Five in the morning, the next day.

It was still dark in front of the Quakes house.

Suho came quietly out the front door, took in a breath of morning air, and started stretching.

His day always began three hours ahead of everyone else’s.

“Hey.”

Just as Suho was about to set off, an unfamiliar voice caught him from behind.

It was Cash Meyer.

He was standing there shoving his tangled blond hair back with one hand.

“Let’s run together.”

Suho’s eyes went wide.

He had reason to be startled.

Had one dinner of pork belly warmed that blunt kid up a little?

Cash was already tightening his laces before an answer could come.

I was curious.

His data had been wrong.

And baseball is a sport of data.

An error in the analysis could turn into a fatal problem later, one that tripped him up at a higher level.

So this was not curiosity.

What exactly is different about this kid?

It was analytical work, done to correct his own error.

The two of them set off through the dawn streets of Rancho Cucamonga without a word.

An hour or so went by like that.

Cash slowed gradually and came to a stop.

It was enough time for a light warm-up.

“You’re not going in?”

“No. I’m going to run more.”

“All right. I’ll head in first.”

Cash turned his back on it without a backward glance.

Back at the house he showered and drank a glass of water in the kitchen.

There’s nothing special about him.

Having run beside him for an hour, Suho was simply ordinary.

He just… works a little harder?

But that couldn’t be the variable.

In these minor leagues, players short on ability thrashing harder to survive was an entirely ordinary thing.

That wasn’t talent. That was a man scrambling to stay alive.

So my data wasn’t wrong. He just got lucky yesterday?

Cash was on the point of settling on that conclusion.

Two more hours went by.

The front door creaked open and Suho came in unsteadily.

Cash sat on the couch and looked at him.

He wasn’t sweating now so much as soaked through, like a man who had been pulled out of water.

His legs dragged like they weighed a ton apiece.

And his breathing was rough enough that he might go down where he stood.

Suho forced a smile at Cash and went straight up to the second floor.

Those lazy blue eyes of Cash’s wavered slightly for the first time.

This kid… isn’t just working a little harder.

He was working extremely hard.

Had there ever been a player like that?

No. There hadn’t.

Because nobody in America pushed himself that stupidly.

Working the body until it’s wrecked has consequences for a man’s condition.

And for a ballplayer, condition is something you can never set aside.

Which made him more curious still.

Does brainless effort like that have something to do with it?

However kindly he tried to frame it, the answer came back no.

But Cash had it completely wrong.

And before long he would understand that what you can see isn’t all there is.

Time went by like a bullet, and it was the last week of August.

The final game of the Low-A California League regular season had been played.

The Quakes had become a completely different team from the one they were before Suho and Mark joined.

Instead of listless defeats there had been one thrilling comeback after another.

The team piled up wins at a frightening pace and locked up third place and a playoff berth.

Across that month and a bit, Suho hadn’t tried to become a finished product.

He kept at the review right to the end, and the result was remarkable.

Suho was a hitter who hit ground balls.

But his ground balls were not ordinary ones.

More than eight in ten of his hits still came on the ground.

Close to thirty-five percent of those went into the book as doubles.

To put that in perspective.

An ordinary ground-ball hitter has a hard time getting his slugging percentage past .200.

Suho’s slugging percentage was .600.

It was a number that denied the whole concept of a ground-ball hitter.

Part of it was his speed.

But the more important part was his exit velocity.

He had held himself back on the grounds that it wasn’t time to step up.

And he had already made a step up nobody could deny.

When the last game of the season was over, Taylor opened the door and came in.

“Good work, all of you. I want to see this same feeling out of you in the playoffs.”

He ran a flat look over the players and then fixed it on Suho.

“And Suho. Come see me in twenty minutes.”

Taylor left the room with that and nothing else.

The eyes in the locker room went to Suho for a moment and then scattered.

Just me? Does he have some special instruction?

The one thing he was sure of was that he hadn’t done anything wrong.

When Taylor called a man in over something he’d done wrong, it showed on his face before he opened his mouth.

You can see the anger on him a mile off at times like that, and this wasn’t that.

Suho chewed over what the manager had said.

He guessed it was a strategic instruction to do with the playoffs.

So rather than just going in, let me get some information first.

