Chapter 691 – Episode 678. The God of Korean Baseball. (1)

“Is this the concept today? That’s good. Well, if it’s been applied twice, it’s time to change it, right?”

“…”

I tried to get information by scratching Lee Yong-gi, but unfortunately, no words came out of Lee Yong-gi’s mouth. Well, it didn’t matter if I kept my mouth shut. There wasn’t much expectation that information would come out anyway, and the desire to make people lose their composure by scratching the user was greater.

‘It’s a fastball.’

Two consecutive fastballs following the first pitch.

‘The first pitch was a fastball that hit low and outside…’

There are two things you can think of here. To avoid being hit by a long ball, he either threw a low fastball to the outside again, or showed the outside and stabbed it toward his body.

‘You’re saying it’s obvious. It must be inside the body or outside.’

‘… I guess so.’

‘Don’t give a damn, just hit what you see.’

‘Yes!’

Anyway, the ball he’s going to throw is a fastball. I was confident that I could pass the ball over wherever he came as long as he was in the zone, so I waited for his ball,

Perfect!

“Foul!”

The ball was hit high on the outside, and a cool foul hit came out.

‘Tsk. Did I apply too much force?’

Did you feel anxious because you were one point behind? The thought of wanting to turn things around all at once took some strength.

‘It’s time for a breaking ball, but I probably won’t throw a slider.’

Now the count is one ball, one strike. His main weapon for counting today was a slider, but since I made contact with a slider in two consecutive at-bats, there was little chance of him throwing a slider.

‘It’s two-minded.’

‘Okay.’

And the guy who chooses the two-seamer according to my thoughts. Well, it was a natural thing to say. The breaking balls he could throw were sliders and changeups. Among them, the slider was practically sealed today, and throwing a changeup at me was tantamount to suicide.

In other words, this game is a four-seam and two-seam match. It was a game that depended on how to beat these two things. Also, if the ball count was in my favor, I would throw the change-up outside the zone with the mindset that it wouldn’t matter if I got a walk, and there was a high possibility of a lucky swing, so I would have at most two or three chances left.

“Ball.”

And out of those two or three opportunities, I decided to go for the four-seamer. Because the two-seamer bends the ball toward the body, there was a possibility of a double play.

‘It’s two-seam again.’

‘Okay.’

“Strike!”

After sending out both two-seamers, the count is now two balls, two strikes.

‘Surely he won’t throw a change-up?’

I was a little worried about that because if I threw a change-up with the mindset that it wouldn’t matter if I got a walk from now on, I could get in a bit of trouble. Because Lee Yong-gi was a catcher who could do that.

‘It’s a change-up.’

‘Fuck. ‘I knew it would be like this.’

And as I feared, Lee Yong-gi chose a change-up here. Lee Yong-gi also expected that I would not want to go out with a walk.

In other words, this changeup was a ball that came outside the zone.

No matter how much you know about the changeup, it’s no different from a ball of shit, but that’s only when the changeup is in the zone. It was natural that if you came outside the zone, the probability of getting a hit increased.

‘Still, I have to aim.’

I had the option of trusting the hitter in the back and going for a walk, but the hitters in the backs were not that reliable throughout this series, so I had to deal with it here.

So I made up my mind and held the bat appropriately.

A right-handed pitcher’s change-up tends to bend slightly toward my body as a right-handed hitter.

Form a hitting zone toward the body.

And almost as soon as I finished getting ready, the pitcher threw the ball.

‘… ‘It’s coming!’

Start from the middle. That means it gets pulled in even further! Moreover, since there was no fool throwing the changeup high towards the body, the final position was low towards the body… !

I quickly bend my knees and wait for the guy’s ball. It feels like every second feels like an hour…

Lean further, keeping your elbows tightly pressed to your waist. And when it felt like the bent back and the ground were almost parallel, the bat was launched toward the ball,

Ta – Aak!

The moment I felt a vibration in my palm, I scooped up the bat.

