John stood there a long while, staring at Suho without a thought in his head.

“What— what in the world is happening.”

Mark nodded.

He was thinking the same thing.

Suho’s swing was distinctly different from yesterday.

It was unmistakably John’s swing.

“He’s become a completely different person. The force coming off the ball is no joke.”

John agreed.

“And that swing won’t have cost him any of his eye, either.”

The astonishment lasted only a moment.

John hauled Suho off to the academy’s analysis room and its high-end system.

There he put yesterday’s swing data and the swing he’d just taken up on the screen side by side.

“This is your swing yesterday and your swing today.”

On the left of the screen was an inefficient, unstable path.

Low exit velocity, irregular launch angle.

It looked like a direct illustration of the cold verdict that he couldn’t survive in professional baseball.

“And on the right is today.”

The graph of Suho’s swing on the right side showed an entirely different picture.

Taking ground force through the legs, gathering it into the hips, connecting that force out to the arms and wrists — the mechanism was rendered to something close to perfection.

Exit velocity had improved dramatically.

Launch angle and path were consistent and efficient.

“This is an indoor cage, but going by this data your exit velocity would have been at least 99 miles an hour. And power like that means the ball carries a minimum of 426 feet outdoors.”

And carry of 426 feet.

That would clear the fence at any park in America.

Suho felt the weight of it as the change he had vaguely sensed in his body was proven in numbers.

“Coach. Thank you! You really are extraordinary.”

He meant it.

Because John had said this swing could make him a completely different person.

In a game, of course, all kinds of factors work against a hitter’s carry — the pitcher’s stuff, the wind.

But at this level he could show the Dodgers contact they’d be satisfied with, exactly as the man had said.

“Ah, it’s nothing.”

John was embarrassed by the praise.

And in truth he was having difficulty believing what was in front of his own eyes.

No. Does this make any sense?

John had believed his swing could change Suho, certainly.

So he wasn’t surprised that Suho looked good with it.

What surprised him was the sheer scale of Suho’s genius.

There are plenty of geniuses in the world.

You need only look at the majors.

Prospects arriving on the game’s highest stage and dominating it immediately is genuinely common.

And John himself had been called a genius once.

But the genius Suho had was of a different order.

Other geniuses differed in the speed at which they understood and absorbed. Suho’s absorption was a different dimension entirely — burning it into the body without understanding at all.

It was an absurd phenomenon, one that overturned every piece of baseball knowledge and experience John had accumulated across decades.

And this is without understanding…

What happens later, when Suho comprehends and installs mechanics that actually suit him?

Good grief.

John shook his head.

He couldn’t begin to imagine how high the man would climb.

Caught Frank’s eye, they said.

Suho was talent on that order, plainly.

Only — John hurriedly put the excitement away.

“Too early to be pleased. That swing isn’t dissolved into your body yet, it’s stamped onto it. So we keep repeating it for however long we’ve got left.”

And this was an academy, where you couldn’t feel pressure of any kind.

The test would be tense beyond anything comparable to here.

So however visibly better he’d gotten today, complacency was out of the question.

“Yes. I’ll do everything I can and make sure I have it perfectly!”

John flinched.

“Ah. Ah. D— don’t go doing everything you can… just work hard.”

Because Suho’s everything was a different dimension from John’s.

He’s going to kill himself doing that.

He was worried the man would injure himself right before something this important.

Twelve more days went by.

Two weeks of training that had been hell for Suho and had brought him unimaginable growth ended today.

On the last day John instructed him to do light stretching and relaxation work instead of hard practice.

Suho loosened up as told, and Mark moved alongside him.

After training, John called Suho into his office.

“You really did give it everything. But what matters in the end is whether you pass the test.”

Suho gave a short nod.

He hadn’t slacked once in nearly two weeks.

When the academy sessions ended he’d moved on to the park for additional work.

Because of it, the newly learned swing had gone past being stamped on and was becoming embodied.

Beyond simply copying the form, he had made the force and efficiency inside that swing his own.

John continued.

“The swing itself is perfect! But one problem remains.”

Suho’s eyes came up sharply, asking what it was.

John’s voice turned grave.

“Live pitching. You have no game experience at all with the new swing, do you?”

“No. That’s true.”

This was the part Suho worried about most.

In practice the swing was perfect.

How much of that force would show up in a game, he didn’t know.

He’d need to show one hundred percent of it to guarantee passing.

And that was the part Suho couldn’t promise.

John smiled slightly.

Because he had one more weapon in reserve to help him.

“Which brings me to it. Today I’m going to give you some tips.”

“Tips?”

“Yes. Weapons you can put to very good use in a live game. Just follow what I tell you and you’ll be closer to passing.”

Suho’s eyes shone, bright and round.

