About an hour and twenty minutes after they boarded at the airport, the short flight ended and Suho and Mark arrived at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

Mark stretched and said:

“Ugh… even the air’s different.”

The moment they stepped outside, dry, blistering heat hit them in a wave. This was Arizona, the land of the desert.

Getting to the Arizona Fall League wasn’t an official club call-up; players traveled on their own. Which meant airfare came out of their own pockets—about a hundred and fifty dollars one way. Pocket change to a major leaguer. But to minor leaguers, especially now that the season was over and the paychecks had stopped, it was no small expense.

The two of them called an Uber without a second thought.

Destination: Glendale. The place where the Dodgers prospects taking part in the Arizona Fall League would train and play.

After about thirty minutes on the road, a facility like a giant oasis appeared out of the red desert and the cactuses.

[Camelback Ranch – Glendale]

As they passed the huge sign at the entrance, both of their jaws dropped.

“Whoa… this is insane.”

Mark pressed his face to the window and let out an exclamation.

Suho couldn’t take his eyes off it either.

Calling this place a ballpark didn’t begin to cover it. Spread across an endless field of green grass were thirteen regulation baseball fields. An artificial lake ran between them, along with well-kept walking paths and a grand clubhouse building that showed off its own kind of majesty.

Camelback Ranch was the spring training complex the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Chicago White Sox shared. Every February, the superstars of both clubs gathered there to get ready for the season. It was, in every sense, a forward base of the majors.

Suho shook his head slowly. He seemed pretty taken aback himself.

This is where we’re playing for a month?

And no wonder. They hadn’t even gone inside yet, but it was hard to expect anything here like Low-A’s cramped old locker room, its creaking bleachers, its showers that dribbled water.

Then they went in, and even though he’d known what to expect, Suho was amazed all over again.

So this is major league class.

His heart pounded at the overwhelming scale of the place. Every last thing, the condition of the grass, the netting, was top grade. The quality of the stage itself was nothing like the baseball they’d been playing until now.

Suho lifted his head and took in the wider view.

Players who’d already arrived were gathered around the grounds in twos and threes. They hadn’t been issued uniforms yet, so they were in whatever was comfortable—short-sleeved T-shirts, hoodies. No way to tell their clubs or their names.

But Suho caught it right away.

This place… really is a completely different world.

They were laughing and chatting. At a glance they could have been a bunch of young guys hanging out at a neighborhood gym. But the texture of that ease was different. It wasn’t just people with their guard down. It was the ease of the strong, radiating off absolute faith in their own ability and the pride of having fought through countless rounds of competition to get here.

And…

Suho studied the players closely.

Clothes hid their bodies, but not the condition they were in. Forearms swollen to bursting. Supple, long legs. These weren’t the half-finished rough stones he’d seen in Low-A. Every ounce of unnecessary fat had been burned off, and the muscle baseball needed had been compressed to the limit—bodies close to finished products.

And no wonder. The Arizona Fall League was where that kind of monster gathered, and nobody else.

People often called this place MLB’s official grad school for prospects. It wasn’t just somewhere you collected prospects and fed them experience. It was a stage where a player’s performance during the season got its final verification. It was also where elite players who hadn’t built a big enough sample, because of injury or a slump in their form, proved themselves one last time.

So the scouts and front-office people who came here judged by a different standard. One-dimensional numbers like how many hits you got or how many strikeouts you racked up didn’t matter. They took apart the things the stat line doesn’t show, under a microscope: how complete your swing mechanics were, your approach in the box, the quality of your contact, the spin efficiency on your pitches.

In other words, this was a place where luck and flukes didn’t work.

Sure. Even the level of the players here is different.

The core of the group was the top prospects from Double-A and Triple-A. Among them were plenty of players who’d come down for one last tempering right before a major league call-up—major leaguers in all but name. Some were trying to make the 40-man roster.

So this wasn’t a place you got into by raising your hand and saying you wanted to come. Each club was allotted a tiny number of spots, and it filled them only after long deliberation. The AFL was a closed, elite league that only chosen talents could enter.

And I’m just Low-A.

Suho swallowed dryly.

They said rank didn’t matter here, but looked at coldly, he was the bottom of this place, the weakest man in it. To those guys he might look like a kid who’d gotten lucky and slipped in.

But there was no fear in Suho’s eyes, only curiosity gleaming there.

I’ll take it.

Monsters stronger than him. Monsters who’d made it to the doorstep of the majors. Just getting to mix it up and roll around with them would evolve his baseball one more time.

About the time he finished the thought, he spotted a familiar face off in the distance. He was in street clothes too, but that cocky, unbothered posture of his was easy to pick out even at a distance.

Cash Meyer.

Cash really is… I have to admit I’m jealous.

He had his headphones on and his eyes closed, the way he always did.

Is he seriously not nervous?

Suho brought Mark along and stood behind him. Off in a world of his own, Cash hadn’t noticed the two of them there.

Suho tapped Cash’s shoulder lightly, like knocking on a door.

Only then did Cash turn around with those drowsy eyes.

“Oh?”

Mark muttered at the reaction, exasperated.

