A Rookie In The Baseball Team Is Too Good [EN]: Chapter 144

38. Carrot, Carrot, Carrot! (1)

Day 5 of the Florida Spring Training Camp.

Jisub entered the restaurant on the second floor of the hotel for breakfast.

“Oh, Mr. Kim! Enjoy your meal!”

“Thanks, bro.”

Jisub received freshly baked fried eggs from the chef and turned around.

In the distance, Go Chang-deok from the power analysis team was pointing to the seat in front of him, but Jisub waved his hand, signaling ‘Sorry.’

He had already decided who to have breakfast with this morning.

“Is this seat taken?”

The person was none other than Mr. Hong Dae-jong.

He was the one who took over Jisub’s role as the exclusive translator for the KH Cannons’ manager.

“Ah, Special Envoy Kim!”

Mr. Hong Dae-jong was surprised to see Jisub.

He gestured while moving his bag that he had placed in front of him.

“Yes, it’s empty. It’s empty! Come and sit here.”

“Oh, thank you.”

Jisub put down his plate full of food and took a seat in front of Mr. Hong.

While gathering the forks and spoons on the table, Jisub looked at Mr. Hong and asked.

“Mr. Hong, how have you been?”

“Yes?”

“I was wondering if you’ve adjusted well.”

This was the reason why Jisub decided to have breakfast with Mr. Hong Dae-jong today.

He wanted to know if the KH Cannons’ manager’s exclusive translator was adjusting well and if there were any particular difficulties.

As his ‘company senior,’ he wanted to take care of him in his own way.

Of course, Mr. Hong knew Jisub’s heart, and he opened his mouth with an awkward smile.

“Haha, I’ve completely adjusted to the time difference now. You could almost say I’ve become an American. However…….”

“However?”

“There are many times when the manager asks difficult questions, which is a personal concern.”

Mr. Hong continued.

“He asks me often. What is the overall atmosphere of the team? Does it seem like the training is going well?”

“Ah.”

“When I was working as the head of the baseball team at Youngsan High School, it was relatively easy to figure out. Back then, I could freely walk around the training field. But now…….”

He was the manager’s exclusive translator.

Except for 2-3 hours of free time a day, he had to stay by Arthur Freeman’s side almost all the time.

It seemed realistically difficult for him to bring the information the manager wanted quickly.

‘I can read other people’s minds, but Mr. Hong doesn’t have that ability…….’

However, it wasn’t like Jisub had nothing to say to Mr. Hong.

“Honestly, I think figuring out the overall atmosphere will take some time.”

Jisub opened his mouth, holding a fork and cutting the fried egg in half.

“First of all, you need to have a clear sense of the team’s usual atmosphere to catch subtle changes.”

“Hmm, that’s right. I guess so.”

Mr. Hong Dae-jong narrowed his brow slightly, looking a bit impatient.

Jisub smiled at Mr. Hong.

“But in the latter case, you can figure it out relatively easily.”

“Are you talking about whether the training is going well……?”

Mr. Hong widened his eyes.

“How?”

“Breakfast time is important.”

Jisub continued.

“Sit near the entrance of the restaurant and observe the expressions of the coaches who come to eat breakfast.”

“The coaches’…… expressions?”

“Our coaches are people who raise several snakes in their stomachs [meaning they are very secretive and don’t easily reveal their true feelings]. Once the workday starts, they all manage their expressions perfectly. But just before eating breakfast, when they haven’t fully woken up yet…….”

Mr. Hong lightly clapped his knee after hearing this.

“Does that mean their expressions reveal whether the training is going well or not?”

“That’s right.”

A secret know-how he learned while working at the Cannons for the past year.

Jisub gestured with his eyes towards the table where the coaching staff was sitting.

“Take a quick look without turning your head. The pitching coach…… his expression looks good, right? Jang Dae-woo’s bullpen pitching yesterday was amazing.”

“Oh, really! He’s laughing and making a fuss?”

“The hitting coach probably has a comfortable expression too. Jang-ho showed a good performance in free batting yesterday.”

“That’s right. He’s enjoying his tea very elegantly.”

“And the defense coach is…….”

Jisub hesitated slightly here.

He hadn’t properly watched the defense training the day before because he was on a call from the Okinawa second-team camp.

‘……How was it? I don’t think there were any major problems?’

While Jisub was vaguely recalling his memories, he heard a worried voice from across the table.

“Special Envoy, it seems like the atmosphere of yesterday’s defense training wasn’t very good?”

It was Mr. Hong’s words.

“The defense coach’s expression doesn’t look very good…….”

“Is that so?”

* * *

After finishing breakfast with Mr. Hong Dae-jong, Jisub headed straight to the coaching staff’s accommodation.

Ding-

All the rooms lined up along the east corridor on the 6th floor of this hotel were the coaching staff’s rooms.

There were many rooms, but the middle-aged men usually lived with their doors wide open.

Jisub didn’t need to go around to each of their rooms to greet them.

“Good morning!”

Jisub greeted them while standing in the hallway.

The coaching staff’s reactions were heard from various rooms with their doors wide open.

“Oh, Special Envoy Kim! Good morning!”

