The Genius Hitter Who Conquered America - Chapter 68

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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 68
Ten minutes before the game began.
The air in the Dugout had warmed to a pleasant intensity.
It was different from usual.
That made sense—the AFL was a stage where wins and losses held little significance.
When only individual performance mattered, there was no real reason for the atmosphere to heat up before the game even started.
But this week was the final push toward the All-Star Game.
The Scoreboard displayed the starting lineup.
Batter #1 – Oh Soo-ho CF
It was the obvious choice.
With my recent batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage all solid, plus my speed, there was no position more suited to me than leadoff.
The Manager had consistently given me the leadoff role.
If I lacked power, he’d have used me as the ninth batter instead.
But now that I possessed both contact and power, I was undeniably a leadoff candidate.
Yet my expression remained rigid and tense.
Even as I loosened up, my gaze was fixed somewhere in the distance, lost in deep thought.
Mark approached me quietly.
“Something on your mind?”
At Mark’s question, I snapped back to attention.
Then I flashed a smile as if nothing had been wrong.
“Not really.”
Normally, that would have ended it.
But Mark snorted and shook his head.
We’d been roommates for the past few months, living in close quarters.
There were only two reasons I made that kind of expression.
Either I was scheming something.
Or baseball wasn’t going well and I was going crazy.
Since my performance was good, it couldn’t be the latter.
“It’s about the attention, isn’t it?”
He’d hit the mark.
I let out a bitter laugh and nodded.
No point hiding it anyway.
He was my closest teammate, after all.
“Yeah. I was thinking about how to draw more attention to myself.”
“Did you find the answer?”
“Not yet. It’s not a definite answer. But I’m getting closer.”
I glanced toward the First Base and Third Base Stands.
Creators with cameras and phones were already claiming the best spots.
I needed to turn their lenses toward me.
Mark stroked his chin thoughtfully and asked.
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
Mark wanted to be useful.
Unfortunately, he had no idea how to actually help.
No answer came to him.
“There is something you could help with….”
Soo-ho pondered for a moment before speaking.
In truth, the answer was already crystallizing in my mind: “hustle.”
Running like a madman, covered in dirt, while others played it safe.
It was certainly a differentiating strategy.
But unfortunately, I couldn’t be certain it would work.
‘Would that alone be enough?’
Could sheer effort really capture attention amid this flood of sensational content?
Rather than agonizing alone, I needed the counsel of a native fluent in American culture.
Soo-ho looked at Mark.
“Can I ask you just one question?”
“You can ask a hundred.”
“About the videos that get posted. The flashier the play, the better, right?”
At Soo-ho’s question, Mark’s eyes widened as if to say, “Is that even a question?”
He answered immediately.
“Of course. Absolutely. Look, we’re playing baseball right now, but those people are filming content.”
Mark gestured toward the cluster of cameras in the Stands as he continued.
“Say you work the count perfectly and walk on base. Statistically brilliant. But as a fifteen-second short-form video, would it be entertaining?”
“…No.”
“Right. It’s boring to watch. People want dopamine. You need to grab their eyes in three seconds. Crashing into the Fence to make a catch, running so hard your helmet flies off, throwing your bat—that kind of performance is what people watch.”
Mark’s logic was crystal clear.
The masses aren’t analysts.
They respond to intense visual stimuli.
A dirt-covered slide beats a clean single.
A diving catch where you throw your body around looks far better on camera than a routine groundout.
“So basically, you have to entertain the eye.”
“Exactly. There’s one performance that would absolutely work…but no.”
“Why are you leaving me hanging?”
“It’s not that. It’s just honestly impossible.”
“Tell me anyway.”
Mark furrowed his brow deeply, then exhaled a helpless sigh before forcing the words out.
“Called Shot. And the result to back it up.”
Called Shot.
In other words, a predicted home run.
The legendary performance Babe Ruth displayed in the World Series.
The most shocking and arrogant display in baseball history.
My eyes widened.
“Definitely….”
No performance in the world could wield such insane impact.
But Mark immediately waved his hands in damage control.
“Of course it’s just an example. An example. I’m absolutely not telling you to do it.”
“Why?”
“Look, think about it logically. You point at the fence with your bat. Everyone in the stands will be watching, right? The pitcher will be fired up and throw everything he’s got.”
Mark swallowed hard.
“But what if you strike out swinging or get out on a weak hit? What happens then?”
“…I’d become a laughingstock.”
“More than that. You’d be branded as an arrogant clown who doesn’t know his place, completely buried. Turned into a meme and ridiculed for the rest of your life.”
And the biggest problem was feasibility itself.
You can’t hit a home run just because you want to.
No matter how good your swing feels, the launch angle and velocity of the ball, the wind, even luck—
All of it has to align perfectly for a home run to happen.
But to announce it beforehand and then do it?
It was impossible unless you were a god.
“That’s why the losses far outweigh the gains. Failing ninety-nine times to succeed once is worse than just staying put.”
Success and you’re a hero.
Fail and you’re not even a traitor—just a stupid idiot.
By any calculation, it was a terrible gamble.
But Mark’s pessimistic explanation paradoxically ignited something in me.
‘If I fail, I’m a clown… but if I succeed, I become a god.’
High risk, high reward.
What I needed now wasn’t a safe savings account—it was one lottery ticket to flip my entire life around.