“You knew perfectly well we were coming. What’s with the ‘what are you two doing here’ face?”

Cash glanced at Mark, then turned his eyes back to Suho.

“When’d you get in?”

“Ten minutes ago, maybe? You?”

“Thirty minutes.”

Mark ground his molars at the exchange. That same attitude of ignoring him. Any other day he’d have said something, but he couldn’t today. This stage had him too tense.

Suho felt the same way. Which made him all the more curious about Cash’s reaction.

“You’re not nervous?”

“Not really. I’m going to be good anyway.”

Mark’s eyes went round.

“Wow. Obnoxious as hell.”

Still, both Suho and Mark envied Cash for it. Not getting nervous no matter what the stage was, that was a talent in itself. They knew where that talent came from, too: his ability.

Right about then, a staffer came over and started making announcements in a loud voice.

“All right, listen up! If everybody’s here, come on over. First thing, grab the uniform for your club!”

The uniforms of five clubs were folded in neat stacks on a table.

Dodgers, White Sox, Red Sox, Twins, Padres. They were the uniforms of the five teams that made up the Glendale Desert Dogs.

The ones Suho, Mark and Cash had to pick up were Los Angeles Dodgers uniforms.

That was the special part about the AFL. Here, you played in the uniform of your parent organization—in other words, a major league club.

The reason was obvious. The prospects gathered here were the future of those clubs. For the clubs it was a way to plant a sense of belonging and pride. For the players it was powerful motivation: someday, not far off, they’d wear that uniform in the big leagues. It was a kind of preview, and a privilege only the chosen ones got.

While the other players carried off their uniforms, Suho picked up the Dodgers uniform with his name on it.

The Cool Base fabric slid across his fingertips. He couldn’t easily look away from the blue Dodgers logo stitched crisply across the chest.

…It feels strange.

Suho looked down at the uniform and swallowed dryly.

It wasn’t like the Quakes uniform. The weight of it felt completely different.

It was only a set of clothes. But the enormous history this uniform stood for, and the goal every ballplayer in the world dreamed of—being a major leaguer—felt close enough to touch.

The staffer clapped his hands to snap the daydreaming players out of it.

“Okay, save the appreciation for later! Go get changed in the locker room and come back out.”

The players moved off to the locker room in a rush, all of them clearly wanting to get the uniforms on as fast as they could.

Suho reached the locker room too, and once again, even though he’d expected it, he couldn’t hide his surprise.

Whoa… this is seriously insane.

It really was a major league spring training facility. Even the size of the locker room was on another level. Each player’s space was roomy, and the soft lighting and thick carpet gave the illusion of walking into the lobby of a luxury hotel.

The moment Mark stood in front of the locker with his name on it, he started making a scene.

“Holy crap! Seriously! What is this quality?”

He yanked off his shirt in a hurry and pulled the uniform on.

Uniform number 55. A heavy number that suited a giant number-four hitter perfectly.

“Look at me! How do I look? Don’t I look like a real major leaguer?”

Mark struck poses in front of the mirror, showing off his muscles. The blue Dodgers logo was stretched tight across his broad chest.

“Looks good on you.”

Suho meant it. Probably not because it was Mark, though—it was the Dodgers uniform.

“I’m sleeping in this tonight.”

While Mark was carried away, Cash had already finished changing.

Uniform number 7. A symbol of luck, and a number favored by shortstops, the players a team is built around.

Cash stood in front of the mirror, bending the bill of his cap a little, and looked himself over. His face seemed to say: Not bad.

At least, that was how it looked to Suho.

And the fit was perfect, like he’d been wearing that uniform since the day he was born. Cash met his own eyes in the mirror and let one corner of his mouth lift. He must have been picturing himself out on the field in it, clear as day.

Then—

“What are you doing? Get changed.”

Cash gave Suho, who was standing there staring at him blankly, a light shove.

Only then did Suho come to his senses and start changing.

This feels good.

With every button he fastened, a faint tremor ran through his fingertips. He did up the last button, tucked the jersey neatly into his pants, and slowly lifted his head to face the mirror.

Uniform number 27.

The figure in the mirror was a stranger—and someone he’d dreamed of being, once, not long ago.

Heavy.

It was different from holding it in his hands. Looking at the uniform on the hanger had been a vague longing, a flutter of excitement. Now that it was on his body, that weight had turned real and was pressing down on his shoulders.

The fabric was light as a feather, but what it meant weighed a ton. To get this one logo on their chests, tens of thousands of monsters around the world staked their lives on the fight.

But Suho didn’t mind the weight. If anything, the pressure made his heart beat harder.

I’m borrowing it now. Soon I’ll make it my own skin.

Suho pulled his cap down low, and the figure in the mirror looked every bit a Dodgers player. He liked it.

That was exactly when a voice came and ruined the moment.

“What’s this? You punks are with the Dodgers?”

Suho, Mark and Cash turned toward the voice.

They couldn’t help it. That voice was dripping with contempt.

Standing there in a Dodgers uniform just like theirs was a huge white man, glaring at them with his face twisted up in a scowl.

End of Chapter 49