Peaceful Bullpen Life [EN]: Chapter 170

To explain the situation I’m in now, there’s one thing you need to understand beforehand.

What kind of image do professional baseball fans have of the player ‘Kim Han-wool’?

Shall we pick out some keywords? From a baseball perspective, he’s the undisputed best bullpen ace of the 2020 season.

An ERA of 0. The best control in the league. The best stuff in the league. The best breaking ball in the league.

Because of this, you can often see comments like this in other teams’ online communities.

‘When the Wonha Challengers play, I just turn off the broadcast in the 8th inning when Kim Han-wool comes in.’

Why?

‘Because it’s just three outs anyway—out, out, out. What’s the point of watching that? I’d rather wait for the 9th inning.’

In terms of skill, he’s a truly irreplaceable, complete bullpen pitcher that no one can criticize.

That’s Kim Han-wool in the 2020 season.

Then, what about outside of baseball?

It’s funny to scrutinize a baseball player’s life outside of baseball, but what can you do? It’s professional. The stock is the fans’ love, and the dividend is the fans’ attention.

First of all, I’m not just a famous player locally or within the team; I’m a well-known player in the league and even nationally, so there are quite a few memes and stories about me.

The most famous is ‘that’ inauguration speech I gave in the 2019 season while wearing the captain’s hat. Because of this, I became a self-proclaimed promoter of absurdity.

And I don’t really understand this, but apparently, I have a *tsundere* [a character who is initially cold and hostile but gradually shows a warmer side] image. If you ask me to do something, I say no! but I do it anyway.

But these things aren’t really important for today’s discussion. What we need to focus on is the ‘jerk’ aspect, which is a small part of my overall image.

The word ‘jerk’ has a big impact, but it’s not the kind of jerk that leads to genuine dislike.

It’s more like, ‘That guy is the top student in the school. I want to get close to him, but I don’t know how, so I tease him to start a conversation.’

‘Hey, you’re the top student, how can you not know this?’

I didn’t really mind that kind of teasing. I even encouraged it.

‘No, you don’t *have* to know! Huh! Ma! Does this feed you! Huh! Does it feed you?!’ Sorry.

I think it was possible to bring my ‘enemies’ or ‘potential fans’ into my fan base by playing along with that.

In a word, I’m a likable person. It’s funny to evaluate myself like this out loud…

“Han-wool is a likable person. No, I’m not just saying that because I’m your girlfriend, but… as a person to person.”

“…Um.”

That’s what people around me say, so I guess I am.

But how can everyone like me? I even hate some people, so isn’t it too selfish to want everyone to like me?

I admit it. I admit it.

But…

“But this is openly targeting Han-wool.”

“Right?”

This crossed the line.

I can’t deny that there are people who hate me. I know that once someone hates you, they can’t help but hate everything you do.

If someone who did bad things to me came and apologized on their knees, would I be willing to accept it?

If a notorious bad guy donates 1 billion won [approximately $750,000 USD], would I be able to not resent it?

No matter how hard a really hated guy tries, would I be able to applaud him for winning first place without feeling anything?

Well. I don’t know about other saints, but I’m not one.

“I think it’s too much. Is it okay to do this for a living?”

Min-young didn’t say anything like, ‘Bear with it, it’s not a big deal, it’ll pass, isn’t it just one of the usual things that reporters do?’

‘Are there really crazy people like this!’

Rather, she was angrier than I was.

Ah, it’s a secret that I got angry for a moment and used harsh language and then flinched.

“…Huh?”

I was just skimming through the article when I suddenly felt familiar with the reporter’s name and the newspaper’s name.

So, I flipped through the reporter’s previous articles and found…

“…”

That incident that happened a while ago at the mini autograph session with the guy who didn’t seem like a fan.

It’s the same reporter who said strange things about me during that event.

What was the title of the article at that time? ‘Kim Han-wool’s Disgusting Hypocrisy?’

“What’s wrong?”

“…You know, a while ago, I was talking about defamation or something.”

“Ah, yes. You had an incident with a fan back then, right?”

“It’s the guy who wrote a strange article about me back then.”

“Wow…”

He’s a real scoundrel.

“I can’t believe it, really.”

Just in case, I looked up other articles by the reporter, and:

[Dongseong Hornets’ Myung Seung-joo, ‘Park Hae-jin is a batter below me.’]

[Visco Runners’ Ahn Chi-hyun, ‘The level of past batters was too low.’]

[Hanseong Winners’ Jung Seong-hoon, ‘Kim Han-wool’s ball is too slow.’]

It seems that I’m not the only victim.

Myung Seung-joo of Dongseong? I’m quite close to him, and he’s always humble to the point of being timid.

Chi-hyun *hyung* [older brother or male friend] of Visco? When I met him recently, he complained that the level of batters was too high and it was hard to make a living.

Jung Seong-hoon of Hanseong? If you look at a 110km curveball after seeing a 150km fastball, it will naturally look slow.

In other words,

“It’s like saying ‘A’ and ‘B’ are different… By removing a few words from a sentence, it becomes like this.”

A technique to attract as much attention as possible without actually telling a lie.

