It felt like I'd been struck in the back of the head.
It was something I hadn't thought of. I was confident in my control, so since I could command even that notoriously difficult knuckleball, I thought it would be over as long as the catcher caught it.
But if you asked whether 100% control was possible in every game, the answer was 'no.'
It was just that my control was far better than others. From the start, 100% control didn't make sense.
Even when I threw right-handed, I boasted such pinpoint control, but sometimes the ball went higher than expected, or veered off to the side.
Even the pitchers considered the greatest players in history probably had that happen.
"A pitcher throwing only in the strike zone every time and not letting batters hit? That's the domain of gods. The ball could be a ball or could get away—catching that is the catcher's job. And the catcher can't catch your ball?"
Had I been carried away by the thought that I could throw a high-speed knuckleball?
"If an opposing runner were on base and advanced, that'd be giving up a run."
I hadn't thought of that. For me to even exist, there had to be a catcher who could receive my ball.
"That's why knuckleballers have dedicated catchers. There are catchers who can catch balls that might bounce anywhere."
That was when my head, gradually sinking toward the ground, snapped up.
"I suppose the Manager was thinking the same thing."
Manager Yun Seong-geun?
I turned my head and saw Manager Yun Seong-geun. And off to the side, standing at a distance, I saw Ryu Jae-yul ready to receive the ball.
"Throw it. Didn't you say Jae-yul can catch your ball easily?"
Then Coach An Chung-hui went down from the mound. Soon, Coach An Chung-hui stood beside Yun Seong-geun with his arms crossed.
Watching that scene quietly, I took a deep breath.
Ryu Jae-yul.
I raised my head and stared at Ryu Jae-yul sitting in front of me.
If Ryu Jae-yul was truly a catcher who could catch my ball.
Strength entered the fingertips of my left hand gripping the ball.
No, he had to be. Because Ryu Jae-yul was the only catcher left in the Hawks now.
My elbow extended diagonally upward. Soon, I swung my arm together with my expanding chest.
Please, catch it!
Swish—.
I put too much force into it. Damn.
Because of that, the velocity increased and the ball wobbled up and down. Everyone probably thought it would drop down from there, but it was going to curve and fall to the side.
It was the moment I thought I was done for.
Ryu Jae-yul came into my field of vision. And he was muttering something.
'Side.'
Wait, did he just say side?
And then.
Thwack—!
At the cheerful, dull sound that rang out, everyone's gaze turned to the catcher's mitt.
The ball was in Ryu Jae-yul's mitt.
It was a ball I thought would be difficult even for me to catch, yet Ryu Jae-yul rose slowly with the ball in his mitt, looking unperturbed.
Swish—.
Smack.
I caught the ball thrown by Ryu Jae-yul and asked.
"How did you catch that?"
At that, Ryu Jae-yul tilted his head slightly.
"How did I catch it?"
"That trajectory was a mess just now."
"You can get it if you calculate it."
Calculate it?
When I had trouble understanding, Ryu Jae-yul bobbed his head.
"Throw it again, I'll show you."
At those words, I quickly prepared to throw the ball. At the same time, a sudden thought occurred to me.
I had a feeling Ryu Jae-yul could catch even more difficult balls.
Then I wanted to throw a little more boldly. A truly knuckleball-esque, unpredictable ball.
I put strength into the nails pressing down on the ball. I swung my arm as if pushing down a little more with my shoulder.
The ball pushed from my fingertips moved. It was a ball that slithered as if a snake were alive. The irregularly moving ball was curving and bouncing—
Smack—!
It happened again this time. As if he had predicted where the ball would fall, the mitt was already waiting.
At the spot where the ball would drop.
It was then that everyone watched me and Ryu Jae-yul alternately with surprised faces, mouths agape.
"Release point tilt 42 degrees, wrist snap angle 17 degrees. Rotation rate one and a half spins. 121 km. Knuckle drop spirals counterclockwise from the 12 o'clock direction. Direction changes 3 times in 0.6 seconds."
What is he talking about?
What 42 degrees? Snap angle? Spiral vibration?
"My arm angle 63 degrees. Wrist rotation 27 degrees. Down, clipping the body-side borderline."
Ryu Jae-yul, who had risen slowly, spat out the last words with a dry expression.
"The formula for catching that ball."
Wait, formula? No way.
"You… you really calculated it?"
"Yeah."
"You calculated the ball?!"
"Uh-huh."
Is he crazy? He calculated the ball? What kind of nonsense is that?
"Hey, say it again! What was the formula? No, how do you calculate it?!"
"It's simple. It's easy if you formulate it. First, motion analysis, trajectory calculation, airflow modeling,"
"..."
When did I give up on math? Was it in 3rd grade elementary school?
"Reynolds number, Magnus effect, Monte Carlo simulation, Euler-Lagrange method, then calculate using Navier-Stokes."
No, a baseball player being good at math?! If he could calculate this in that brief instant, he should be a mathematician, why baseball…!
"Hehe."
Manager Yun Seong-geun laughed.
"I told you, they're really interesting guys."
Then Coach An Chung-hui, who was beside him, nodded.
"From today, Jae-yul, catch when Gang-u throws."
Ryu Jae-yul nodded silently.
"No! Wait. Coach, Manager. Did you hear what Ryu Jae-yul said? That formula…!"
At my words asking as if it made no sense, Coach An Chung-hui laughed heartily.
"Haha, understandable. Jae-yul is a genius."
"...What? A genius?"
"A math genius."
A math genius?
And the story I heard was astonishing.
