The Pitcher Just Hits Home Runs Well [EN]: Chapter 70

70. Rules (1)

A pitcher must throw a ball reaching 160 km/h (approximately 99 mph) into a space of just over 0.3 square meters (about 3.2 square feet), from 18.44 meters (60 feet, 6 inches) away.

And the batter must hit that ball with a 42-inch long bat that’s 3.75 inches in diameter.

What about the fielder? They have to catch a batted ball approaching 100 miles per hour, a ball that could land anywhere on that wide field, with a leather glove that’s less than 13 inches.

“Ultimately, the division of positions in baseball is inevitable. Pitcher and batter. Infielder and outfielder. Starter and reliever. It’s not just a matter of skill, but the prioritized abilities are quite different for each position. Especially pitcher and batter, it’s no exaggeration to say they’re playing completely different sports.”

William Washington paused and pressed down on Choi Soo-won’s firm bicep.

“Of course, it’s a bit different in detail, but you can tell just by looking at this bicep. The pitcher’s pitching motion relies mainly on pushing power. Choi Soo-won’s balance between biceps and triceps isn’t ideally suited for a pitcher.”

Indeed, over the past 5 months,

Soo-won had done his best to develop a ‘batter’s body’ with Jo Gyu-hyeok, resulting in an increase of about 3kg (6.6 lbs) of muscle mass. At the time, Jo Gyu-hyeok assessed that Choi Soo-won was swinging in a way that was perfect for ruining his body, and that was true. Choi Soo-won’s current physique is the minimum required for that swing.

“Of course, I know that Choi Soo-won is no ordinary player. Besides, baseball doesn’t have weight classes, so you don’t have to build your body within a certain weight range. But the human body clearly has innate limits. Moreover, pitching and batting cannot ignore skill-based aspects, and these are closely related to the range of motion of the joints as much as the size of the muscles. Besides, baseball, by its nature, has 162 games a year. You have to play at least 140 games. For endurance, an appropriate level of body fat is naturally necessary.”

William Washington continued.

“Fortunately, the difference between pitcher and batter isn’t as extreme as the difference between a long-distance runner and a sprinter. After all, both batter and pitcher need momentary explosive power.”

The decathlon athlete is a superhuman. They run a hundred meters, long jump, high jump, throw the shot put, discus, javelin, and hammer, hurdle, and even pole vault. No hundred-meter runner can jump farther or throw farther than them, and no high jumper can run faster or throw farther than them. But they are slower than hundred-meter runners, jump lower than high jumpers, and don’t throw as far as throwing athletes. Dual pitching and hitting are similar.

“But can’t the world champion in the decathlon perform each event as well as a decent professional athlete? Besides, unlike the decathlon, which has ten events, baseball only has two: pitcher and batter.”

“Yes, of course. But doing two things at the same time is naturally worse than focusing on one. Personally, I think if Ohtani Shohei had focused solely on batting, he would have been a batter who could challenge 60 home runs.”

“Uh… um… Should I just give up pitching then?”

“Of course not! I admire Choi Soo-won’s ambitious challenge and fully support it. Hahaha. I’m just saying it’s a difficult challenge. But isn’t a great record worth it because it’s difficult? Besides, fielders also defend anyway. You can think of pitching training as a substitute for defense training. Hahahahaha. Now, Choi Soo-won, come over here quickly.”

William quickly held out a tablet.

“This is the training plan I came up with. We will supplement the current lack of strength training along with the weight gain program. And we need to adjust the pitching form a bit, especially the stride.”

“Stride?”

“Yes, with Choi Soo-won’s sense of balance and flexibility, it would be good to take a stride about 6 inches longer than now. Unconsciously, you tend to take a little more than what’s set, so if you’re going to do that anyway, let’s try taking the maximum without losing balance from the beginning and work on making the release point consistent. Oh, of course, there are many other parts to fix besides the stride.”

William’s words continued at length.

The risk of injury. And the current body balance. Lack of strength. A pitching form that has become too predictable due to an obsession with velocity. The need for deception.

Choi Soo-won and Baek Ha-min.

A month was too short for them to learn all those things. But the chemistry created by a good teacher and a good student, the best skills and great talent, and passion was so intense that the short time was insignificant.

A month passed like that.

***

-Bang!!!

“Hey, Kang Ra-on. What kind of attitude is that!”

“……”

“Aren’t you going to answer?”

“……”

“What’s with this punk?”

The atmosphere in the clubhouse was tense.

It’s obvious. Victory was always right, and defeat was always wrong.

If baseball is about winning once, losing once, and the success or failure of the season being decided in the remaining one out of three games, then what they are doing is clearly not baseball.

This season, they had a winning series only twice. They had no sweep wins, but they suffered a whopping nine sweep losses.

“Hey, hey, Kyung-joon, that’s enough. Stop it. Ra-on is just angry that he didn’t hit well today, so why are you trying to come down on him like that?”

The team’s oldest player, Lee Gyu-man, stepped in to defuse the tense atmosphere.

Lee Gyu-man’s performance this season is 0.222/0.296/0.418. wRC+ [Weighted Runs Created Plus, a comprehensive hitting statistic] 101.

Considering that he is 40 years old this year, it wasn’t a bad performance. Except that it is the second year of a 4-year, 8 billion won [approximately $6 million USD] contract. Except that his position is designated hitter.