He put the question to Mark, who was packing up to head home.

“Mark. How do the minor league playoffs work?”

Mark answered while peeling off a sweat-soaked undershirt.

“Our California League is simple. Four teams out of eight meet in the division series. Best of three. Lose there and you pack your bags and go home, no time to catch your breath.”

“Best of three?”

“Right. Win it and you go straight to the league championship, and that’s best of three too. Which is another way of saying two losses and your season’s over.”

It was different from the major leagues.

The major league division series is best of five.

The championship series and the World Series are best of seven.

There were far fewer games here.

“Is there a World Series too?”

“No. The championship series is the end of it.”

“Is there anything good about winning?”

“You add a trophy, that’s about it… Obviously, if you do well in the playoffs you can sell yourself to the organization that much harder. That’s the part we have to go after.”

The sense of it was that performing in a short series and getting moved up a level was worth far more than a trophy.

Suho sorted his thoughts out on the walk to the manager’s office.

I see why he’s calling me in. He wants me to get the players motivated.

Knock, knock.

“Come in.”

Suho opened the door carefully and stepped inside.

Taylor jerked his chin at the chair in front of him.

“Come sit.”

The moment Suho was in the chair, Taylor got to the point.

“First of all, thank you.”

“Sorry?”

“This team made the playoffs because you and Mark joined it. The way you put life into the team especially — that impressed me.”

Taylor meant it.

He couldn’t remember how long it had been since he’d felt a win come out of team baseball. Something in his chest went tight.

“Thank you, sir. It’s because you gave me the chance.”

“Enough of that.”

Taylor raised a hand and stopped him there.

And no wonder.

The chance? He hadn’t given him that.

Suho had taken it for himself, and that was all.

Wasn’t that so?

All he had done was send a 20-grade hitter to the plate while half doubting it.

But from his first day with the club, Suho had read the gaps in this team accurately from the dugout.

And he had set out to fill in the part this team didn’t have.

He had introduced Suho to a heavyweight in Alex, certainly, but that was all he had done.

But in the end that was something Suho had taken for himself as well.

Which means if anything, I’m the one who owes him.

So he wanted to give him something more.

And in the middle of thinking hard about what that might be, the poison clause written into Suho’s contract came to mind.

Promotion inside a year. Fail that and he’s released…

Unlike the other prospects, Suho’s twenty-four years were a penalty, no question about it.

In this business age is king, and that’s a law that doesn’t change.

And no wonder, because the standard by which the major leagues invest in a prospect runs like this.

They spend money on future potential rather than present ability.

An older player carries more physical risk and less investment value.

And he is a consumable who has to give his place up to the young prospects coming in every year.

Suho wasn’t old enough to be treated as a consumable yet, of course.

But that doesn’t make him young the way the other prospects are young either.

On top of which, the men Suho’s age are waiting on a major league call-up in Double-A or Triple-A right now.

Next to them, no matter how a man tears it up in Low-A, he only looks like a frog in a well.

Meaning Suho is doing well, but what he’s doing now may not be enough.

Taylor rated him highly all the same.

What could age possibly matter to a kid with a stubborn streak that vicious and that much baseball intelligence?

A player this unselfish is going to be liked by everybody at a higher level too. He can’t not be.

Then Taylor’s eyes went wide.

He had it — the thing he could give Suho.

But before that, he wanted to check something.

“So how are you planning to go at these playoffs?”

“I’m planning to do my best, obviously. And I’d like to win it all.”

“Why? Here’s the truth of it. The result of these playoffs honestly doesn’t matter. Even if this team goes out of the division series in two straight. If you’re outstanding in those games it’s good for you if anything, and there’s nothing bad in it.”

Taylor went on.

“If you tear up the playoffs the organization will rate your ability highly and might move you to the next level. So it isn’t about your best. It’s about being good.”

Suho didn’t need to think about the question.

“Even if I go 0-for-4 all the way through the playoffs, I’d like it if I could play one more game and give this team a championship. If I keep on with no hits I won’t get into the games at all, obviously.”

What he meant was that he wanted to be that useful to the team.

Taylor wasn’t especially surprised.

From everything he’d seen, Suho was a player who did his best every time.

Suho went on.

