Peaceful Bullpen Life [EN]: Chapter 49

Sizzling octopus legs, slathered in bright red sauce, were boiling. The restaurant lights reflected off the sauce, making the octopus look incredibly springy.

“If you chew it, it’ll be crunchy and savory. Good, good.”

But if I eat this today, tomorrow I’ll probably be locked in a bathroom stall all day long.

To somehow counteract that misfortune, a soft tofu stew was bubbling on the burner next to the spicy octopus, preparing to soothe my burning stomach.

“One serving of spicy octopus for four, and one soft tofu stew, please. Oh, and a bottle of soju [Korean distilled rice liquor].”

After Hyung-gyu’s order, the four men stared blankly at the spicy octopus cooking, without a word.

“So…”

Feeling awkward, I opened my mouth first.

“First of all, Senior Eun-gu, you worked hard today. The finish was awesome. Ji-ho, you worked hard too. You grow by getting hit and sent out like that.”

“Hey, what about me?”

“Hyung, you got 200,000 won [approximately $150 USD]. Let’s call it even with that.”

“Fucking…”

Hyung cursed quietly and picked up his chopsticks.

“Senior, is the spicy octopus okay for you?”

“Yeah. How did you know I like spicy octopus?”

“I just guessed, but I didn’t know it would work.”

Since I was paying, I picked up the octopus first without hesitation. Ugh, it’s spicy.

“Ji-ho, what about you?”

“Ah, I…”

“The youngest just has to follow along.”

“Wow, is this injustice?”

“Shut up.”

“This is injustice.”

“Shut up.”

I’ve known Hyung-gyu for over 10 years. I’ve eaten with him countless times and drank with him quite a bit.

We’ve even gone to karaoke and screamed our lungs out after drinking, so that says it all.

But this was the first time I’d had a separate gathering in this unit format with Senior Eun-gu and Ji-ho.

I was worried that there might be some awkwardness with the new combination, but the atmosphere was better than I thought.

Mostly, either I or Senior Choi Eun-gu led the conversation. We chatted, and Ji-ho listened quietly and asked questions about things he was curious about.

Hyung-gyu was shamelessly eating several pieces of octopus.

Since we met through baseball and played on the same team, the conversation mainly focused on baseball. It was mostly a time to share tips.

For the three of us who were in our 30s or slightly over, it might just be a time for simple camaraderie, but for the 20-year-old newbie, each word would carry a different weight.

“Um, Senior Kim Han-wool.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think it would be good to practice other breaking balls?”

“Breaking balls…”

I put down my chopsticks and pondered for a moment.

“It would be good to have them…”

“But Ji-ho, what do you throw?”

“I throw a slider and a curveball.”

“Oh, I should have asked that first. Do you want to be a starter or a reliever?”

“Um…”

There wasn’t really an answer.

“You have to decide that first. If you’re ambiguous, you’ll be a swingman [a pitcher who can start or relieve]. Even if being a swingman looks good, it’s not that great.”

Hyung-gyu, who was born to be a starter, couldn’t relate, but Senior Choi Eun-gu nodded in understanding.

“I haven’t really thought about it… I’ve just been throwing with the thought that I’m grateful that the manager puts me in.”

“Still, it’s good to have at least a minimum guideline. Whether you’re a reliever or a starter.”

Um…

He soon made a decision that wouldn’t be easy.

“I… want to be on the bullpen side. Ah, no, I want to be a closer [the pitcher who finishes the game].”

At the same time, Senior Choi Eun-gu and I made eye contact.

I caught him.

And at the same time, I smiled.

“Then you don’t need any more breaking balls. It wouldn’t hurt to have them, but look at Senior Eun-gu here. He only has a fastball and a slider, but it works.”

“But Senior Choi Eun-gu’s fastball is really good, isn’t it?”

“Well, that’s true. Senior, how do you throw such a fastball?”

“Then let me ask you. How do you control it like that?”

“That’s…”

…Genetics?

“You practiced a lot, right?”

“I did practice… a lot.”

“Me too, practice.”

“Not talent?”

“It’s not that there’s no talent, but practice is also important. Ah, more like training? Weight training?”

“Doesn’t your body feel heavy if you do a lot of weight training?”

“No, I like weight training. Don’t you guys do it?”

“I don’t.”

“I used to do it until a few years ago. I was trying to increase my velocity, but it didn’t go up even after a few years, so I just…”

“I only did it until high school.”

“Do it, it’s good. Your body doesn’t hurt.”

“Oh.”

“Are you interested?”

“Does it really not hurt?”

“No, it hurts less.”

“Even that…”

“Han-wool, do you want to try it together?”

“Let’s go together sometime later.”

“But Hyung does weight training too hard.”

“I have to do that much. All I have is velocity.”

I listened to Senior Eun-gu’s story and came back to the main point.

“For now, what you need is um… velocity and control. You don’t really need any more breaking balls there. It’s not like your slider and curve are that good right now to increase your breaking balls.”

“Yes. I don’t really feel like they’re good either… so I was wondering if something else would suit me better.”

“Practice, man.”

“Do you have any tips?”