Ryu Jae-yul was a math genius. They said he solved calculus at age 5. I don't even really know what calculus is.
In elementary school, he even won awards at the International Mathematical Olympiad, and because of that, America tried to take him too.
Then on the day before he was to enter middle school, he happened to watch a baseball broadcast on TV and changed his path to become a baseball player.
Does that even make sense?!
A math genius falling for a baseball game he happened to watch and wanting to become a baseball player?! Not even a novel would be more dramatic than this.
But that wasn't the end. Unlike his innate mathematical mind, he had no athletic sense, so he chose to be a catcher, which was what he was somewhat good at.
Perhaps because he calculated nonstop in his head, he was excellent at reading the game and pinpointed weaknesses just by looking at batters' movements. That was also the reason a catcher with a weak shoulder had made it into the ER Hawks.
"...So..."
Looking at me in mental breakdown, Manager Yun Seong-geun laughed again, hehe.
"They'll make a very interesting battery."
Coach An Chung-hui quietly stood beside Manager Yun Seong-geun.
"Did you call them here after already calculating everything?"
At Coach An Chung-hui's words, Manager Yun Seong-geun smiled as if he didn't know anything.
"What do you mean."
"What do you mean what. Ryu Jae-yul and Chae Gang-u. You personally picked them and brought them here, didn't you?"
"Hehe, I suppose I did."
Chae Gang-u. Ryu Jae-yul. Both were players with no prospects in the pros. One was practically finished as a player due to a shoulder injury, and the other was at the point where his baseball skills built solely on analysis and calculation no longer worked, about to end his playing career.
"Manager. The front office contacted us saying they'll dismiss you if we don't escape last place this time."
Coach An Chung-hui's expression was grave.
"In this urgent situation, we need players who can be used immediately—no matter how much potential they have, how long would it take to develop them…!"
"That's your job."
Manager Yun Seong-geun tapped Coach An Chung-hui's shoulder, thwack, thwack.
"If it's you, you can get those two up to the first team in 3 months."
"To the first team in 3 months?! Maybe in a year, but what nonsense are you…!"
"Right. Would a year be enough?"
Coach An Chung-hui let out a hollow laugh.
"Ha, how can I beat you, Manager. 3 months? I'll try first."
"Good. That's the spirit, hehe."
Coach An Chung-hui turned his head to look at the back of Yun Seong-geun, who finally left with his hands clasped behind his back, looking satisfied.
Toward the two people tossing the ball in the distance—Chae Gang-u and Ryu Jae-yul.
***
A catcher catching my ball is a very good thing.
Especially for a knuckleballer like me.
I should have been grateful that he caught a ball that was difficult to catch in the first place.
But why am I so annoyed?
It was probably because Ryu Jae-yul was even more of a math-crazed bastard than I had thought.
"If it's a knuckleball, you should at least design the 'randomness' based on air density. Today's humidity is 68%, so the drag coefficient decreases. If you throw it like you are now, the ball warps before gravity even takes effect. So calculate and throw."
The words of this math-crazed bastard telling me to calculate even the humidity,
"The predicted trajectory is off by about 2 degrees. You put less force in your fingers than before, right? Pull the release point back by 2cm. Set your wrist rotation axis at a 12-degree angle to the ground."
My brain couldn't keep up to understand.
"At that angle, the velocity increases by 2 km. Then the trajectory will look like a straight line before breaking at the 1-meter point…."
"Wait!!"
I had to quickly shut Ryu Jae-yul's mouth.
I raised my palm toward Ryu Jae-yul, who was staring at me as if asking what the problem was.
"I get it, I get it. Stop…!"
"Do you really understand?"
"...Except when numbers come out. Ah, actually, I can't understand anything you're saying."
Then Ryu Jae-yul spoke with an incredulous face.
"You can't understand this? I'm not even asking you to solve zeta functions or the Navier-Stokes equation."
What? Butterfly? Toast?
I choked up. It wasn't that my brain couldn't keep up; it was something ordinary people couldn't understand from the start.
"Hey, no matter how early I gave up on math! Normal people can't understand that kind of talk."
"They understood."
"What?"
"My friends understood."
A chill ran down my spine for no reason.
"...Your friends aren't geniuses too, are they?"
"I don't know about that, but they went to Seoul National University and KAIST in high school. Ah, one went to NASA."
"Wait. They went to college in high school? Not after graduating?"
"Early graduation."
Crazy.
The guys who hung out with someone like him were obviously like that; why did I even ask.
Knowing conversation would no longer work, I turned my head away.
"Chae Gang-u."
"Ah, what now! I told you, I don't know how to calculate angles, humidity, that stuff."
"That's why."
Ryu Jae-yul's following words smacked me in the back of the head.
"I'm the only one who can catch your ball right now. Should I just not catch it?"
My body turned on its own. Toward Ryu Jae-yul.
"What?"
"Throwing a ball at high speed without spin defies the laws of physics from the start. You're throwing that kind of ball."
...Was that a compliment? Just as I was thinking that.
"It's not a compliment; only I can receive a ball that's like an unknown variable. I'm solving each and every ball like a partial differential equation."
"...Hey, sorry, but talking about it is pointless since I don't get it. Can you stop talking about that damn math?"
"That's why do as I say."
"Do as you say? What am I supposed to understand? I told you, I'm bad at math."
Ryu Jae-yul, who had been staring at me quietly, strode forward. Seeing Ryu Jae-yul walking with such grim determination, I reflexively stepped back.
"What, why?!"
Soon, Ryu Jae-yul, standing before me, asked.
"Chae Gang-u, how do you throw a knuckleball?"