“It would obviously be good for me to perform well and get moved up to the next league. Honestly, I’d be as happy as I could be. But I’ve been with this team less than two months. So right now I want one more game. One more at-bat. I believe that’s the way I grow. And to be honest with you, I think you need a type like me. And…”

Taylor was nodding along and then he was surprised.

There’s more to it?

Suho gave a short nod.

“A trophy… I’ve never once had one. Not even as an amateur. So as something to mark starting baseball here, I’d like to lift a trophy too.”

There was no lie in what Suho said.

He had worked out what the manager’s intention was in calling him in.

But he wasn’t going to spend his whole life reading a manager’s face, was he?

I want what I want, too.

And that was a trophy.

However worthless a minor league trophy might be.

And even if other players said they had no interest in a trophy.

I’m not them. I believe this can go on my record too. And they say a man who’s won before wins again. If I keep winning…

Isn’t there a thing in baseball people call a good-luck charm?

A good-luck charm being.

Someone who gets mentioned every time the team wins.

Or a person, or a thing, that people believe makes it all go right for the team.

But a championship charm has to beat a good-luck charm, doesn’t it?

Taylor clicked his tongue like he’d read the thought.

Suho had been an oddity from an American point of view from the start, and he still was.

His numbers were pretty good these days, so wasn’t this the time to be greedy on his own behalf?

And still he had no thought whatsoever of taking the shortcut.

But that was exactly why Taylor liked him all the more.

I knew it. This one has to be pushed.

Taylor spoke in a serious voice.

“A championship… the truth is I’d like it if this team won. My standing goes up and so does my paycheck. But I don’t know whether you know this. Do you think the rest of the players actually care about a championship?”

Suho shook his head.

“It didn’t look like it.”

“Right. So how do you plan to win a championship with a team like this?”

“Well…”

Suho gave him a bright smile.

“It isn’t only our Quakes players who feel that way, is it? Isn’t it the same for the players on every other minor league team?”

“Th— that’s true enough.”

“So doesn’t that put the Quakes ahead, since we’ve got at least one player who wants to win it?”

Taylor’s eyes snapped open.

He couldn’t help it.

With that innocent look on his face, Suho had just made an outrageous declaration of war.

“Don’t tell me… you mean to turn the other players around with the way you play?”

“Yes. I thought if I work hard, maybe I can change a few players’ minds.”

“That’s a hard road.”

Especially in the American baseball ecosystem as it stands now.

“That’s all right. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. If I do my best on my own, won’t somebody notice? Maybe not. But if even one man notices, I think that would be enough.”

If even one man notices.

It went straight through him.

Through Taylor, at any rate.

Taylor took pride in having had a successful season this year.

And no wonder, because he had gotten hold of one player, in Suho.

A player who put the team first.

But a teacher’s heart works a certain way.

He wanted two of them to understand what he meant rather than one, and more than two rather than two.

Which is greed, properly speaking.

But somehow, looking at Suho, it seemed all right to be greedy just this once.

So he could hardly keep on taking without giving something back, could he?

“All right. I’ll make you an offer.”

“An offer? What kind of…”

“To start with, I don’t doubt that you’ll play hard in the playoffs. So do your best. And produce a result. I’m not telling you to win a championship. If even one man is taken with the way you play and starts playing hard for the team instead of for his own numbers… I’ll write you a letter.”

“A letter? What kind of…”

“Unfortunately I ought to tell you this part first. The players who’ll be promoted when the season ends are already decided. You joined late, so your name didn’t make that list. If you tear these playoffs up a spot that doesn’t exist will open up, obviously.”

But unfortunately, can a player produce numbers just because he wants to?

In baseball, unfortunately, that isn’t easy.

However good a man’s condition is, a hitter at the peak of his feel at the plate loses to a pitcher in better condition more often than not.

Taylor lifted the corner of his mouth.

“But even if you don’t put up numbers in these playoffs, if you turn one man’s mind around, I intend to write you that letter.”

A letter? What letter?

And out of Taylor’s mouth came the goal Suho had carried before he ever joined this club.

“I’ll write you a letter of recommendation for the Arizona Fall League. If you can perform in Arizona after the season ends. You might well be starting next season in a new league.”

End of Chapter 28