—Good evening. This is Alan Powell, Frank Lambert’s assistant.

Suho drew in a breath at the voice on the other end.

His heart was hammering, and he worked to keep himself steady.

“Yes, hello. This is Suho Oh.”

—You made a strong impression at the tryout today. Frank Lambert would very much like to meet with you.

Expectation crept into Suho’s voice.

“He wants to meet me?”

—Yes. I think the details are better explained in person. Would tomorrow morning work for you?

Suho answered without hesitating.

“Yes! Of course! Any time at all!”

Alan Powell laughed briefly and gave him a place and a time.

The call wasn’t long.

Suho hung up and stood there holding the phone, staring blankly at nothing.

Frank Lambert. The name alone filled his chest.

Just as Mark had said, catching that man’s eye was itself what success at this tryout meant.

“Suho. Why are you spacing out like that? Who was it? Some weird scout call?”

Mark came over looking worried and shook him by the shoulder.

Only then did Suho turn to him, grinning.

“Mark! Frank Lambert’s assistant just called! He wants to meet me!”

Suho’s face was full of the happiness of a man who had just been given the world.

Mark’s expression, though, was hardening. His eyes drifted toward the soju bottle.

“What? Frank Lambert? Hey, are you serious? Wow… that’s insane.”

Mark muttered it and filled his soju glass to the brim.

The earlier resolution to stop at one appeared to have been launched into deep space.

He raised the glass and offered Suho a toast.

“Congratulations, you jerk! You finally caught Frank Lambert’s eye… and I’m finished. Finished!”

Mark threw the soju back with a theatrical flourish.

One glass, then a second. Suho was alarmed at the rate they were emptying.

“M— Mark. What are you doing? You said one glass!”

“I don’t know! Who cares! Frank Lambert didn’t call me! Let me drink some soju and soothe my sorrows!”

Mark whined it like a man who had been wronged.

He was clearly glad Suho had done well, and clearly unable to get past the fact that nobody had called him.

He grabbed a piece of pork belly off the table, stuffed it in his mouth, and grumbled.

“Damn it, I got hits today, I hit a home run! Why doesn’t anybody call me? Frank Lambert, does that man have something wrong with his eyes?”

Suho found him endearing and a little pitiful at the same time.

Six calls from major league scouts and he was this aggrieved about not hearing from Frank Lambert.

And right then.

Bzzzzzt.

Mark’s pocket buzzed again.

He answered irritably.

“Hello? What is it! …What? Wh— who? Frank Lambert? Tomorrow? Ah, absolutely. Time is the one thing I’ve got!”

Mark hung up and broke into a grin.

“I got called too! I’m meeting Frank tomorrow too!”

And then, if you please, he carried his glass over to the next table to toast with total strangers.

“Mark. Congratulations, really.”

When Mark came back, Suho offered it sincerely.

Mark had been waiting on Frank Lambert’s call and nothing else from the start, and it was thanks to him that Suho understood how significant the man was.

Besides which — they had met only today, but Mark seemed like a genuinely good person.

Mark asked, still buzzing.

“Hey, Suho. What time are you meeting Frank tomorrow?”

“Ten in the morning.”

“Oh! I’m at nine! Hey, then let’s meet up after and talk! We might even end up on the same team. How great would that be?”

Mark thumped him on the shoulder, excited.

Suho smiled faintly at it.

Just imagining playing together in the minors filled his chest.

Nine fifty the next morning.

Suho arrived at the address Alan Powell had given him.

Unlike the shabby exteriors of the independent league parks, the facility here was clean and modern.

He was directed to a small meeting room and stepped inside.

Frank Lambert and his assistant Alan Powell were already seated.

“Hello. I’m Suho Oh.”

He was nervous, plainly, and he greeted them as calmly as he could manage.

Frank Lambert, who looked to be well past seventy, nodded with a kind smile.

His eyes seemed to see through everything, and carried deep experience and warmth at the same time.

“I’m Frank Lambert. This is my assistant, Alan Powell.”

Alan gave a light greeting.

“Hello.”

Suho exchanged a nod with him as well.

“Sit.”

Frank indicated the chair across from him.

Suho sat down carefully.

Frank looked at him quietly for a moment, then began.

“Your play yesterday was impressive. The physical testing numbers in particular were astonishing, and your focus in the box was considerable as well.”

Suho didn’t let himself be pleased too quickly.

Because the result was what mattered.

Whether this was simply a meeting to meet him.

Or a meeting about a contract. He didn’t know yet.

Frank seemed to read exactly that and went on.

“Your hitting, on the other hand, has a great many problems.”

Suho’s expression stiffened.

It was the thing he least wanted to hear and the thing he understood best.

Frank continued without any apparent concern for the reaction.