Lee Gyu-man continued to speak to Kang Ra-on.

“And Kang Ra-on, you too, you punk. Baseball is like that, sometimes you do well and sometimes you don’t, so why are you getting angry about it? We’re professionals. Professionals who get paid to play games. Work is just work. Let’s be professional. Huh? Don’t get too stressed out about work and don’t get too heated up, let’s go relaxed. Why is there a saying like that? A batter is originally a job that fails seven out of ten times. Managing your mentality when you lose is the most important thing for a good batter.”

“Wow, Gyu-man senior. You’re a master of quotes. You’re great!”

“Great my ass. Kang Ra-on, you heard what I said, right?”

“……Yes.”

A sullen voice that was clearly reluctant.

Seo Kyung-joon, who first raised his voice towards Kang Ra-on, frowned again.

“What’s with this punk?”

“Okay, okay, let’s stop now. Let’s hurry up and wash up, clean up, and go out. Tomorrow is a day off, so let’s eat some gopchang [Korean grilled small intestines] for dinner and get some nourishment. I’ll pay today, so don’t look so grim, everyone, huh?”

“Wow, Gyu-man senior. You’re the best!”

Lee Gyu-man looked at Seo Kyung-joon, who was giving him a thumbs up, and laughed heartily.

‘Shit.’

Are those guys even sane?

They lose the game like this and they’re laughing? It’s human nature to get angry even if you just lose an electronic game at a neighborhood PC cafe. Be professional? Don’t get emotionally involved in work and don’t get too heated up?

“I’m sorry. I don’t feel well, so I’ll go in first.”

“Ah, that rude bastard?”

“Hey, Kyung-joon. That’s enough. That’s enough. Just leave him alone.”

***

End of September.

-Clang!!!

A high fly ball cleanly split the outfield.

A two-RBI hit.

“……”

Director Park frowned. They had already lost three practice games in a row, which they had been running twice a week recently.

Now that all the third graders have retired, the main force of all high schools across the country can be seen as first and second graders, and the same was true for Joongang High School.

It was still possible to manage the other positions. The catcher and shortstop were originally second graders, and Park Kyung-seok, who played as a right fielder, was good enough to play center field.

The problem was the pitcher.

Even if the ace, Choi Soo-won, was performing like that, the team’s second and third starters had all disappeared, and the existing first graders…

“How are Go Han-gyeol and Park Yu-joon doing? Did they transfer well? Can we use them right away when they enter school?”

“First of all, both of them successfully transferred to Wonkwang Middle School, and their pitches are quite good. Both of them may not be as good as Byung-young, but they seem to be as good as Jin-woo.”

“Hoo, it’s difficult. It’s difficult. It would have been a little easier if we had performed that well in the first half of the King of Kings match instead of the second half.”

Typically, middle school baseball players decide on their high school enrollment as early as March or April. At the latest, it’s May or June.

In the case of local schools, many students transferred to nearby middle schools where their enrollment had been decided by September, which was mandatory due to the laws regarding high school enrollment before 2015. Of course, the related laws have been revised and there is no need to do so now, but since these kinds of customs do not change easily, September is still the busiest time for middle school baseball students to transfer.

Among the players that Joongang High School brought in this time, the most important players were Go Han-gyeol from Baeksol Middle School and Park Yu-joon from Yeonho Middle School. Both of them are pitchers and talents who have been carefully recruited since a year ago to fill the ace position at Joongang High School, which will be vacant after Choi Soo-won.

Of course, it is very disappointing now. They are talents who are worth competing for the weekend league title in the long term, but if you ask whether they are pitchers who can support Choi Soo-won in the national competition next year, that is not the case.

National tournament championship.

Considering the force that Choi Soo-won has shown recently, it is by no means a dream.

If there were two more pitchers like Ahn Byung-young…

‘Ah, would that be difficult?’

***

Overtime.

And more overtime.

Benjamin Palmer’s eyes were bloodshot.

“Boss, no matter how I think about it, it’s going to be difficult. If the WBSC [World Baseball Softball Confederation] U-18 tournament was two months earlier, I don’t know, but it’s too late. International amateur contracts for this year have already been roughly estimated, and there are only seventeen teams that can jump into next year’s contract, and only six of them are in the top tier.”

“Then we can just go with one of those six.”

“You said the most important condition is dual pitching and hitting. Frankly, you all know that big market clubs are very skeptical about that right now. At best, it’s Tampa Bay, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Oakland, and Pittsburgh, but they’ve all already dropped out.”

“So. Are you going to give up? We have the second Ohtani Shohei right now. Don’t you remember what your great-grandfather said?”

“I remember. But Ohtani also proved his skills while honing himself in NPB [Nippon Professional Baseball] for several years, so he was able to hold a showcase for all teams. Even then, some clubs didn’t believe that proof.”

“Instead, there was no precedent for Ohtani, but there is a precedent for Ohtani for Choi Soo-won.”

“I’m going crazy, really. No, why is KBO’s [Korea Baseball Organization] posting system so different from NPB’s? To be honest, I just want to have him bypass the minors by playing on the KBO first team stage for just one or two years, and then use the international prospect slot money to make his major league debut right away. If that happens, Choi Soo-won himself can receive the contract money twice. Oh, wait a minute. Boss. What if we just send Choi Soo-won to Japan for about two years?”

***

“I don’t like that.”