“Did you eat? Seaweed soup came out today! Make sure to eat it!”

“What, seaweed soup came out?!! Damn it, then I have to eat this morning…….”

Some people were wearing hats and heading to work early, some were wearing uniforms and searching for belts, and some were waking up late and barely rubbing the sleep out of their eyes.

While the coaches were hurrying to prepare for work at their own pace, Jisub approached the room at the end of the east corridor and knocked ‘knock’ on the door.

“Coach, are you there?”

As soon as Jisub finished speaking, the sound of chair wheels rolling was heard from inside the hotel room.

“Oh, Jisub! What’s up?”

The person staring at Jisub while sitting in a wheeled chair was the KH Cannons’ defense coach.

* * *

After being appointed as a special advisor to the general manager, one of the new tasks given to Jisub was to carefully observe each member of the club and work together to find solutions if there were any difficulties.

Having breakfast with Mr. Hong Dae-jong and going up to the 6th floor immediately after finishing the meal could be said to be in a similar context, but-

“Ah, so that’s why you came up here?”

The good thing was that the defense coach’s expression didn’t seem as bad as it was in the restaurant.

“My expression didn’t look good……. Hmm, now that I hear it, it might have been. But it’s not because of yesterday’s defense training.”

“Is that so?”

“It’s true that our kids’ tension dropped a bit during yesterday’s defense training……. But Jisub knows that, right? Defense training has never been a popular sport for players.”

That was definitely true.

Jisub, who had trained harder than anyone else during his playing days.

Even Jisub felt restless whenever he went into defense training.

The only reason was-

‘……Because it’s boring.’

It’s boring. It’s really boring.

Receiving the ball and throwing it, receiving the ball and throwing it.

Pitching training has the pleasure of the ball being ‘slammed!’ into the catcher’s mitt, and hitting training has the thrill of ‘crack!’ when you hit the ball properly.

It is extremely rare for players to find fun in defense training, which is close to simple repetition.

“But then again…… when I think about it, it wasn’t completely unrelated to defense training.”

“What do you mean…….”

“Jisub, do you have time now? Then can you take a look at this?”

It was at this moment that the defense coach reached out to the bed with a ‘끙챠! [Keung-cha! – a Korean exclamation of effort or strain]’

The defense coach started rummaging through something in the bag on the bed.

After a while, what he held out in front of Jisub was a rather unfamiliar-looking object.

“What is this?”

One was relatively easy to figure out.

A ball made of plastic. An object in the shape of a shrunken table tennis ball.

But the other one was hard to even guess what it was.

In some ways, it looked like a small net, and in other ways, it looked like only the web part of the glove was separated.

“Coach, what is this?”

“The name varies from person to person…… but the Red Sox people call this a web glove.”

The defense coach began to fiddle with the object that looked like a small net.

“You put it between your thumb and index finger like this……. Like this!”

“It looks like a frog’s webbed feet.”

“Right? After wearing it like this…… like this, like this! You practice catching small balls with this webbed part.”

“Ah!”

Jisub nodded his head.

He finally understood what this strangely shaped equipment was for.

“It’s a training device to improve catching ability.”

“That’s right, a glove much smaller than a normal glove, a table tennis ball much smaller and more moving than a baseball…… if you practice catching the ball with this, you can expect to improve your catching ability in real games.”

He said he got it when he met the Boston Red Sox trainers a few days ago.

When asked, ‘The kids are bored with defense training, isn’t there a fun way?’ that trainer gave him a few sets and left.

In some ways, it was a positive effect of the business partnership with the Boston Red Sox.

But at this time, Jisub didn’t have the luxury to consider such things.

“You seem to have found a pretty good training method, but why did you have such a serious expression at the restaurant earlier?”

“Ah, that’s…….”

The defense coach scratched the back of his ear with a frustrated expression.

“I tried this on our kids yesterday…… Damn it, the kids’ reactions were not good?”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, some said it looked like a kid’s toy, and some said they didn’t know what help it would be.”

The defense coach sighed briefly.

“When I see things like this, I know that old sayings are never wrong. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.”

It’s good. It’s really good training.

The story was that he couldn’t come up with a way to reverse the players’ indifferent reactions.

A faint smile appeared on Jisub’s lips at the next moment.

“Hey, Coach! Why are you worrying about that?”

“Hmm?”

“If a horse that has been led to the water doesn’t drink? Then I think there are two ways.”

Jisub continued.

“One is to bring another horse next to that guy. Then the two will compete, so they will start drinking water in a hurry, right?”

“What?”

The defense coach chuckled.

“Haha, how do you make that competition? If the horse you brought doesn’t drink water either, it’s impossible to make them compete.”

“In that case…… you use the second method. You sprinkle carrot pieces in the water.”

“Carrot pieces?”

“Yes, then they will have no choice but to gulp down the water to eat the carrots.”

“Hmm, carrot pieces…….”

The defense coach was lost in thought.

“It’s a good idea……. Then what should I give our kids instead of carrot pieces?”

“Don’t worry about that.”

It was Jisub’s refreshing answer that was heard in the defense coach’s ear.

“In preparation for times like this…… the acting owner has entrusted me with something.”

A very,

Sure thing.