A Rookie In The Baseball Team Is Too Good [EN]: Chapter 399

Baseball Team Newbie Is Too Good – Episode 399

Baseball Team Newbie Is Too Good – 399

89 Another Sunshine Day (1)

Around the time the official welcoming event in the East Room of the White House was wrapping up.

Tampa Bay Rays’ veteran starting pitcher, ‘Professor’ Brett Evans, was receiving congratulatory calls from his college buddies.

-Brett, you sly dog, you’ve made it big!!!

The voices of his friends on the other end of the phone were filled with excitement.

-Wow, what’s going on! A guy who used to go skate fishing with us is shaking hands with the President?

-How does it feel? Huh? The President mentioned your name on national TV! What did he say? The pillar of the Tampa Bay Rays?

-Hey, you should have controlled your expression a bit! It all showed on the screen that you were grinning from ear to ear.

-That’s right, you should have kept up appearances even in front of the President! Did you forget? You’re the most senior member of the Tampa Bay pitching staff!

That day’s White House visit was broadcast live across the United States.

Brett Evans’ friends had gathered in one place to watch that historic moment.

They nitpicked at him for a while, saying why couldn’t he control his expression, why did he wear such a suit, and what did he do to be in the front row.

But the story they really wanted to tell was something else entirely.

-But anyway… congratulations!

-Congratulations, Brett!

-It was worth the hard work in the independent league! Isn’t that right? Hahaha!

Friends who had been together since they knew nothing about the world.

The sincere congratulations from those precious friends.

Brett Evans, who doesn’t usually express his emotions much, couldn’t help but have a choked-up expression at this moment.

“…Thanks, everyone.”

Brett Evans said, looking at the White House building he had been in until just a moment ago.

“Your support was a big help. Especially coming all the way to Philadelphia for Game 7 of the World Series… I’ll never forget that. I’ll pay you back someday.”

-Hey, you don’t have to pay us back someday! You don’t have to go that far…

The friends seemed to be discussing something amongst themselves.

One of them said to Brett Evans.

-If you’re really grateful, change that front office staff member for us.

“Front office staff?”

-You know, the Korean staff member who used to jog with us in the park? His name was… Kim, wasn’t it?

He continued.

-I saw him on TV earlier, too? Then we should send him our congratulations.

“You guys were that close to Kim? I didn’t realize?”

-Well, to be exact, it’s John Llama Taylor who’s close to him…

The next moment, Brett Evans’ friends revealed their true purpose.

-We have a promise with Kim, you know? We thought we should keep in touch from time to time so we remember the promise.

“A promise? What promise?”

-See, see! That’s why we’re trying to step in!

Brett Evans’ friends showed a fierce reaction.

-Have you already forgotten? Kim promised us that he would open the 3rd floor upper deck of Tropicana Field someday!

“Ah… that?”

The 3rd floor upper deck. The stands that Brett Evans and his friends frequented when they were active as the ‘Cowbell Boys’ [a group known for enthusiastically supporting the team with cowbells].

The highest place in Tropicana Field. A place where the games weren’t easy to see, but the cheap prices were attractive.

It was closed now due to the decrease in Tampa Bay’s attendance, but seeing baseball there again someday was a long-cherished wish of his friends.

-We don’t expect much. We just hope we can watch your retirement game there… that’s all.

“Hehe, my retirement game.”

-If that’s the case, shouldn’t we try to get on Kim’s good side from now on? If he was introduced directly to the President, he must have considerable influence in your team’s front office.

“That’s right. His influence isn’t small.”

As a veteran of Brett Evans’ caliber, he could easily guess the atmosphere within the front office.

When he testified without hesitation that ‘his influence is great,’ his friends made a fuss again.

-Hey, then what are you doing? Kim! Let us talk to Kim on the phone!

-We’ve already written down our congratulatory messages here! So hurry!

-Quick! You’re too slow!

“Alright, alright! Damn, you guys are so bossy… hmm?!”

Brett Evans, unable to resist his friends’ urging, moved towards the front office staff gathered in the White House garden.

But the moment he spotted Jisub in the distance, he could only give a bitter smile.

“Hey, not today. I’ll connect you with Kim next time.”

-Why, what’s wrong? Do the front office staff still have a lot of work to do?

“No, it’s just time for taking commemorative photos now…”

Quite a few people had gathered around Jisub.

There were players, coaching staff, and front office staff.

Everyone was holding their cell phones and hovering around Jisub as if they had made a promise.

Brett Evans could vaguely grasp why they were doing that.

“It seems like there are a lot of people who want to congratulate Kim.”

He said to his friends.

“It looks like you’ll have to wait a long time for your turn.”

* * *

Brett Evans’ words were true.

From the moment his fist-bump with the President was broadcast, Jisub’s cell phone went crazy.

He received almost 100 messages in a short period of time, and he couldn’t even check how many calls he had received.