‘The sound was good, but…’

A batted ball that floats high. Because the whereabouts of the batted ball had not yet been determined, the runners on first and second base stopped and only followed the batted ball with their eyes.

Just like everyone in this stadium, including me.

The Huashan left fielder also steps back hard to catch my ball.

And as soon as the left fielder stopped moving, Jamsil began to shake.

-Waaaaa!!!

-Ji Maeng-ho! Ji Maengho! Ji Maengho! Ji Maengho!

… In my name.

“Good!”

After responding to the fans’ cheers by clenching my fists, I ran toward the base and the fans started singing cheering songs for me.

-Jimaeng~ho~! Ji-maeng~ho~! Oh, oh oh oh~! Thunders Ji Maeng-ho! Fly it to the sky!

‘Are these guys going crazy and throwing changeups at me?’

As expected, a whip is medicine for a mad dog.

*

[This batted ball! Behind left field! Behind left field! Behind left field! The left wall! Let’s go! Ji Maeng-ho’s incredible home run! Reversal in an instant! Score 5:3! AT Thunders take the lead with Ji Maeng-ho’s three runs!]

[Hey, what on earth happened just now? I hit the ball almost like a golfer… Wow, I feel it again, but it’s incredible power.]

[According to the records just received, the launch angle is a whopping 44 degrees and the exit speed is 160 km/h. The distance was 110 m.]

[Isn’t that incredible strength? How can you scoop up that low ball and pass it over like that? It’s a bit hard to say this, but Korea is too narrow for Ji Maeng-ho, right?]

[Yes. It would be a real shame for AT fans to have to let go of a player like this. Advancement to the major leagues is almost guaranteed at the end of this season, right? Many major league scouts came to see us today.]

[That’s right. However, for AT fans, Ji Maeng-ho will likely remain in their hearts forever. Three MVPs, three championships. And this season, maybe we can add one more line to that record.]

[Oh, and Tyler, who pitched well today, is leaving the mound. Final record: 5 runs in 4 innings.]

[Honestly, Tyler’s record was not good, but you can’t blame him for that. Because Ji Maeng-ho is involved in all the goals conceded. The first run was an error, the second, and the third was a home run. Well, Ji Maeng-ho is a natural disaster.]

[In fact, the Hwasan Falcons have been avoiding the game by allowing eight walks to Ji Maeng-ho over the past three games?]

[Yes. It’s a match I’ve been avoiding for so long… This time, I got caught by Ji Maeng-ho. Just as the saying goes that you should avoid natural disasters, you may still feel regret and wonder what it would have been like if you had avoided this time as well.]

[Now there is a new pitcher on the volcano mound. The new pitcher for Hwasan is Minjun Kim, who served as the 5th starter during the regular season. In this Korean series, he pitched two scoreless innings.]

[I need to calm down this mood…]

After allowing a run, it was the Hwasan Falcons who turned the game around with Lee Yong-gi’s three-run home run, but the three-run comeback that came again in the 5th inning was enough to dampen the Hwasan’s mood.

And Ji Maeng-ho’s home run, as always, was enough to lift the team’s mood.

[Meteorological warning hits! Once again, a runner is on base with no outs! … Choi Jin-cheol’s batted ball! Fence! It hits and falls! Runners on 2nd and 3rd base!]

[This is the scary thing about AT’s batting lineup. Once it boils, it cannot be stopped.]

[And at the plate is Seongtae Yoon! … Seongtae Yoon’s batted ball! Far! Grab center field! Runner on third base goes home! Coming in! Score 6:3! AT Thunders add 1 more point!]

[Yoon Seong-tae gave a strike appropriate to the situation, right? He tapped the ball into the outfield, giving the runner just enough time to get to third base.]

[… Kim Sang-min’s hit second base! I can’t catch it! Home! Home! Home! At home! Three leaves! 7:3! AT Thunders run away further and further! … The long inning ended with Baek Kyung-ho’s double play. The score was 7:3. AT Thunders sets the tone for Game 4.]