Senior Choi Eun-gu is a slider guy, Hyung-gyu is a curve guy. I’m both.

Ah, I sealed the slider.

“How do you throw a slider?”

“I… like this. I break it like this.”

He pretended his left hand was a ball and showed how he broke it. The senior, who was a decade older, told him his feelings.

“Don’t break it, cut it, you need some sense of your hand, something like that.”

After that, it naturally became my and Hyung-gyu’s turn, the curve.

Hyung-gyu twists his wrist a little. I don’t twist it, I pull it out.

It was amazing that the same pitch had different methods for each person.

*Ji-ho, grow up quickly,* I thought, and the three seniors talked so passionately that the octopus on top was wriggling.

“Try throwing a curve for about 3 years, and if it doesn’t work, then throw it away. And then practice something else.”

“No, if you’re going to throw it away then, you should start practicing something else now.”

“Is that so?”

“If you throw away the curve then, you’ll have a fastball and a slider, two pitches?”

“That’s true.”

“Then what would be good to practice?”

Um…

The 30-year-old trio bowed their heads at the same time. I raised my head first.

“Changeup [a slow pitch thrown with the same arm action as a fastball].”

Hyung-gyu said,

“Forkball [a pitch thrown with the ball gripped between the index and middle fingers].”

Senior Choi Eun-gu said,

“Two-seam [a fastball with a slight horizontal movement].”

“…”

*What do you want me to do?*

Ji-ho answered with his face.

“Hey, changeup is the best. Your split goes down against left-handed hitters.”

“What kind of changeup are you talking about with his arm angle? He should throw a forkball. He’s throwing down from above.”

“You’re throwing down from above, but you’re not throwing a forkball. His fastball isn’t that fast, so it’s better to catch him with a sinker two-seam.”

“My hands are too small, so I can’t grip the ball [for a forkball]. His fastball isn’t that good, so what’s the point of throwing a two-seam?”

“Then a forkball is even more meaningless. You have to go dirty with a changeup, right?”

All three pitches had their own reasons.

“Senior Kim Han-wool, you throw them all, don’t you?”

“Well… for now.”

“Was there any pitch that was difficult to make?”

“Ah… no. Not really. I practiced for about 30 minutes or an hour and used it right away.”

“…”

Ji-ho was more expressive than I thought.

“Velocity, you can slowly increase it, follow Senior Eun-gu and do weight training, and if your form settles down, it will increase a little. Let’s leave that alone. Focus on control first.”

“But is control that important?”

20-year-old spirit.

“…Do you really think so?”

“I do think control is important… but I’m not sure if it’s the most important factor. You don’t need nano-control, do you? It’s not like every ball you throw is seen and swung at. Isn’t a moderate level enough?”

“If you say that, it sounds plausible…”

How do I explain this? My head started to hurt.

“Ji-ho.”

“Yes, Senior.”

“You can see the answer if you look at Han-wool, right?”

Senior Choi Eun-gu came to support me.

“Um…”

“Senior, I don’t think I’m a good example.”

“Then who else would you use as an example?”

Well…

…There’s no one?

“Was it until the 2016 season? When your grades weren’t good?”

“That’s right. Around that time.”

“Do you know why Han-wool was able to stay in the first team even though his grades weren’t that good?”

“Wasn’t it because the team couldn’t help it?”

No, don’t say the facts like that in front of me…

“That’s not wrong either.”

Fuck.

“Honestly, I don’t think the control is that great? I don’t think you need to put half a ball in or out. But it’s a little different to take half a ball out.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

“It’s different. It’s a completely different thing.”

This time I continued.

“Look. There’s a zone like this.”

I took out a cigarette pack from my pocket.

“Yes.”

“Let’s say the ball came here.”

I pointed to a spot slightly beyond the edge of the cigarette pack with the head of a new chopstick.

“Is it a ball?”

“Yes.”

In reality, it’s an area where one ball is missing. This time, I pointed to the center of the cigarette pack.

“What about here?”

“It’s a strike.”

“What about here?”

“It’s a strike.”

I dropped half a ball like that.

“What about here?”

“…Isn’t it a strike?”

“That’s where you said it was a ball earlier?”

“Ah.”

*What do you know?*

“Like you said, if you don’t want to give up a walk, you only need minimal control. If you keep putting it in the zone, the number of strikeouts will drop and you’ll get hits, but you won’t give up walks.”

But a pitcher shouldn’t allow walks, that’s not enough.

“But a pitcher isn’t just someone who throws strikes, you have to throw balls well, balls. There’s a saying, ‘A pitcher who throws strikes well can eat well and live well on his own, but a pitcher who throws balls well can feed his family.'”

The difference between control and command.

“He’s saying that because it’s him. Don’t believe it.”

“You can practice.”

“Don’t talk nonsense, man. Right, Hyung?”

“Don’t talk nonsense, man.”

Hey.

“Then Senior Kim Han-wool, do you have that kind of control?”

“Yeah. On a good day, it seems to be in cm units [centimeters].”

“He’s saying that because it’s him. Ignore him.”

“Nooo.”

“Since when have you been able to control it like that?”

“Maybe… when I was a senior in high school.”

