Pitcher’S End, Batter’S Start [EN]: Chapter 184

Pitchers Done, Batters Up – Episode 183

As Mark had predicted, the calls came pouring in.

Actually, Mark’s phone had been vibrating non-stop even before he got home. His inbox and the office fax machine were overflowing with proposals from all sorts of places, from companies with recognizable names to those that made you wonder, ‘What on earth do they do?’

“Fast, so fast. The marketing side of big corporations is definitely quick.”

In this situation, Mark, who was with Lee Jung-woo for player care, clicked his tongue at the calls from his staff. This was the biggest deal he had reported so far.

It wasn’t just a simple proposal; it was quite detailed, and the protagonist was none other than Nike, with whom they had been in talks. The discussions had been put on hold after the drug scandal surfaced, but a new proposal arrived immediately after the press conference, along with congratulatory and consolatory messages.

“Oh, now we’re talking. That’s the kind of scale Nike should have.”

“How much are they offering? Did they really double it?”

“Yeah, they’re offering ten million dollars. But with contract duration and exclusivity conditions. The injury and scandal clauses are still there, but it’s not bad.”

Lee Jung-woo looked at Mark with a curious expression, as if amazed that they had actually doubled the offer. It was as if he had divine inspiration, hitting it exactly right.

“And… they want to film a commercial too. During the All-Star break. It’ll only take one day.”

A Nike commercial. In other words, they were acknowledging him as the hottest star right now. When Lee Jung-woo twitched his eyebrows at that, Mark’s face was filled with a proud smile.

At least in terms of contract amount, his player had caught up to two-thirds of Arthur Hunter, who had signed a 15 million dollar deal with Adidas.

No, strictly speaking, it meant they were valuing his star power even higher. Compared to Arthur Hunter, whose accumulated career was insignificant, barely a year old, and who could collapse at any moment, they were matching that amount.

Mark’s face grew brighter as he briefly reviewed the proposal. He soon asked Lee Jung-woo, who was still indifferent to these matters.

“So, how about it? Go?”

“Do whatever you want. The All-Star break, just one day is fine. But no more than that.”

Mark responded with a satisfied smile to Lee Jung-woo’s words, wearing a happier expression than ever before.

Being busy because of his player was always welcome, especially when it involved a staggering amount of money.

As always, whenever there were issues surrounding Lee Jung-woo, Mark was swamped with work, even though the important tasks were already completed. However, unlike the nerve-wracking and tense work of the past few weeks, this was the happy kind of work.

####

When the aftermath of the press conference swept through the baseball world—no, all countries and companies even slightly related to baseball—making Mark happy, Lee Jung-woo, the eye of the storm, returned to the team as usual after a short break and boarded the plane for an away game with a nonchalant expression, as if nothing had happened.

“Good job, you must have had a hard time mentally. Now you can just focus on the game.”

“I have to. Baseball alone is overwhelming enough.”

Derek’s words were essentially what the Braves team wanted to say to Lee Jung-woo. They wanted to tell him that he had worked hard and that he should just focus on baseball without worrying about outside matters.

Some were a little surprised. They had seen an unexpected side of the player, who was always calm, surprisingly good at joking, and seemed to only train like a baseball robot.

“He’s such a manly man, a macho man. How did he think of taking off his shirt there?”

“Lee, be honest, did you always have that desire?”

“Well, it’s a body too good to hide under clothes. If it were me, I would have shown it off every day.”

Nevertheless, his teammates acted cheerfully and maintained the same atmosphere as usual. Lee Jung-woo quickly blended in.

Since they used the same locker room, some people looked at his right shoulder, which they had already seen hundreds of times, with a fresh perspective.

Most of them were just satisfied. The scandal that had been tormenting Lee Jung-woo, the team’s most important player and someone with generally good relationships, had disappeared.

Lee Jung-woo, cheerfully ignoring his teammates who were throwing jokes, simply asked Derek about the next game’s opponent.

“How about Oakland?”

“If you’re talking about the team, I know about as much as you do. If you’re asking about the city… well, forget about San Francisco. Absolutely not.”

The Oakland Athletics.

The perception of baseball fans towards that team in the AL West [American League West division] could be summed up in just two words: poor and cheap. No more, no less, the realistic assessment of the Athletics was simply that they were poor.

Unlike their neighbors in San Francisco, Oakland itself was close to being a struggling city, so the market itself was small, the team had no money, and they didn’t seem to want to spend it even if they did.

There were even rumors that they weren’t properly using the luxury tax money they received.

However, contrary to that perception, their farm system [a team’s minor league affiliates, where young players are developed] was surprisingly competitive.

Perhaps it was a tradition that had been passed down for quite some time.

‘Moneyball, you’ve seen the movie, right.’

Through the Moneyball system built by Billy Beane, who was the general manager and later became the president, and his predecessor, they directly introduced sabermetrics [the empirical analysis of baseball, especially baseball statistics that measure in-game activity], which had been treated as a setting game for baseball enthusiasts or, more derogatively, otaku [a Japanese term for people with obsessive interests, particularly in anime and manga], into the team’s operations, creating a new innovation and making a rather impressive heyday, even if they didn’t win the World Series.

Currently, they are one of the teams that achieve good results compared to their finances through their unique management style. The difference between the Athletics and the Braves was, simply put, an upgrade.

‘We’re like a lower version of them. Strong starting lineup, decent power in the batting lineup, and the defense is one of the best in the league. But unlike us, their bullpen is destroyed.’

Thinking that far, Lee Jung-woo threw out a word that he seemed to have heard before.

“Come to think of it, weren’t our Braves and the Athletics compared in the past? I think I heard something like that.”

At Lee Jung-woo’s question, Derek looked at the sky beyond the window with nostalgic eyes, as if reminiscing about the past. It wasn’t that long ago, but because there were so many joyful days, it felt like a very distant moment.

