Suho and Mark went to the manager’s office.

“Sit.”

Taylor sat sunk deep in the worn leather chair behind his desk, and he pointed his chin at the two seats in front of him.

The two of them sat down carefully, tension on their faces.

Silence settled over the room.

For a long while Taylor just turned pages of paperwork and said nothing.

Finally, in the middle of that suffocating silence, he looked up.

His eyes went past Mark and straight to Suho.

His first words weren’t praise and weren’t encouragement. They were a sharp question.

“You. Why did you bunt?”

There was a small edge of blame in his voice.

“I told you plainly. One chance, that’s all. So what’s your reason for kicking it away yourself?”

Suho had reached base on a surprise bunt.

That was a result worth as much as a single.

But Taylor was talking as though he had done something wrong.

Why?

Because America doesn’t like the bunt?

Because swinging as hard as you can for an extra-base hit does more for the team?

Because that’s the way America plays?

Mark’s shoulders jumped.

But Suho met the manager’s eyes without wavering.

“Watching the game from the dugout, I felt there was something this team was missing.”

Taylor’s eyebrow twitched.

“Missing?”

“There are plenty of hitters here overflowing with talent. But it looked to me like the team was short of the type who makes life hard on the opposing pitcher, gets on base however he can, and builds a rhythm for the offense.”

Suho laid out what he thought, calmly, and with conviction in his voice.

“So I tried to be what this team doesn’t have right now. The piece it needs most in order to win. And of course, partly to make use of what I’m good at.”

Taylor’s eyes sharpened.

“Why? Everybody here wants to be moved up a day sooner. What I’m asking is why a Low-A club would matter to you at all. And it isn’t only us. It’s the prospects at every other organization too.”

What Taylor said was, maybe, the plain cold truth of the modern minor leagues.

Hundreds of minor league clubs.

Thousands of prospects.

And the door to the majors they were all looking at was narrower than the eye of a needle.

So the minors weren’t a place where teammates worked together for a championship.

They were one huge survival audition, full of competitors fighting over a single ticket to the big leagues.

Every evaluation was made in numbers.

Exit velocity, launch angle, slugging percentage.

What scouts and front offices watched for wasn’t the old-fashioned value of a sacrifice bunt or a productive out.

All they wanted was the eye-catching data that proved one man’s talent.

Team play meant sacrificing yourself for the man beside you.

Inside this cold system, that was written off as stupidity — an act that did nothing but drive your own value down.

Is this really how America thinks?

Suho knew that much about how the country worked.

Two singles to put a runner into scoring position was one way to do it.

One double to get there right away was simply more efficient.

But if everyone does it that way… that isn’t a team.

Baseball is a team sport.

That was what Suho believed.

So for a moment he said nothing.

He just looked back at the manager, who was glaring at him.

Something’s strange here, though.

The manager’s voice was certainly full of resignation and cynicism, but his eyes weren’t.

The manager back in Korea, the one who had looked out for him, used to look at him exactly this way.

On the surface it was hard words, and underneath it a man shouting silently, please don’t let this break you.

Underneath it there was no disappointment at all, just a sharp flicker of expectation — a man who badly wanted something confirmed.

In that instant Suho understood.

This isn’t a reprimand.

It was a test.

The manager was sounding him out.

Was he one more prospect who fell in line with a selfish reality and made his compromises?

Or was he a prospect who still chased a belief the game had left behind?

Suho smiled faintly.

“Because baseball is a team sport.”

Taylor’s jaw came open, as though for a moment he had lost his words.

Suho told him what he was actually after.

“I thought that showing you I can fill in what this team is missing was the way to prove my growth potential to you and the club, sir. I wanted to show you I’m a player worth coaching here.”

Suho went on.

“I’m a minor leaguer too. Of course I look up to the majors, and I understand how it works, if not perfectly. Everyone wants to be the difference-maker. Everyone wants to be a star. But that lowers the odds of actually winning. Somebody has to do the other work without complaining.”

A star can’t shine alone.

Someone has to build the stage and turn the lights on him before he shines his brightest.

A player like him lays the groundwork.

He gets on base any way he can, and everything changes.

The number-four hitter’s ordinary base hit becomes the game-winner.

A ball hit high in the air can turn into a sacrifice fly.

A one-run solo home run comes back as the two-run or three-run shot that changes the weight of the game.

That was baseball, and baseball was a team sport.

Taylor rubbed at his jaw and frowned.

“So in a word, what you’re telling me is you’ve got no interest in being a star. That it?”

“That isn’t what I mean, sir. If — if I’m lucky enough to become a major leaguer one day, then yes, I want to be a star. Only, I don’t want to stand out on my own. And I think everything has its stages.”

“Stages. What exactly is that supposed to mean?”

“Even if my luck holds and I make the majors before long, I can’t walk in and bat wherever I want in the order. For a pitcher it would be the same as walking in as the number one starter.”

“And?”

“I only want to be the player the team needs most. Instead of trying to become a star all at once, I want to get into one more game. And if I grow that way and put experience together, someday I might end up the difference-maker for the team without ever having planned on it.”

“But your value may have dropped by the time that comes around. There’s a reason the rest of them dream about being superstars overnight.”

“I don’t mind that.”

“Why not? No ambition?”

“No, sir. I have ambition. But I believe that in America, a player who quietly does his job gets evaluated fairly too.”

Taylor couldn’t hold back his admiration.

It was like listening to a perfect briefing.

“All right. I’ve got your meaning. Now get out. I’ll put someone with you — go over to the housing with him.”

Mark asked quickly.

“Wh— what about me? You’re not asking me anything?”

“You hit a home run, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir!”

“So what’s there to ask?”

A home run.