“He had pretty good control even before that.”

“But why were your grades until the 2016 season…”

“…”

You keep fighting with facts in a cowardly way.

“Even if your control is good…”

“Yes.”

“…You need at least minimal power or velocity. At least. Really at least. Fuck! What’s the point of going into the corner? I can see everything.”

“Ah. Did your grades get better last year as your velocity started to increase?”

“That’s right. To be exact, it started to increase in the very late 2016 season. But it wasn’t really meaningful at that time, and last year is when you really have to look at it.”

“Oh…”

Finally, Ji-ho seems to be interested in control.

“You first, control. Look at control first. Look at velocity for a long time. You can’t increase 5km or 10km right away. There are many seniors and coaches here for breaking balls.”

Ah, am I drunk?

“Grab them and bother them. Look at Hyuk-joon, he sticks to me all the time and asks, ‘How do you throw a curve, how do you throw a splitter?'”

I’m drunk.

The tail of the words that have lost their order becomes endlessly long.

“Do that. If you feel like you’re lacking, do more than that. There’s no point in practicing alone. What’s the point of running hard alone? The direction is wrong. Your shoulder will be ruined.”

A person with a grudge was enough to express his passion.

“But control… isn’t it something that can’t be done right away just because you want to do it?”

“Why not? You can fix your form right now.”

At that, the eyes of the three people turned to me. I stopped talking, a little embarrassed.

“Um, which part is it?”

“…Your shoulders dance when you throw. Fix that. It’s not that noticeable, but it’s there.”

I followed Ji-ho’s arm angle and danced.

Yes, that’s Ji-ho now. Is it because of the alcohol? Words that I didn’t want to say kept coming out. I paused for a moment.

“…Don’t tell the pitching coach that I said that. If anyone asks, say you figured it out on your own.”

“Why is that?”

“This is what the pitching coach should be doing. What will the pitching coach be if I do it?”

“Ah…”

While I was pouring out my heart to Ji-ho, the hyungs [older brothers/male colleagues] started talking nonsense.

“Hyung, Hyuk-joon is right, right?”

“What did Hyuk-joon say?”

“He said you should be a pitching coach. Should I break his head with this bottle? Then he might retire?”

“But then you’ll lose a lot of wins.”

“Ah.”

Even when the stupid 1-year senior came to his senses, my words didn’t stop.

“If you fix this, your velocity will increase by about 2km.”

“Does the velocity also increase?”

“Hey, you have to throw all the power you have to the home, but if the power is going backwards even for a moment, will the velocity come out properly?”

“Ah… I understand.”

Cheers―

When the flow of the story was cut off, the four men cutely clinked their glasses in the air.

A few drops of soju fell from the clinking glasses and soaked into the spicy octopus, but they laughed at the nonsense, “This is disinfecting the octopus, this is getting rid of the fishy smell.”

I think I’m drunk.

“Han-wool.”

“Yes.”

“Never go down to the second team. Don’t get injured either.”

“I don’t plan to.”

“No, I always want you to be in the dugout when I’m pitching.”

“…You’re married, why are you confessing? It’s creepy.”

“No, hey. Hey. The atmosphere is getting weird.”

Okay, let’s catch the editing point.

“It’s been like this for a while, but when I see you pitching, it looks so comfortable. No, it’s not that you’re pitching comfortably. I mean, when I see you pitching, I feel more comfortable, should I say?”

“Ah, that’s right.”

“You know what I mean? Like, you’ll take care of it, something like that. But today, strangely, it’s not you, but I feel so comfortable pitching.”

“Ah…”

“Is it because you said spicy octopus or something?”

“Ah, I think so too.”

“Did you tell him about the spicy octopus too?”

“Yes. I said let’s eat spicy octopus, he… no, that’s not it.”

I think he’s drunk too.

“I kept throwing bad pitches and wild pitches, but when I saw Senior Kim Han-wool, I felt so comfortable. It felt like the tension disappeared.”

“Um…”

Trait: Comfort. Is that it? Is it working like this? I thought about our fielders who were fielding when I was on the mound, and what Hyung-hoon said last year. I crossed my arms and thought that I could use it more usefully than I thought.

Since I didn’t bring up baseball, the baseball talk ended like that.

They were people who made baseball their profession and liked baseball, but they weren’t a group of crazy people who only did baseball and only talked about baseball. They talked about ordinary lives and interesting stories.

Stories about their student days, marriage, women, games, food, places they’ve been, etc.

Especially when it came to marriage, the three singles couldn’t even open their mouths. They just opened their mouths and admired Senior Choi Eun-gu’s story.

“Hey. But why did ‘Lee Myung-jin, you son of a bitch’ come out earlier?”

“What’s that?”

“You said that earlier. When Ji-ho was going up, or when Eun-gu Hyung was going up. You suddenly shouted, ‘Lee Myung-jin, you son of a bitch!'”

“Ah… ah that.”

Back of the head… heehee.

“…Hyung.”

“Why.”

“There’s tofu behind your head. Do you know what that is?”

“…What, what is it.”

“Back of the head.”

“…”

“…Heehee. Senior Eun-gu.”