It seems to be having quite a bit of effect, as the comments on other articles as well as mine are not normal.

‘There are batters you can pick on, why pick on Park Hae-jin?’

‘Even if there’s no one else to pick on, why pick on the seniors?’

‘You say the ball is slow, but your batting average against him is less than 10%?’

“Why are they doing this?”

“Why? Because it makes money.”

“You want to make money by doing this? Even if you’re a reporter….”

“Either they bought the title of reporter with money… or they’re struggling to pay off their loans right now. It’s one of the two.”

Isn’t it too thoughtless to expect that celebrities should be able to easily brush off this kind of attention?

“I need to take some action….”

What should I do?

* * *

Lying is a bad thing. Depending on your opinion, you can argue whether ‘white lies’ are bad or not, but that’s not important, so let’s skip it for now.

But there’s something even worse than telling a lie: it’s *not* telling a lie while deliberately creating a false impression.

Back when I was involved with Eun-seo, there was an article titled ‘Kim Han-wool’s Disgusting Hypocrisy?’

If you only look at the title, it doesn’t make sense, but in fact, there were no outright lies in the article.

‘It is said that this is the case, it is said that this is the case, it may be like this.’

But it is obviously wrong to shout that we are good reporters and that we will tell you what you want to know, using the shallow trick of appealing to the public’s ‘right to know’.

As it happens, the Visco Runners are on the road to Jamsil Stadium. And in this team,

“*Hyung*, did you see this?”

“Ah… him. I’ve been a victim too.”

“I saw it too. Something about the level of batters.”

“This bastard is really out of his mind?”

There’s one more victim like me.

“No, how, hey. Think about it. Of course, batting theories have evolved more than in the past. So, of course, batting skills have improved more than in the past, so it’s harder for us to catch them.”

Chi-hyun *hyung*, who always has a smiling and gentle face, rarely expressed his anger with such a serious expression.

“That’s right. As pitchers evolve, so do batters.”

“That’s right! How can the fact that batters have grown compared to the past be twisted to mean that they are disparaging the level of past *seniors* [more experienced or older colleagues]!”

In some ways, he was hit harder than I was.

“So I’m not going to let it go this time.”

“…What are you going to do?”

I could sense resignation in Chi-hyun *hyung*’s voice.

After all, the reporter has the power. Unless the players directly grab the microphone and give a national address, our message is inevitably conveyed through the reporters’ pens.

“What else can I do?”

It’s simple. If our words are distorted through the reporter’s pen, then we can just take away the pen.

“Just don’t let them in.”

“Who?”

“That reporter. And that newspaper too.”

“On what grounds?”

“There are more than one or two victims. I was a victim, and so was *hyung*. Seong-hoon was a victim, and so was Seung-joo *hyung*. There are many others.”

“There are many.”

“And besides that reporter, *hyung* also admits that there are reporters who do a really good job.”

“Well… that’s right?”

Among the reporters that come to my mind right now, there are some that I really respect.

“We have to join forces. If we join forces, we can keep them out.”

“What if they say it’s oppression of the press or something?”

“Then we can use other reporters to make our voices heard properly.”

In fact, it’s not that difficult. We just need to give those reporters a ‘hint’.

But Chi-hyun *hyung* is still making a sullen face, as if the plan isn’t fully formed.

“Then *hyung*, I’ll gather some people first.”

“Who are you going to gather?”

“Who else? The victims. Just wait a little bit.”

* * *

My own sociability works in a very good direction in times like these.

Before the game, I gathered all the people who were both victims of that media company and players in my contacts into a chat room.

And if there were victims who I didn’t have contact information for, I asked around to get their contact information and had them participate.

The number of people gathered was a whopping 13. I think we’ve all been through a lot.

“From here on out, Young-jin will have to help us a little bit?”

“I saw this too.”

“Then we’ll be faster.”

I gathered my own evidence and asked Young-jin, who works in the front office, for help.

“It’s really a headache because of these guys. It’s not just once or twice.”

“Their track record is impressive.”

“Um… then what can I do to help?”

“I don’t know if it’s possible, but can you ban this newspaper from entering?”

“Ban?”

“If we just don’t let them in, they’ll know how serious it is.”

“But I think the grounds are a bit ambiguous… If they deny that they made a lie by playing with words, we have nothing to say.”

“We can create enough grounds.”

“How?”

“In some ways, there’s someone more amazing than a reporter. It’s someone who can write our position more frankly.”

“Um…?”

The evidence I presented to Young-jin wasn’t just seen by Young-jin. There’s really someone in this field who is more trustworthy than ‘reporters’ and can always be on our side.

“Because he and they are going to be official trash now.”

“What did he say?”

“He didn’t really say anything special. He just said that there are reporters like this these days, and isn’t that ridiculous? That’s all it took.”

“What does that person say?”

“Oh no! How can there be a reporter who is not like a reporter in this world! As a former player, I can’t stand it!”

“……”

“No… it’s a bit dramatized.”

You don’t have to look at it that way.

“Anyway, I have a plan like this, can you help me? When I said that, he said he would.”

“Is there any price to pay?”

“No. Rather, he liked it.”

“Why? Did you give him something to write about?”