The Genius Hitter Who Conquered America - Chapter 100

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 100
The light jog had ended.
By the time beads of sweat dotted the players’ foreheads, Manager Harry, sporting sunglasses, issued a terse command.
“We’re starting with defensive fungo drills.”
At those words, the players rushed toward the Dugout.
Each needed to gather equipment suited to their position.
Soo-ho, Mark, and Casey were no exception.
It was an ordinary morning scene, no different from any other day.
Yet that ordinariness shattered the moment Soo-ho picked up a glove.
“…?”
Casey’s eyes, who had been about to drink water beside him, snapped wide open.
He reflexively grabbed Soo-ho’s wrist.
It wasn’t a forceful grip.
Merely an instinctive reaction born from sheer surprise.
“Hey, you grabbed the wrong glove. Check again. That one’s small.”
Casey narrowed his eyes, peering down at Soo-ho’s glove.
He was certain it was a mistake.
But Soo-ho slipped his hand into the glove with composure and grinned widely.
“Nope. This glove is right.”
“What?”
Mark’s eyes, who had been listening quietly, widened as well.
He examined the shape of the glove in Soo-ho’s hand, then opened his mouth in disbelief.
“Wait. What is that? That’s not an Outfield glove.”
He was right.
What Soo-ho wore was an infielder’s glove—specifically, one designed exclusively for a Shortstop.
Someone unfamiliar with baseball might think, “Isn’t it just the same leather glove?”
But in the Professional Baseball World, a glove was.
Each position’s glove was engineered as a scientific masterpiece to fulfill its purpose.
First, the Center Fielder’s glove.
An Outfielder must catch fly balls soaring overhead or dive to snag balls veering left and right.
That’s why the glove is large.
Usually 12.75 inches or more.
And the pocket—the space that holds the ball—is deep like a net.
This ensures that even when sprinting to snatch the ball, it won’t bounce away and stays secure in the glove.
The Shortstop’s glove, by contrast, is the opposite.
It’s small, ranging between 11.25 and 11.75 inches.
Barely the size of a palm, with a pocket as shallow as a plate.
Why?
A Shortstop’s primary duty isn’t catching—it’s throwing.
After snagging a ground ball rocketing toward you, you must extract the ball with your right hand in 0.1 seconds and throw it to First Base or Second Base.
To accomplish that, the key is reducing the time it takes to extract the ball.
What if the pocket were as deep as an outfielder’s glove?
The ball would roll around inside the glove, or it would take too long to pull out, letting the batter reach base.
Of course, in amateur baseball, people sometimes use what they call universal gloves—things with moderate size and moderate depth.
But this is the Professional Baseball World.
And at a level with the Major League within arm’s reach.
Soo-ho shrugged his shoulders.
‘Universal, in other words, means being neither one thing nor the other.’
Therefore, for Soo-ho, who aspired to become a Shortstop, this was the right glove choice.
But this was only Soo-ho’s perspective.
Mark, unaware of his inner reasoning, shook his head.
“Are you serious about this?”
“Yeah, I’m serious.”
Casey chimed in as well.
“You’re switching positions to Shortstop?”
“Yeah. I want to give it a shot.”
The two didn’t press him for details.
They were curious, but as always.
Soo-ho had reasons for everything he did.
And these two weren’t fools.
Especially not when it came to baseball.
Soo-ho, with his excellent defense, was clearly trying to take one step further in the playoffs.
They had perfectly deduced his intentions.
Of course, it would be a lie to say they weren’t worried.
Because there was only a week left until the playoffs.
If Soo-ho failed in his attempt to change positions during this time?
When he switched back to Center Fielder, his balance might be thrown off.
If that happened, he might not be able to show the form he usually displayed so well.
But what did it matter?
If he succeeded, it would be a massive breakthrough, and no one could stop him.
Especially considering those two positions—Center Fielder and Shortstop.
A player who could see both the infield and outfield commanders from his position.
Soo-ho’s value would inevitably skyrocket far beyond expectations.
* * *
Formal training began.
The players prepared the fungo bats.
“Let’s start!”
With the Coach’s powerful command, the fungo bat swung into action.
Crack!
Crack!
A crisp crack of the bat, and the white ball sliced through the infield.
The shortstops fielded the grounder with practiced ease and threw to First Base.
It was an ordinary training scene, no different from any other day.
That peace shattered when the player rotation reached its final batter.
“Oh Soo-ho. You’re up next.”
It was Manager Harry Miller’s directive.
In that instant, silence fell over the Ground.
As Soo-ho slowly walked toward the shortstop position, the gazes around him turned cold.
Especially the Desert Dogs’ starting shortstop and backup players made their displeasure blatantly obvious.
Why was their team’s permanent Center Fielder sniffing around here?
But beneath that displeasure lurked something deeper—anxiety.
Everyone knew it.
Just how insanely gifted Soo-ho’s defensive abilities were at Center Field.
The fact that someone with such exceptional defensive instincts was moving to the infield meant one thing: the competition for playing time had begun.
They folded their arms and muttered among themselves.
“Center Field and shortstop are completely different positions. Isn’t this getting a bit cocky?”
“Right? Just because things have been going well lately, he’s treating baseball like it’s easy.”
Then Manager Harry picked up a bat himself.
“Huh? Why is the Manager doing it personally?”
Crack!