John explained his reasoning.

“Whose swing is that?”

“Yours, Coach.”

“Right. I made my living off that swing from the time I was a boy. So who knows its strengths best?”

“You do, obviously.”

“Yes. And how many times do you suppose I stepped into a box with it?”

There was no tension left on Suho’s face now either.

“Thousands. No — more than tens of thousands.”

“That’s it exactly. Well? Worth trusting, wouldn’t you say?”

John rolled a fist.

Suho rolled his own and put it out.

“Absolutely.”

“Good. Straight to it, then.”

John shifted in his seat.

“First. Turn the pitcher’s psychology against him. He’s going to look at your slight frame and dismiss you at the start.”

He looked Suho straight in the eye.

“If you were the pitcher, and the man stepping into the box looked easy — what would you throw?”

Suho answered without hesitating.

“A fastball. And it’s a Dodgers entry test, so overpowering someone with stuff would look good too.”

“Right. That’s it. So the only pitch you’re hunting on the first pitch of your first at-bat is the fastball. You cannot miss it.”

Suho nodded shortly.

John went on.

“Second. This applies after that first at-bat ends. The result of your first one is going to be unexpected — home run or out, it’ll carry a long way either way. So how do you think the pitcher comes at you after that?”

“He’ll try to avoid solid contact with chase pitches.”

“Correct. From the second at-bat on, the pitcher facing you is going to be nervous. They won’t be fooled by your frame anymore. So they come at you with chase pitches — and what do you do?”

“Hunt the chase pitch.”

“Yes. Read what a man’s got in his arsenal quickly, and hunt the chase pitch. But!”

He kept going.

“The guys at that test are all somebody, so you may whiff even hunting the breaking ball. Best not to get down to two strikes, but it can happen.”

“What should I do then?”

“Never shrink. Shrink your hitting zone instead.”

Suho tilted his head.

Standard practice with two strikes is to widen the zone.

Narrow it and you’ll be struck out.

But John had sound reasoning.

“You aren’t taking this test alone in the end. They aren’t going to relax because they’ve got two strikes on you. No — they’ll be more nervous. Assuming you executed that first task properly. So they’ll try to throw something even better. But they aren’t major leaguers, are they? They’re in the same position you are.”

“So a mistake pitch could come instead.”

John stuck up a thumb.

“That’s it. Good baseball IQ. Right. And if you hit a mistake pitch?”

“It has to go for extra bases.”

“Well? Decent tips, wouldn’t you say? These are things I went through myself, so you can trust them.”

Suho clenched a fist.

Then he stood and bowed repeatedly from the waist.

“Thank you. Thank you very much!”

Which was reasonable, since practical knowledge like that is data you can never obtain except through your own experience.

And John hadn’t only given him the swing.

He had handed over data gathered across an entire life.

The data John held was surely far more extensive than this.

If you asked him to tell you everything he hadn’t said, a whole night wouldn’t be enough.

But John didn’t do that.

Which made Suho more grateful, not less.

Rather than planting all sorts of assorted data in the head of a player facing a test.

Fixing precisely what needed doing and running at that goal alone produced far better results.

“Don’t thank me. Just pass the test and give me proper publicity, all right?”

“Just leave it to me!”

Suho was confident.

With the path to passing being spoon-fed to him like this.

If he still didn’t pass, he really would have to give up baseball.

And Suho’s every thought was of playing more of it.

Heaven seemed to be helping him, too.

Because he had met people this good.

The next morning. The day of the Dodgers test.

Suho woke early and got his body in order.

Two weeks of savage training had left it harder than anything comparable to before.

But in his chest a faint tension crossed with the swelling anticipation of finally standing on a stage he had only dreamed about.

Mark was waiting in the lobby.

Tension was obvious on his face too, and he made an effort to look bright.

“Suho! Condition’s perfect, right? All that’s left is showing them!”

Suho gave a small nod.

The two of them got into a car arranged in advance and headed for the test site.

The morning sunlight of LA poured down dazzlingly, and the long shadows cast by the palms added to the foreign feel of the place.

But Suho’s eyes were fixed on the destination and nothing else.

The car headed for a minor league testing complex in Thousand Oaks, a remodeled site of an old Dodgers camp.

The main gate, set with the enormous club logo, seemed to display the whole dignity of Major League Baseball.

Suho took in the other prospects who had already arrived.

Dozens of young players were loosening up or talking with coaches.

Every one of them was solidly built, and their eyes carried uncommon talent and a strong will.

Everyone here wants it as badly as I do.

It was a different dimension from an independent league tryout. A true battlefield of talent.

Suho closed his eyes and breathed deep.

Every preparation is finished.

All that was left was showing them.

End of Chapter 12