Single Log Bridge (4)
As the All-Star break ended, the second half of the pro baseball season began. The Wolves headed to Busan for a three-game away series against the Dolphins.
Sajik Baseball Stadium.
Located in Sajik-dong, Dongnae-gu, Busan Metropolitan City, this stadium was built in preparation for the regional preliminary rounds of the 1986 Seoul Asian Games.
It is the third oldest professional baseball stadium in South Korea, following Daejeon Griffins Park and the Seoul Sports Complex Baseball Stadium.
However, due to remodeling that started in 2025 and lasted until the end of 2029, it was now famous as a clean and pleasant stadium.
Even so, the Seoul Wolves players avoided playing at this stadium the most.
Why?
Because the distance was too far.
"Ha... shit, I can't believe I'm back here again."
Cho Woo-chan muttered softly upon arriving at the stadium entrance. It was because Cho Woo-chan had followed exactly that hellish route Han Min-woo had mentioned in front of his family the previous night.
"Hey, hey. It's scary when you curse with that face, so calm down."
"If you walked in holding a knife instead of a bat, it'd be exactly like a movie."
"Even walking in with a bat is threatening enough."
His colleagues comforted the fuming Cho Woo-chan.
'It's understandable he'd curse.'
From Seoul to Busan, from Busan to Seoul, and then back to Busan again.
With Sajik Baseball Stadium right in front of him once more, such foul language was only natural, in a way.
But for Han Min-woo, who was actually facing Sajik Stadium, entirely different memories resurfaced vividly.
'I really wanted to come back.'
It was a place where a lot had happened. Remnants of countless emotions still remained.
This was where he made his first-team debut, where he was hit by a line drive, and where his shoulder was shattered.
Excitement, anticipation, pain, anxiety, fear, despair, frustration...
Perhaps it was a place akin to a bitter tie for him.
And that bitter tie was not limited to the concept of the baseball stadium.
"Isn't that Han Min-woo?"
"Min-woo? Where? Oh, Han Min-woo! Long time no see!"
"Have you been well, hyung?"
Pre-game warm-up time.
Dolphins players who spotted Han Min-woo came over and greeted him.
It wasn't a particularly strange situation. Players who were originally friends often joked around during this time.
"Hello, sunbae. Min-gi and Ji-hoon, hello too."
Han Min-woo waved to his senior, peer, and junior, and tried to continue his run.
However, that attempt was thwarted by a hand grabbing Han Min-woo.
"Hey, let's shake hands since it's been a while."
A sturdy man wearing a Dolphins uniform grabbed Han Min-woo's hand roughly.
Min Hyun-jun.
As the Dolphins' starting left fielder, he was one year Han Min-woo's senior.
Having been connected through national tournaments since their high school baseball days, he had particularly hated Han Min-woo. It was because, despite coming in as a junior, Han Min-woo received all the attention and didn't act sweetly toward his seniors.
So at one point, he used to be dragged behind the dorms every night, slapped, and hazed.
"I heard you're doing well after moving to the Wolves. Is the trauma gone now? You used to tremble with fear just stepping on the mound."
Following him, a man with a beard tapped Han Min-woo's right shoulder.
Sung Min-gi.
He was a teammate from the same draft class and played third base for the Dolphins. He was notorious for his filthy temper, a typical bully who preyed on the weak and fawned on the strong. At first, he acted gentle, but once Han Min-woo got injured, he relentlessly tormented him from behind.
His methods were incredibly childish. Things like secretly tearing his glove, or intentionally scattering baseballs in the outfield, telling all the other juniors to go inside, and making Han Min-woo pick them up all by himself.
"Hyung, why didn't you contact me even once? I was worried you'd be bullied all alone again over there."
The young-looking man next to him scoffed.
Hong Ji-hoon.
A two-year junior. If one had to categorize, he was in the same class as Yoon Jae-hyun.
He bounced between the first and second teams in the Dolphins as a middle reliever. When they were in the second-team dorm, he shared a room with Han Min-woo but treated him like he was completely invisible.
A sly fox. The type who pretends to be close when others are around, but does a complete 180 when they're not.
'Exhausting.'
There was only one reason those three approached Han Min-woo and pretended to be friendly.
To mock him as they did in the past, using laughter as a shield to prod and poke at him.
The player they secretly envied had fallen into the abyss.
To them, who were still nothing more than the weakest links in the Dolphins, there was no more appetizing prey than Han Min-woo, whom they hadn't seen in a while.
However, there was something they were overlooking.
"What are you guys doing? Why are you interrupting our kid's training?"
That was the fact that, at least in the Wolves, Han Min-woo was not an outcast.
Kang Sung-han, who had been stretching nearby, came over and glared at them. He had been watching, sensing something was off about the sight of three people surrounding one.
At that, Min Hyun-jun waved both hands and said with a smiling face.
"What interruption? It's nothing like that. We just saw him after a long time and said hello. Don't take it so sensitively."
"Bullshit. You grabbed a guy who was running and kept poking at him. Would you like it if I did the same to you? Putting your hand on a right-handed pitcher's right shoulder—have you completely lost your common sense?"
Kang Sung-han tapped Min Hyun-jun's right shoulder. With the exact same intensity and force Sung Min-gi had used just a moment ago. But with his deeply furrowed face, it felt like he was picking a fight.
Min Hyun-jun's face slowly hardened.
"What's going on? What's the matter?"
"Are you guys fighting? What about?"
Other players gathered at the commotion. In an instant, a situation similar to a bench-clearing brawl was created.