A sharp, clean sound echoed across the Training Ground.
The ball shot out like a bullet, screaming through the deep shortstop hole between third and short.
“…!”
Soo-ho reacted instinctively, diving for the ball.
He stretched his glove, attempting a backhand catch, but—
Whoosh.
The ball grazed the tip of his glove mockingly and rolled into the Outfield.
Just inches away, but an unmistakable failure.
“Pfft.”
Snickers erupted from the shortstops waiting behind him.
“See? I told you it was reckless.”
“Hey rookie. That’s not a place where you run on your legs—it’s where you run on instinct.”
As their mockery continued, a second pitch came flying.
Crack!
This time it was straight at him.
But the bounce was strange.
Unpredictable, to put it bluntly.
At the last moment, the ball bounced up like a snake and struck Soo-ho’s chest.
“Ugh.”
Soo-ho grimaced as he picked up the ball, but the batter had already crossed First Base with time to spare.
The third batted ball that followed—Soo-ho fumbled for the ball inside his glove and failed to catch it.
Consecutive errors. A pathetic display.
This was naturally the moment when ridicule should have poured down.
But.
At some point, the mocking laughter began to fade.
Instead, a strange silence started to settle over the field.
The expressions of the Shortstops, whose mouths had been twisted in derision, had hardened into rigid masks.
It couldn’t have been otherwise.
During the first batted ball, they were too busy mocking Soo-ho’s mistake to notice.
But watching the second and third pitches, they finally understood.
‘Wh-what’s with the ball speed?’
‘Wait. Is that a fungo ball?’
It was a stark, unmistakable difference from what they received.
It couldn’t have been otherwise.
Manager Harry doesn’t typically put offensive-minded shortstops through rigorous defensive fungo practice.
After all, defensive expectations are already low.
If he pushed them too hard and they got injured, it would leave a hole in the batting order.
Just master the basics.
So the convention was to hit balls to catchable positions.
But the balls flying toward Soo-ho now?
They were on a different level entirely.
They had the speed and force of a Major League slugger deliberately pulling a hard-hit ball.
‘If I were standing there….’
They swallowed hard.
Forget catching it—could they have even reacted?
No. They would have just stared blankly after the ball passed.
But Soo-ho?
Though he missed it, he threw his body at that murderous line drive and reacted.
He extended his glove and blocked the irregular bounce with his body.
‘Insane….’
The mockery was transforming into awe.
It couldn’t have been otherwise.
‘He’s an Outfielder….’
Yet who could possibly see Soo-ho as an Outfielder now?
Though rusty and creaking, the unmistakable instincts of an infielder were alive and breathing within him.
Meanwhile.
Soo-ho, having missed even the third batted ball, tilted his head in puzzlement.
His expression carried a note of regret.
‘Honestly, I’ve never faced balls like these before.’
Even in actual games, I’d never encountered pitches this fast and powerful.
There was every reason for it.
Where had Soo-ho played as a Shortstop until now?
Korean High School Baseball and the KBO Minor League.
The ball accelerates as it scrapes the ground.
It should have died at that timing, but the ball picks up spin and bounces once more.
That microscopic difference was throwing off his glove work.
So what was remarkable was Manager Harry.
Soo-ho’s gaze landed on him.
‘He seems like a fungo specialist.’
Where in the world would you find a fungo specialist manager?
But now Harry looked like a craftsman who had spent his entire life hitting fungos.
He seemed to know precisely.
How to hit the ball so it acquired dirty spin.
Which course was perfect for catching a Shortstop in a reverse motion.
Each batted ball was striking Soo-ho’s weak points and gaps with surgical precision.
“Huff. Huff.”
So even though he hadn’t fielded many yet, his breath was coming in ragged gasps.
It wasn’t a lack of stamina.
Soo-ho’s endurance was top-class within the team.
Therefore, this meant he was being pressured by the Manager.
Soo-ho breathed heavily and thought.
‘If this were two years ago when my Shortstop instincts were still sharp… could I have caught these batted balls?’
The deliberation didn’t last long.
A cold answer came.
‘No.’
Of course, I wouldn’t have missed all of them, but I couldn’t have caught every single one either.
The quality of the batted balls flying at me now was at the highest level I’d ever experienced in my baseball career.
Crack!
Another ball came flying, and Soo-ho failed to field it once more.
The results that followed were dismal.
Out of ten batted balls, only two made it into his glove.
A success rate of 20%.
It was an embarrassing record for a Shortstop.
Harry stopped swinging and looked at Soo-ho.
His gaze beyond the sunglasses was questioning.
“Continue?”
No one would blame him for stopping here.
In fact, to break even, it might be better to return to the Outfield right now.
But Soo-ho lifted his head.
His eyes, wet with sweat, gleamed with fierce determination.
My purpose is growth.
If I cannot handle these hellish line drives now.
‘I won’t be able to grow before the playoffs.’
But what if I could adapt to these line drives?
‘A week from now, I’ll be a far better player than I am today.’
Soo-ho struck the inside of his glove with his fist—a sharp pop—and lowered his stance.
Actions spoke louder than words.
“Again, please. And.”
Soo-ho flashed a brilliant smile.
“Things will be different from now on.”
As always.
Surrender was never an option for Soo-ho.
And this very mindset.
Would undoubtedly elevate him to the next level as a player, he was certain of it.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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