The messages flooded in so quickly that Jisub’s cell phone, which was relatively new, started to lag and the touch screen didn’t even work properly.

-Kim, shouldn’t you just turn it off for a while? If there’s an urgent call, it’ll come to us.

-Ah, should I?

It was good that he had turned off his phone after accepting David Wilson’s advice, but the real chaos started right then.

When they couldn’t reach Jisub, people tried to send him congratulatory messages through acquaintances within the Tampa Bay organization.

“Excuse me… Kim! Do you have a moment? Our agent wants to talk to Kim for a moment…”

“Kim, do you know Nicholas from the Yankees? He’s asking if you can connect him for a moment.”

“Wait a minute, Kim!”

“Kim?”

“Kiiiim?!”

From colleagues at Fort Myers University to front office staff he had known since his time in Boston.

And from Go Chang-deok of the KH Cannons [a Korean baseball team] to Hwang Jo-mi, the ace reporter of Sports Hanseong [a Korean sports newspaper].

So many congratulatory messages poured in that I wondered if I had this many acquaintances.

This commotion subsided around the time they left the White House and arrived at Washington Airport.

“Whew, I’m exhausted too.”

When Jisub was sitting in the airport waiting room, taking a breather, John Llama approached and said.

“Why are people in our baseball world so impatient? You can make congratulatory calls later, right?”

“Haha, it’s because everyone was so surprised, wasn’t it? It was an unusual event for anyone to see.”

That was David Wilson’s reaction.

“There have been cases where team staff members were mentioned, but Kim was a bit special today, wasn’t he? He almost appeared as the main character of today’s event.”

“That’s true. When people stepped back and made way… wow, my hair stood on end, too?”

“Be honest, Kim.”

John Llama poked Jisub in the side.

“Was that a planned production? Did you plan the operation a few days ago to become the main character of today’s event…?”

“No. What plan.”

Jisub waved his hand lightly, looking at his colleagues in the Future Strategy Planning department.

I think that’s when a strange expression appeared on John Llama and David Wilson’s faces.

“But… Kim, why do you look so pale since a while ago?”

David Wilson spoke first.

“Is there something bothering you?”

“That’s right, you didn’t look good when you were taking commemorative photos with your family?”

John Llama approached Jisub.

“What is it? What is it? Did another team make an offer to recruit you without us knowing?”

“Hey, what are you talking about.”

Jisub gave a hollow laugh and put his cell phone in his pocket.

And he brought up one word.

“It’s nothing else… I’m a little concerned about the President’s speech today.”

“The President’s speech?”

“Yes, didn’t you two notice anything strange? I’m talking about the last part of the President’s speech today.”

The speech was generally developed without any major problems.

Praise for the players who performed well, encouragement for the front office who achieved results with bold investments, and a word of congratulations to the owner and general manager.

However, there was a part that caught Jisub’s attention when the speech was coming to an end.

“Everyone remembers, right? Originally, the content was that the Tampa Bay Rays would become a better friend to the baseball fans of Florida.”

A better friend.

Jisub remembered exactly because he had worked so hard to elicit that one expression.

“But what the President mentioned today was quite different from what we agreed on.”

“Ah! That’s right? I don’t think there was any talk about friends or anything. So…”

David Wilson took out his cell phone and checked, realizing something was wrong.

That day, what the US President mentioned instead of ‘a better friend’ was none other than-

“…New opportunity.”

David Wilson said.

“I hope that new opportunities will unfold for the Tampa Bay Rays… Yes, that’s how the speech was changed.”

“A new opportunity?”

John Llama blinked.

“What’s the problem with that? It sounds like a good expression to me? In some ways, it seems like a much more direct expression than ‘a better friend’.”

“That’s right. It’s a straightforward expression. There’s no reason for us Tampa Bay to refuse it. But…”

Jisub narrowed his brows slightly.

“The White House people were really strict, weren’t they? It took hours just to get the expression of being friends or something. But the actual speech contained a much more direct expression than that?”

Of course, it could have been a word that came out of the President’s mouth unintentionally.

Presidents don’t memorize 100% of the manuscript, so there may be some changes depending on the flow of the day.

But ‘a better friend’ is an expression that was decided through a long discussion between the Tampa Bay Rays and the White House staff.

Considering that fact, the only possibility that Jisub could think of at this moment was one.

“I have a feeling that a third party we don’t know about intervened in this speech… That’s the feeling I get.”

People who want to offer the Tampa Bay Rays a ‘new opportunity’.

At this point, it was not difficult for Jisub to guess their identity.

“David.”

Jisub turned his head.

“Didn’t you say that there was always a proposal that came in whenever the Tampa Bay Rays’ new stadium construction was facing difficulties?”

“Ah, that’s right. There was.”

For people who have worked in this organization for a long time, it’s a story that’s commonly accepted.