurant that he had been introduced to by Deputy Kwon Dae-woong of the public relations team to his father as well.

However, former violent crimes detective Kim Bong-seok slowly shook his head.

“No, I have to go right away.”

His father still spoke in a blunt tone.

“Isn’t today the day you go to volunteer at the orphanage? If you want to go and prepare… it’s better to hurry in many ways.”

“Ah, I see.”

In fact, Ji-seop was still a bit awkward.

That his father, who had lived his whole life in a rough environment with rough people, was now volunteering at an orphanage.

He wondered how he would take care of the little children with those big hands.

He was also a little worried that there might be children who would burst into tears when they saw that scary face.

Just as Ji-seop was lost in thought, his father, Kim Bong-seok, ‘swiped’ out his thick hand.

“What I asked for?”

“Ah, yes.”

Ji-seop quickly reached into his jacket pocket.

He was about to take out the tickets he had received from his colleagues, but he looked at his father’s face and asked.

“Perhaps… do you have any thoughts, Father?”

“About what.”

“About our Cannons home game.”

Ji-seop continued.

“I was originally only going to get two tickets… but somehow I ended up getting too many.”

“Somehow?”

His father raised his eyebrows.

“Didn’t you say that it’s very difficult to get tickets for Cannons home games these days? Does it make sense that you got a lot of them ‘somehow’?”

“Ah, well, that’s…”

Ji-seop scratched the back of his head and began to tell the story of what had happened.

The story of how Ko Chang-deok first posted a message in the players’ group chat room saying, ‘I’m looking for tickets.’

The story of how this spread among the Cannons people, and everyone was getting tickets and bringing them.

So, when he came to his senses, he had ended up with an unexpected number of tickets.

“So, how many tickets did you get?”

“Thirty-six.”

“Thirty-six?”

Perhaps because he was a former violent crimes detective, Kim Bong-seok was not fazed by most things.

Even when Ji-seop was not drafted into the pros a long time ago, and even when he was released from every team he went to, his father never showed any signs of surprise.

But at this moment, he opened his small eyes wide and looked surprised.

“Thirty-six tickets. Huh, so many people…”

His father trailed off and stared at his second son’s face.

“…….”

What was he thinking?

Kim Bong-seok ‘suddenly’ held out his hand, as big as a pot lid, under his second son’s chin.

“Then give them all to me.”

“Yes?”

“The tickets. Give them to me.”

“All thirty-six… of them?”

“Yes, all of them.”

His father nodded.

“Your colleagues at the company brought them for you to use, right? It wouldn’t be easy to go back and return them one by one now… Since they’re going to be a nuisance anyway, I’m telling you to give them to your father.”

“Well, there’s some truth to that… Father, by any chance…”

Ji-seop asked his father.

“You’re not going to sell them as black market tickets, are you?”

“…What?”

Kim Bong-seok’s answer was concise.

“You haven’t been hit lately, have you?” [referring to physical discipline]

* * *

Time passed.

KH Cannons, who played a three-game series in Gwangju over the weekend, returned to Yeongsan to face a three-game series during the week.

Wow!!!

As the audience began to enter and the home team players’ warm-up was nearing completion.

Arthur Freeman, who was talking to the coaching staff, turned to Ji-seop and asked.

“Hey, Ji-seop.”

“Yes, Manager.”

“Wasn’t it today?”

Freeman continued.

“The day your father was supposed to visit our Cannons Field.”

“Ah, that’s right.”

To be exact, it was the day his father’s acquaintance was supposed to visit the stadium.

But his father took all thirty-six tickets.

Thinking that maybe his father also visited the stadium with his mother, Ji-seop nodded for now.

“How about it? How about going now and bringing your father here?”

“Yes?”

When Ji-seop tilted his head, Freeman smiled kindly and ‘tapped’ Ji-seop on the shoulder.

“Your father visited the stadium, how can I pretend not to know.”

“…….”

“Go and bring him quickly. There’s still time before the game starts… I’d like to have a cup of tea with your father in the manager’s office.”

“Ah, well, that’s…”

When Ji-seop hesitated slightly, Freeman immediately ‘nailed’ it as ‘manager’s instructions’.

In the end, Ji-seop had no choice but to leave the dugout and move towards the infield stands.

“He’s not answering the phone…”

Ji-seop clicked his tongue and climbed the steep stands.

Fortunately, the seats for Cannons season ticket holders were gathered on one side.

‘…It was probably an infield table seat, right?’

The seats for season ticket holders are different in color from regular seats.

The green seats came into view in the distance.

As he slowly moved towards it, Ji-seop was reminded of a question that he had forgotten for a while due to his busy schedule.

‘Right, thirty-six tickets.’

Thirty-six tickets.

‘I forgot to ask my father what he did with them…’

Of course, the ‘black market ticket’ comment was just a joke.

His father had lived his whole life as a police officer.

There’s no way he’d do something like that now to earn a little money.

In fact, that’s why he was more curious.

What was he going to do with thirty-six tickets?

‘Even if he gathers all his friends, it’ll be hard to fill ten people. And he’s not the type to bring his relatives to the stadium…’

Ji-seop tilted his head and entered the season ticket holder-only seats.

And what unfolded before his eyes—

“Wow, it’s really wide here!”

“Teacher! Is the grass over there fake? They wouldn’t have planted real grass, would they?”

“What are you talking about! He said it’s all real! I asked the guy over there!”

Noisy. Bustling.

It was like a flock of chicks chirping.

‘No, what is this…’

Ji-seop felt absurd.

Ji-seop belatedly recalled what the ticket numbers he had received from his colleagues were.

‘It seems like it was around here, but it doesn’t seem like it…’

He couldn’t see his father even when he looked around.

Not only Kim Bong-seok. His father’s acquaintance and his wife were nowhere to be seen.

‘What’s going on? Haven’t they arrived yet? Or…’

As he blinked his eyes and checked the seat numbers where the kids were sitting one by one.

“Excuse me…”

A young woman standing around the children spoke to Ji-seop.

“Are you perhaps the son of Senior Superintendent Kim Bong-seok?”

“Yes?”

Ji-seop looked up in surprise.

The young woman smiled brightly, saying, ‘Right?’

“I knew it when I saw the name tag around your neck. Kim Ji-seop… The Senior Superintendent often mentioned it, that he has a son working in the baseball team.”

“Ah, then you are…”

“My name is Choi Si-yeon. I work at the orphanage where the Senior Superintendent comes to volunteer.”

The young woman pointed to the seat and continued.

“And the children here are the residents of our orphanage.”

“Ah…”

Kim Bong-seok, who had lived as a violent crimes detective for 30 years.

Why he had taken all thirty-six tickets.

Only then did Ji-seop realize what his intention was.