However, even with the veteran players joining in, the situation showed no signs of easily improving.
"These guys were picking a fight with Min-woo!"
"What fight? Don't exaggerate!"
"You clearly kept poking at him like this. If that's not picking a fight, what is?"
"Ma! When did we ever poke you that hard? What a funny guy!"
"Wait, wait. Let's all quiet down. So the point is whether their poking was picking a fight or not, right? For things like this, the person's own feelings are the most important. Min-woo, how was it? Did you feel bad?"
Kim Ba-rae, a veteran player for the Dolphins, asked Han Min-woo. Over forty pairs of eyes focused on Han Min-woo.
'To look down on me this much.'
Han Min-woo sighed inwardly.
The reason Kim Ba-rae stepped forward and asked Han Min-woo was clear. It was because, in his memory, Han Min-woo always had a quiet and feeble image.
Since he probably hated being the center of attention, he was trying to use Han Min-woo's own mouth to elicit an answer saying it wasn't a big deal.
Getting battered every time he came up to the first team, it was somewhat inevitable that Han Min-woo looked feeble in Kim Ba-rae's eyes.
However, Han Min-woo was neither feeble nor indecisive as Kim Ba-rae thought. The reason he hadn't asserted his opinions in the past and showed a tendency to avoid conflict was simply because he didn't want to waste emotions on people who didn't matter.
'Staying quiet at a time like this goes beyond being nice; it's just stupid.'
"They were definitely picking a fight."
Han Min-woo said clearly, though in a calm tone.
Kim Ba-rae was flustered by the unexpected answer.
"Huh...?"
"You squeezed my hand hard saying you wanted to shake, hit my right shoulder and asked if my trauma was gone, and asked if I was being bullied again—aren't these things that can't be passed off as mere pleasantries?"
Han Min-woo showed his right palm. As expected of a profession where one swings a bat hundreds of times a day, red marks remained on his hand.
Listening to those words, Pi Ki-jung's eyes flipped with rage.
"These sons of bitches...!"
"Hyung, hyung! Hold it in! Hey, grab him quick."
"Let go. These bastards want to die."
Pi Ki-jung reached out to grab Min Hyun-jun by the collar, and two or three Wolves players held him back.
With this, it became clear whose fault this incident was.
However, the Dolphins players did not apologize. No, rather, they tried to cover up their mistake by pushing the blame onto Han Min-woo.
Kim Ba-rae said.
"Weren't you the one who started talking so rudely first?"
"...?"
"Listen to you talking so rudely. What? 'Aren't these things that can't be passed off as mere pleasantries?' You little shit! Where the hell did you learn to talk like that?"
Honestly, it was a forced argument to anyone looking. Han Min-woo had just calmly explained the series of events he had suffered and expressed how he felt about it.
But none of the Dolphins players looked bewildered by Kim Ba-rae's words.
No, rather, they agreed with Kim Ba-rae and raised their voices to drive Han Min-woo into a corner.
With that, the situation blew up uncontrollably.
"Oh? Pushing? You pushed? Come here, you bastard!"
"Yeah! I pushed! What are you gonna do about it if I did?"
"Sung-jong hyung! You shouldn't do that! How long has it been since you joined the Dolphins and you're already glaring at a junior?"
"You punks, how long have you been here that you ignore your hyung and act as lackeys for a junior way younger than you?"
From the team's veteran players to the rookies who had just come in, they tangled with each other, hurling curses and getting physical.
A vicious atmosphere, as if a brawl could break out at any moment, filled Sajik Stadium.
It was the coaching staffs of both teams that stepped in in that situation.
"Everyone, stop it right now!"
"Cho Woo-chan, Kwon Jun-seo, Pi Ki-jung. Take the kids into the dugout right now. Right this instant!"
At the managers' shouts, the players returned to their respective dugouts, still fuming. Sajik Baseball Stadium, which had been flowing with a hair-trigger atmosphere, was emptied in an instant.
"Acting Manager Kim. You need to manage your kids better. Tsk tsk, this is why you're still just a chief coach. Sheesh."
Dolphins manager Kwon Il-man said to chief coach Kim Young-seung, who was a much younger junior.
Chief coach Kim Young-seung didn't back down and fired back at manager Kwon Il-man.
"I heard Busan men are rough. Manager, you must have a hard time."
The gazes of the two men leading their teams clashed in midair.
Manager Kwon Il-man, who had been staring at chief coach Kim Young-seung for a while, turned his back.
"Then let's see it in the game."
They are professional baseball players.
Pros speak with the results of the game.
The psychological warfare between the two teams was being sharply honed even before the game started.
—Hello, fans who love professional baseball. Today at Sajik Stadium, the first midweek three-game series of the second half between the Dolphins and the Wolves will take place.
—For the Dolphins, Curtis will start, and for the Wolves, Hernant will start as the starting pitcher.
—True to the first game of the second half, both teams have pulled out their ace cards.
—6th and 7th place in the league have met on a single log bridge. The ranking difference between the two teams is only one game, right? I have a feeling a very fierce game will unfold today.
As much as the atmosphere was heated before the game began, both teams played roughly from the start.
Balls flew toward the heads of players who stood close to the home plate, and tag-outs were extremely violent.
Some players even didn't hesitate to make dangerous plays, such as raising their spikes when sliding.
Eventually, before the second inning was even over, another bench-clearing brawl broke out.
"Booooooo!"
"Ma! Get out of here, you Seoul bumpkins!"
The crowd also hurled boos and threw water bottles at the Wolves players.
Sajik Baseball Stadium boiled over with intensity.