[4 points difference. There are now 4 innings left, so it’s not a score difference that can’t be overturned. You can’t give up just yet, right?]

The game has now reached its halfway mark in the top of the 6th inning. There are 4 points to keep up with. It wasn’t such a hopeless difference, but the team’s head coach, Moon Ki-taek, was ultimately defeated.

In the end, the fact is that Ji Maeng-ho cannot be stopped no matter what.

When I first met Ji Maeng-ho in the Korean Series, he was excluded from every at-bat. However, he ultimately lost to Ji Maeng-ho’s stolen base, and was kicked out of the team without winning the public opinion of the players, fans, and president.

And a year spent as a barbarian. Moon Ki-taek spent most of his time analyzing Ji Maeng-ho, and was able to return to the baseball game as the manager of Hwasan.

And that year, I was able to meet Ji Maeng-ho again in the Korean Series.

Ji Maeng-ho, whom we met again, was with the strongest batting lineup, and Moon Ki-taek was going head-to-head with Ji Maeng-ho. He used all the tactics he had learned.

The result was a 4:0 shutout. It was Moon Ki-taek who had participated in six Korean series before, but his body was shaking because it was his first time being shut out.

But Moon Ki-taek accepted that fact. Because Moon Ki-taek knew that the team wasn’t ready yet.

And this year, as he watched AT collapse due to injuries and poor performance, he felt that it was finally time.

It’s time for him to get revenge on Ji Meng-ho, who gave him nothing but miserable memories of dismissal and shutout. Of course, it would have been better if he hadn’t come up…

Anyway, that’s why he consoled the team more and gave the players confidence so that his strategy could work. In fact, in the second game, he completely tied up Ji Maeng-ho.

However, the result is now this situation. Although he felt that with Tyler’s efforts today, he could tie up Ji Maeng-ho again according to his plan, in the end, it was also his own mistake that he did not win the player’s heart.

… Or maybe it was Ji Maeng-ho’s intimidation.

‘If only that guy, if it weren’t for that guy…’

Everything was ruined because of just one player.

If Ji Meng-ho wasn’t there, would he still be at UG?

There he was, the man who had built a new dynasty, or rather an empire, in Korean baseball. He was confident that he was praised as the best manager in Korean baseball history. He was confident that his name would be immortalized in Korean baseball history.

But the reality is here now. Dugout of a losing team.

As I started playing baseball, the grand dream I had with the sole intention of leaving my mark on Korean baseball is gradually fading away. Although he failed as a player, his dream was on the verge of success as a manager.

Now Ji Maeng-ho will go to the United States, and in the end, all that is left is himself, who will be remembered as an eternal loser.

Physical abilities that seem to surpass those of humans and striking skills that seem to have been honed for decades despite being a rookie. And even the incomprehensible ability to predict pitches.

Why did such another person appear in front of me, on the verge of the creation of a king?

He didn’t know the answer, but one thing he was sure of was that it was his mistake to think he could stop Ji Maeng-ho.

‘Maybe that guy will be forever remembered in the history of Korean baseball, just like the dream I had. … Maybe, in the history of baseball.’

In the end, all that’s left for Moon Ki-taek is to admit that he can’t win against Ji Maeng-ho.

[… This is how the game ends! The AT Thunders won 11:5, leaving them just one step away from winning their 4th straight Korean Series! See you in Daejeon.]

The series score reached 3:1, and after the game, Moon Ki-taek called Seong-hyun, who was scheduled to start Game 5.

“Hyuna.”

“Yes, director.”

“You know that Game 5 could be the last, right?”

“It’s my job to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“Yes, I guess so. So…, Throw Game 5 however you want. “Forget what I said.”

Game 5 could be the last Korean stage for Ji Maeng-ho, whose name will be immortalized in the history of Korean baseball.

Moon Ki-taek did not want his players to be remembered as dishonorable even on that stage.

“… I understand.”

And Seong-hyun, who created another immortal record in Korean baseball as a pitcher, also did not want to remain as an ugly senior who ran away until the end to the young juniors who were now entering the major league.