The Pitcher Just Hits Home Runs Well [EN]: Chapter 39

39. No One Is Bigger Than the Team (2)

The overwhelming victory in the first game.

The team players’ expressions were bright.

In fact, the team’s atmosphere hadn’t been bad lately. It couldn’t be. Victory always solidifies a team, and throughout the recent weekend league, Joongang High School had been on a winning streak, not losing any of their recent practice games either.

But their bright expressions today stemmed from the magnitude of their win. They had overwhelmingly won an important first game of the tournament, and, above all, they had achieved this victory through their own efforts.

“Coach Yang, how are Ahn Byeong-yeong and Lee Jin-woo doing?”

“They’re both incredibly motivated since it’s their last tournament.”

“Seeing Byeong-yeong’s pitches today, his power is definitely back. We just need to figure out how to control those wild throws.”

“I’m constantly working on that.”

“Yeah, but what about Jin-woo? Suwon and Byeong-yeong both changed so much after you worked with them. I’m not saying it has to be that drastic, but something…”

Yang Se-jun was momentarily taken aback.

But his confusion didn’t last long. He hadn’t done anything particularly special for Suwon or Byeong-yeong. He had simply coached them as he always did. But significant change doesn’t always require something special. Sports development isn’t built in a day or two; consistent effort often explodes into growth when it reaches a certain point. So, it wouldn’t be wrong to say they changed drastically after his guidance.

“Well, those two always had some potential, and Jin-woo…”

“I see.”

The total number of teams participating in this season’s Blue Dragon Championship is 52. Excluding the 12 seeded high schools, a team needs to win six games to win the championship. Today’s first round was a match between non-seeded high schools, meaning that from the next round, they would be facing high schools that had won in their respective regions.

It wasn’t going to be easy.

Of course, Choi Suwon was a cheat code. Hadn’t everyone seen it today? He could turn an absurd pitch into a game-winning hit. But baseball isn’t a game you play alone. No matter how great the pitcher is, you need runs to win, and no matter how great the hitter is, if the batting lineup doesn’t support him, opponents can simply avoid facing him.

Moreover, it’s a high school baseball tournament. Pitchers can never pitch a complete game, and if they throw more than a certain amount, they can’t play in the next game. In the end, the depth of the entire pitching staff, not a single absolute ace, determines victory or defeat, just like in a professional baseball league.

“Hey, Suwon, did you see that? Huh? When I hit it, the ball went soaring, and people’s faces were like, oh my.”

“Yes, Senior Gyu-hyeok. I saw it well from first base. You calmly pulled it off nicely.”

“What about my hit? How was that timely hit that slipped perfectly between the shortstop and third baseman?”

“Yujin, you just got lucky. If it had been Cheonnam High’s Noh Woo-jin, it would have been a double play and the end of the inning.”

“Hahahaha, Suwon never says empty words. Jjo Yu, you’re doing extra batting practice today. Seriously, why can’t you fix that upper and lower body separation hitting form?”

“No, but I think I hit it pretty well today…”

“Camera director! Can you show us the footage of today’s game later? Jjo Yu keeps talking nonsense.”

Laughter erupted among the kids.

Director Park knew that these kids could only laugh like that during a winning streak and that the moment that laughter stopped would be the last for the kids he had spent three years with.

Director Park glanced at the lively group and said to them, with a heart full of hope that their laughter would last even a little longer.

“Coach Yang, Coach Seo. Let’s keep researching a bit more.”

“Yes.”
“Yes!”

***

“PD [Producer-Director] Kyung-ah, this is going to be a really good piece, isn’t it? The kids’ expressions are all alive.”

“See? What did I tell you? What about Choi Suwon?”

“Well, the model is good, so the picture is pretty, but he’s a bit too relaxed for his age? It’s definitely a big tournament, but he doesn’t seem very excited. He has the face of someone who thinks he’s just naturally good. If you want the documentary to have that high school ‘let’s do our best’ feel, it might be better to reduce Choi Suwon’s screen time a bit…”

“No, we can’t do that. He’s the hottest kid right now.”

This is the problem with documentaries.

In dramas and entertainment shows, writers and PDs can steer the story in the direction they want. Even if it doesn’t work out well on set, with some editing, the story can flow in that direction and even be entertaining. Of course, the power of editing is also great in documentaries. Choi Kyung-ah, a 9-year veteran documentary PD, was confident in her editing skills and could steer the story in the direction she wanted.

But documentaries were different from dramas and entertainment shows. Documentaries are much more honest.

It’s not that documentary PDs are more ethical than drama or entertainment PDs. It’s simply a matter of where the fun of the genre comes from. There’s always some editing, of course, but if you completely twist the direction itself, the documentary becomes uninteresting. In entertainment shows and dramas, people want a fabricated fantasy and laughter that they can overlook even if it doesn’t make sense, while in documentaries, people want real emotion that exists in reality.

Youth challenging despite realistic difficulties, and the sweat and tears flowing before the wall of reality that cannot be overcome despite overwhelming genius.

This was the picture Choi Kyung-ah wanted in this documentary.

“Director Kim, how far do you think Joongang High will go?”

“Well, I don’t know. These sports are so unpredictable in a single game.”

“No, I’m not asking you to predict it exactly. I’m just asking what you think.”