“To be exact, we and the Athletics had what the other didn’t. Their farm system produced good starters, and our farm system produced good relievers.”

“Didn’t they say that if we merged with them, we would win the World Series? That the team would be the most perfect of all teams?”

“Yeah, they did. But not anymore. We have everything, but they don’t have something, two things at that.”

When Derek said with a playful face, some of the surrounding players chuckled, and when Lee Jung-woo looked around with a puzzled expression, Peterson opened his mouth.

“What is it?”

“The first is money, and the second is you. It’s a joke that’s been circulating on the internet this season, that if Oakland had those two things, they might be where we are now. Haven’t you heard? It’s a common saying on the internet or in analysis programs.”

“Not at all.”

Lee Jung-woo made a subtle expression at Peterson’s words. He understood the first one well enough, but the second one seemed to be praising him while subtly teasing him.

With information that he didn’t necessarily want to hear, Lee Jung-woo was heading to Oakland.

####

Watching the Braves players enter one by one, some of the Athletics’ home fans had somewhat blank expressions.

“He really didn’t do it…”

“Damn, he’s so cool. Like Atlanta believes, a product of effort and talent…”

“Sigh… that Asian kid is making me feel weird…”

Their gazes were directed at Lee Jung-woo. The looks they gave him were somewhat, no, very bitter. The Athletics were one of the teams that went directly through the steroid era, and they had consistently produced drug users ever since. It was no exaggeration to say that they had the unfortunate nickname of being one of Major League Baseball’s drug dens.

To the fans who loved such Athletics, the image Lee Jung-woo had shown the day before was exactly what they had wanted from their heroes. Especially about 30 years ago, when most of the audience were young fans full of dreams, it was the attitude during the hearing that ‘Big Mac’ Mark McGwire, who had fallen from hero to coward, had failed to show.

The confident and ‘American’ way that ‘Korean’ Lee Jung-woo confronted the situation gave a deep impression to those who had to erase several legends due to drugs, in addition to the Athletics.

Mainly the fans of players who were active during the steroid era and were virtually blacklisted.

As they overlapped their former legend Big Mac [Mark McGwire’s nickname] with Lee Jung-woo, the Athletics fans sent gazes that were a mixture of bitterness and nostalgia.

Perhaps because of that, Oakland and the Coliseum (Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum), which were already full of gloom, became even more damp. It could have been simply due to the gentle sea breeze, but Lee Jung-woo and the Braves players knew well enough that it wasn’t just that.

The gazes were too direct.

“Why are they looking at me like that?”

“Well, did you do any interviews or anything? Saying you hate Oakland or that you’re different from Drug-Mac [a derogatory nickname for Mark McGwire due to his steroid use].”

“No, it’s not that kind of hostile look. It’s more like a very sentimental feeling?”

Lee Jung-woo, who received it head-on, only tilted his head, feeling as if he was also becoming damp. His teammates also shook their bodies at the unsettling gaze or subtly moved away from Lee Jung-woo. Lee Jung-woo also forced himself to ignore it and looked around the stadium from the dugout to the surrounding grounds. The ground was quite pleasing as it was natural grass, but the rest of the facilities were as he had heard…

‘It’s like a slum—no, it’s classic.’

As if the nickname of being the most dilapidated stadium was not a waste, the Coliseum was tremendous as he had heard. No matter how little money the team had, he wondered if they had no intention of properly repairing it. The stadium, full of traces of time, gave Lee Jung-woo a slight shock.

Even Wrigley Field, which was once grouped together with it, felt like a Major League stadium thanks to the remodeling. This place didn’t even give that feeling.

‘Seriously, other than the size, it’s about the same as the places I played in during the Asian Games?’

Lee Jung-woo chuckled, comparing it to the worst stadium he had ever experienced. They boasted the lowest number of spectators, and the problem was that the number of spectators wasn’t increasing. In Lee Jung-woo’s opinion, it was strange that spectators were coming at all. He hadn’t been to the bathroom yet, but he had heard on the plane that it was amazing, which made him think even more so.

‘If they just did a good job of packaging it, the number of spectators would increase by five thousand more.’

Lee Jung-woo, who was looking around the stands full of empty seats, suddenly felt goosebumps on the back of his neck. Quite a few people, especially those who appeared to be middle-aged or older, were still following him with their eyes.

‘Why are they all like that? Did they not like the press conference? I didn’t mention anything in particular… Did I unconsciously mention Drug-Mac? I’m sure I didn’t…’

A sticky gaze. Lee Jung-woo shuddered, feeling as if a cold energy was brushing against his back. Oakland’s astonishing murder rate suddenly came to mind.

He knew it was a biased thought, but it was still eerie.

‘Let’s refrain from performing as much as possible. It’s not like I’m going to die if I don’t play well for a few games.’

The feeling that was different from the Phillies, where curses came first, combined with the gloom that hung over the entire city of Oakland, which he had felt since getting off the plane,

Even Lee Jung-woo, no matter how brave he was, felt like he couldn’t stand it anymore and quickly disappeared from the ground.

“If only we had a lot of money…”

“How much did the Braves bring him for?”

“2.5 million dollars.”

“Then we wouldn’t have been able to do it anyway. Those damn cheapskates wouldn’t have spent 2.5 million dollars on an overseas prospect, especially an Asian one, it’s not like it’s the draft.”

“I’m jealous, clean, confident, and good at baseball. How did the Braves get a guy like that…”

“If he was on our team, he would have been the second Tejada—oh, right, that guy was on drugs too.”

Thus, with one side feeling longing, bitterness, nostalgia, and envy, and the other side feeling a strange sense of eeriness, the interleague game between the Braves and the Athletics began.