“Mark. Thanks. I know what I need to do.”
“…What?”
Mark’s face went pale.
That look in my eyes.
It wasn’t the look of someone taking notes.
It was the look of a madman who’d latched onto something—that’s it!
“Hey, hey! Wait! You’re not seriously….”
“The game’s starting. I’m heading to the batter’s box.”
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry! Please, just don’t do a predicted home run. Okay? I’m begging you! It’s really for your sake! Damn this mouth of mine!”
Mark tried to grab my sleeve while hitting his own mouth, but I was already climbing down the Dugout stairs.
Mark stomped his feet and wailed.
What had he just done?
It was like giving fish to a cat.
* * *
As I walked into the batter’s box, I smirked.
‘Calling a home run in advance is honestly ridiculous.’
Let me think about this rationally.
I’m not a home run hitter in the first place.
Sure, I’ve hit one home run, but that was purely luck.
But if I call a home run like Mark suggested, the pitcher will throw with everything they’ve got.
And then I’m supposed to hit a home run here?
‘The odds are virtually zero.’
If I tried a hundred times, I’d fail a hundred times. If I tried ten thousand times, I’d fail ten thousand times.
This wasn’t a challenge—it was suicide.
If I acted on impulse and failed, becoming a laughingstock in the process.
Forget the All-Star Game; the club staff would mark me as a lunatic and cast me aside.
Sure, success would be incredible, but I couldn’t stake my life on an impossible gamble.
But then.
‘So what if I call something else that I can actually succeed at?’
My thinking twisted in a new direction.
People only remember Babe Ruth’s called home run.
‘But the essence of a call is announcing what I’m going to do beforehand and then executing it successfully.’
So.
‘Does it have to be a home run?’
No.
As long as it was something I could absolutely succeed at, anything would do.
‘So let me make a call.’
And since that call wouldn’t come from the batter’s box….
The pitcher wound up as usual.
A 96-mile fastball exploded from his hand.
A fastball on the outside corner.
My stance shifted.
Bending my knees and laying the bat horizontally into a bunting position.
Tap.
The ball made contact with the end of the bat, not its sweet spot.
A perfectly executed safety bunt with all power completely absorbed.
The ball rolled between the pitcher and the Third Baseman.
Into that ambiguous, exquisite gap, rolling softly.
“…?!”
The pitcher’s eyes bulged wide.
A player with that high an OPS bunting?
The Third Baseman, equally caught off guard, scrambled forward a beat too late.
Dash!
I dropped the bat and exploded forward like a bullet.
With a speed rating of 80 out of 80, my legs were like lightning as I crossed First Base in an instant.
This time, I didn’t even need to slide.
The bunt was too sudden, and I was too fast.
“Safe!”
With the Referee’s call, I came to a stop at First Base.
And my warning was only just beginning.
* * *
First Base Grandstand, the prime viewing spot with the best sightline.
There stood a blonde youth wielding a camera equipped with a lens the size of a cannon.
His name was Jake.
Operator of a massive baseball channel boasting 850,000 subscribers.
Baseball Holic.
He had captured my surprise bunt and sprint perfectly through his viewfinder.
And immediately he rewound the footage, smacking his lips.
‘…Damn, he’s really fast.’
My speed was nothing short of extraordinary.
As if the footage were in fast-forward, I reached First Base the moment I made contact.
Among the thousands of prospects he’d filmed over the past five years, my speed was undoubtedly top-tier.
By baseball standards, it was a play worthy of thunderous applause.
But Jake’s expression remained unmoved.
‘Eh. Disappointing.’
He shook his head.
To be blunt, this footage wouldn’t make money.
‘Lacks star power.’
The YouTube ecosystem is brutal.
No matter how skilled you are, without the magnetism to captivate the masses, views don’t come.
And that Asian player?
Well.
‘His face is decent enough, but that’s all.’
No known story, no fanbase, and worst of all—an unknown rookie whose name barely registered.
Would people get excited just because such a player pulled off a bunt and ran fast?
‘Not a chance.’
People are always more interested in the failure of someone they know than the success of someone they don’t.
That was reality. That was fact.
‘If he were American… I could’ve used that footage.’
If a handsome white blonde displayed that kind of speed?
I’d have slapped a thumbnail calling him the next Trey Turner.
But an Asian player’s bunt single?
‘Boring.’
Jake turned his gaze toward the Batter’s Box.
‘Oh. Finally Casey?’
Casey Meyer stepped into the Batter’s Box.
Jake’s eyes gleamed.
‘That guy is different.’
A man whose mere existence became content.
To be honest, more than the Asian’s spectacular play just now.
Casey striking out on a swing and miss, removing his helmet as he ran his hand through his hair—that footage would generate five times the views.
“Let’s go, prince.”
Jake was humming to himself and about to aim the camera lens at Casey when.
“…What?”
Jake’s eyebrows twitched.
And for good reason….
Soo-ho, staring at the Catcher.
Tore off the velcro on his base-running gloves roughly with his teeth.
Then, wrapping around his wrists, he cinched them back on with tremendous force.
Left hand, then right hand.
Like a soldier heading to the battlefield lacing his boots, or a sniper chambering a decisive round.
Above all, that motion carried an unwavering resolve…
A steal was coming.

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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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