“Well, if you think about it logically, wouldn’t their falling point be when Choi Suwon gets tired?”

“So, around the semi-finals?”

“Well, probably around that. They’ll play in the quarter-finals, and the semi-finals will probably be a bit tighter, so they’d need a lot of luck to go beyond that.”

Round 4 or Round 5.

“But there’s no guarantee that Suwon will get tired. Baseball is less physically demanding, and…”

“Hey! Think about it. He’s a high school student. Originally, they play one game a week. Plus, there’s a limit on the number of pitches. People say baseball is a leisure activity compared to sports like soccer or basketball, but that’s not true. Of course, one game might be easier, but those sports have at least three days of rest. This recovery is really important. Even with strength training, you don’t work the same muscles two days in a row. How many days in a row do you think baseball players have to play?”

“Okay, okay. You get so worked up whenever baseball is mentioned. But why did you resist filming this so much? It’s a perfect match for your interests.”

“Hey, camera directors all have their specialties. Filming sports is…”

“Okay, I get it. You’re always nagging.”

Looking at Choi Suwon’s attitude now, he’s too calm and confident. You don’t feel any of the passionate spirit of a youth challenging the impossible.

“Director Kim, what about this then?”

“What?”

“We could split the documentary content into two parts. Focus on the other kids for what we were originally going to do, and emphasize how great a prospect Suwon is, and that even with such a promising player, winning is still difficult in team sports. Well, Choi Suwon might be calm now, but he’ll explode with emotion when they’re finally eliminated, right?”

“Emphasize how great a prospect he is? How are you planning to do that?”

“Well… interviews? With some famous people?”

***

Just before morning training started.

A very brief moment of free time.

Ahn Byeong-yeong cautiously approached Choi Suwon and handed him a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket.

-Letter of Apology-

I, Ahn Byeong-yeong, on April 13th of this year, in the game against Cheonnam High School, instead of praising Choi Suwon for his excellent defense, said, ‘Can’t you throw properly?’ Looking back, it was a truly difficult feat to make such a play, and considering his posture was twisted, even that throw was excellent, but my big mistake was not considering that.

In particular, the problematic part of this case is…

“Rewrite it.”

“Huh?”

“Rewrite it, I said. I told you, you need to apologize, not list facts.”

“No… I mean, that’s…”

“It’s not difficult. Write honestly. Honestly.”

Ahn Byeong-yeong turned away sadly with the letter of apology.

It was a letter of apology he had spent an hour writing by hand yesterday, but it took less than a minute to be rejected. What exactly was the problem? Honestly? Was he saying he was lying?

‘Should I get some advice from Jin-woo?’

Ahn Byeong-yeong hurriedly shook his head at the thought that had come to him without his knowing.

‘Are you crazy, Ahn Byeong-yeong? Are you going to ask someone for advice about this embarrassing thing?’

Submitting a letter of apology to a junior and asking someone for advice about it? Even though he’s already submitted it four times and only passed once, and he can’t understand why he can’t pass?

It was impossible.

“No, what does ‘honestly’ even mean…”

He carefully read the letter of apology he had written again. He honestly didn’t know what the difference was between this and the ones that had passed before. He followed the six principles of journalism well, and he thoroughly reflected on his actions.

No, if there’s something wrong, just tell me specifically what to fix. Just ‘honestly.’ But he couldn’t just throw it down and quit because Choi Suwon’s one-point lessons were definitely effective.

“So, the first period today is math, right?”

He had a feeling that he wouldn’t be able to rest comfortably during class this morning either.

***

Everyone’s body is different.

The length and volume of bones and muscles, the flexibility of joints, the contractile force and recovery power of muscles, and so on. In that sense, there is a qualitatively large difference between that sea squirt [a simple marine animal, used here as a metaphor for someone unskilled] and my body. But even so, there were definitely helpful aspects. Things that I couldn’t see when checking my own pitching alone began to appear one by one as I observed with the sea squirt, a clearly wrong teaching material.

Deleting the stopping motion at the balance point after the leg lift caused the center of gravity to flow out too quickly during the stride. In addition, I had to speed up the timing of the backswing as much as the timing that was sped up by deleting the stopping motion at the balance point, but that wasn’t done properly. As a result, the release point is shaken, and that leads to poor control.

It’s really a great negative example.

-Letter of Apology-

I, Ahn Byeong-yeong, on April 13th of this year, in the game against Cheonnam High School, instead of praising Choi Suwon for his excellent defense, said, ‘Can’t you throw properly?’ At the time, I think I didn’t want to admit that there were some mistakes in my pitching. So…

“Hmm… it’s still a bit lacking. Come here for a second.”

Yes, originally, an apology starts with looking at one’s own flaws.

Well, even if it’s a sea squirt, if he keeps passing and failing, there will come a day when he feels it, right? Even if that’s not the case, I believe that at least next time, he’ll become a human who says ‘nice catch’ instead of spouting nonsense about throwing when he sees such a nice play.

Well, didn’t some famous person say something like this?

‘Education is the process of systematically changing human behavior.’

-Bang!!

“No, that’s not it. Pull it back a little more from there.”

“Like… this?”

Of course, whether the sea squirt falls into the category of humans or not is something we’ll have to see in the future.