That meant he had produced the best result modern baseball asks for.

Mark left the office alongside Suho.

The heavy door closed, and silence came back into the room.

Alone now, Taylor let the scowl fall away from his face, took off the cap he’d pulled down low, and set it on the desk.

“Ha…”

A breath came out of him, and even he couldn’t tell whether it was a laugh or admiration.

…That kid knew. All of it.

He had seen the test for what it was.

He had read exactly what was buried inside it.

Taylor hadn’t had great talent in his own playing days either.

He had simply loved baseball, and he had been the kind of player who knew how to throw his whole body into a win.

He treated every single run as precious.

He worked in rhythm with the men around him to get those runs across.

And the selfish ones from that era were another story.

They thought a man’s own numbers were everything.

Most of them never reached a higher stage. They simply disappeared.

The moment the team fell apart they blamed each other, and when their own numbers dropped they envied their teammates.

They never did grasp the simplest truth there is — that baseball isn’t a game you play alone.

And after I retired and started managing… the majors changed completely too.

The whole aim was to produce one run on individual ability alone.

It was true that as pitching improved in the modern game, hits had become harder to come by.

Either way, that isn’t the point.

Taylor’s goal had never changed.

It was to build one team.

He wanted prospects to understand that the team is greater than the individual.

But it had been twenty years now since he took this job.

There had been a time when he too was nothing but passion and will.

After watching so many of the players he taught chase their own numbers and disappear, he had decided it was hopeless.

I thought my baseball was finished too.

He had thought there was nothing left to dream about.

The times had changed.

All you got for saying the word team out loud was sneers about being a dinosaur.

Somewhere along the way he had started blaming the changed times himself, and given up on all of it.

Growth, not proof.

The team, not the individual.

They were words he had never once heard from the young men playing in the minors these days.

That’s right. The kid’s right. A star can’t shine alone.

And this wasn’t only a minor league story.

The whole history of the major leagues proved it.

A dream team of eleven superstars was one thing.

But a well-built club — a few stars at the center, every other man turning his own gear without complaint — was always stronger.

It takes men in the supporting roles who know how to sacrifice themselves for the team.

Only then is a truly strong club born.

But in American baseball now, with everyone out for himself, it was a picture you almost never saw.

Everyone’s trying to be the star, so the men who hold a star up have disappeared.

And then, in an era like that, a talent had turned up whose mind worked differently from the start.

The Korean prospect who had joined this time knew it.

He sees straight through the formula for winning.

And it was good for the player himself, too.

For Suho it was a real advantage.

Because a player who’s a different type from everyone else gets into one more game.

It was an era when everyone hunted home runs.

No — when everyone was trying for an extra-base hit at the very least.

So what happens when a completely different type turns up?

When a player closer to old-school steps into the box and tears the other side apart?

These days players protect themselves from injury and treat their own bodies as too valuable to risk.

Among players who won’t run for the team, Suho couldn’t help but stand out.

And of course… the report says he isn’t just a player with good legs.

Suho had natural strength.

The hit tool is a little short, but that’s a problem you can fix.

So what if Suho held on to his own style down the road and added the hitting on top of it?

It would be the second coming of the true five-tool player, a kind of player this era had already written off as extinct.

Taylor dug through a drawer and picked out an old baseball, dark from years of handling.

He had buried it in there, telling himself his baseball was wrong and the times had changed.

It was like an ember that had almost gone out.

“…Found him.”

For the first time in a very long time, a real smile settled at the corner of Taylor’s mouth.

“The kid who’s going to be the heart of this team.”

He wasn’t talking about the minor leagues.

The Dodgers.

Maybe the heart of all of Major League Baseball.

So how could he possibly sit still?

Taylor pulled Suho’s records from his KBO farm days.

He went through them and the tryout video carefully, start to finish.

Three hours later he was done.

He nodded a few times, opened his phone, and made a call.

Before long a familiar voice came through from the other end.

—Hello?

“Kevin. It’s me.”

—Ha, there you are. Did the presents Frank sent arrive in one piece? How do they look in person?

Kevin. There was expectation mixed into the Dodgers farm director’s voice.

Taylor snorted and picked up a sheet of paper.

“Presents, is it… They weren’t bad. Mark Williams especially. That one’s the real deal. High school MVP wasn’t a bluff. The power alone doesn’t belong at this level. Throw him into High-A or Double-A right now and he’d hit in the middle of the order.”

—I thought so. Take away the injury risk and he’s perfect.

“The rehab looks to have gone well, too. He’ll be a big help in our playoff race right now. Old man Frank’s eyes are still alive.”

—Ha, he’d love to hear that. All right. Mark aside…

Kevin’s voice turned more serious.

Now came the real business.

—How about the other one? Honestly, I can’t get a feel for whether he’s a genius or a bust.

“You’re the one who sent him here.”

—Look, if what I saw at the tryout is his ceiling, then it’s a shame and that’s the end of it. If it isn’t his ceiling, he’s a player worth developing. You know as well as I do how hard it is to read a man in one day.

Taylor was quiet for a moment.

Then he looked out the window and spoke slowly.

“I’ll just give you the conclusion. This kid’s engine is top-tier by major league standards. Meaning it isn’t a minor league engine at all, it’s a major league one. But there’s no chassis around it to control the thing. His mechanics are a mess and he’s been hitting the ball on pure talent. Put a mediocre coach’s hands on this rough stone and it’ll be ruined.”

—Good. That matches our own evaluation. So what do you want?

“The best material needs the best craftsman on it. Alex. Send him down here right now.”

Taylor’s last words left no room for argument.

—Alex, is it… If you’re asking for him, the kid must be the real deal. All right. I’ll have him there tomorrow.

End of Chapter 21