“I looked into your history. I found myself wondering why the talent you had as an amateur wasn’t visible in the KBO farm system.”

Suho couldn’t raise his head.

The problem that had tormented him for years, the pain he had never told anyone, laid bare in a sentence.

And at the same time an unaccountable relief came over him.

The hope of having met someone who saw the problem precisely for what it was.

“I tried to do everything I could in the pros, but my body wouldn’t move the way I wanted. Little by little I lost my timing, my eye, all of it in the end. But I—”

Suho lifted his head.

There was will in his eyes.

“I can’t give up baseball. Baseball is the whole of my life. I came to America thinking of it as my last chance. I want to learn what I’m missing and what I have to do to grow. There’s no amount of work I’d refuse.”

Frank held his gaze.

There was more than curiosity in it. There was the light of a deep inquiry.

Because Frank had, after all, asked him why the amateur talent hadn’t shown in the pros.

At a moment like that, most men reach for the people around them as an excuse, to come off a little better themselves.

Suho hadn’t blamed anyone at all.

He had simply made his case for how badly he wanted it.

Admirable as that was, whether he could judge himself objectively still needed settling.

So Frank put the question again.

“I’ll ask once more. Why do you think it happened?”

Suho hesitated at the repetition.

“I think the problem was that I forced myself into clothes that didn’t fit me. And that I couldn’t find the answer on my own.”

Only now did Frank smile, satisfied.

“You’re seeing it accurately. You held on for dear life with a shell over you that didn’t fit.”

He went on.

“Watching you hit yesterday made it clear. I was surprised to see you producing contact on arm strength alone. An ordinary player would have given you a weak grounder or a fly ball. You did it on pure athleticism and a savage kind of persistence in the box.”

There was real admiration in Frank’s voice.

“The other scouts saw an inefficient swing and shook their heads. I saw the primitive strength hidden inside you.”

Frank rose and came around in front of Suho. Then he took his hand.

“Open your palm.”

Suho let it open.

Alan’s jaw dropped nearly off his face.

That’s a human hand? was written all over him.

Frank looked at the palm for a long time without saying anything.

“How far gone you were over this game. How desperately you worked. It’s all right here. Proof that you never once gave up, not against the wall of talent, not when your club threw you away. A player who wants it this badly isn’t easy to find.”

Suho didn’t answer.

Frank didn’t release his hand, and looked him straight in the eye.

“I want to work with you. With the iron in this palm, I believe you could become a major leaguer.”

Frank had watched countless prospects across decades.

And he judged that Suho would be a prospect of an entirely different order in America.

Because a player with that savage, stubborn spirit was hard to find in the modern game.

As the major league system in America grew sophisticated, most players came up through structured training from a young age.

That made stable player development possible.

And at the same time it made the primal kind of hunger — the kind Suho had, staking everything on baseball for survival — very hard to find.

So the desperation you could once only see in the past remained in him, whole.

Nothing like it existed in America now.

Minor leaguers work hard too, of course. They’re professionals.

But there was a clear difference between them and Suho.

Minor leaguers were men working desperately for success.

Suho was a man who had staked everything on baseball to survive.

Which makes this boy’s pure, uncompromising persistence a greater qualification for success than any talent.

Suho’s heart, meanwhile, was pounding.

I want to work with you was as good as saying contract.

However.

“Only I can’t sign you right away.”

The smile went off Suho’s face.

The disappointment ran as deep as the expectation had risen.

Frank went on easily, unbothered.

“Which organization do you think holds the finest prospects in Major League Baseball?”

Suho read the room for a second, sensing a test.

He would have liked to name Frank’s own club.

Unfortunately he didn’t know which organization Frank Lambert belonged to.

In yesterday’s excitement he had never gotten around to looking it up.

No — the bigger truth was that Suho hadn’t cared which club it was.

Any minor league affiliate of any major league organization would have done.

He answered honestly.

“The Dodgers.”

Frank nodded and said it quietly.

“Correct. Our Dodgers.”

Suho’s eyes went wide.

Frank Lambert was a Dodgers scout.

The Dodgers, with the finest player development system and prospect farm in Major League Baseball.

“The Dodgers take only the very best prospects. However strongly I recommend you to the organization, your failure in the KBO farm system means they’ll insist on testing you separately.”

Frank pressed his palm briefly and let it go.

“And other outstanding prospects hoping to sign with the Dodgers will be at that test alongside you. You’ll have to beat them to get a minor league contract. Will you do it?”

Catching Frank Lambert’s eye wasn’t enough on its own.

Neither was a strong showing at an independent league tryout.

Baseball was a cold world in which a player, not a scout, had to prove it himself on the field.

Which meant passing on a far higher stage, where major league prospects gathered, before a real opportunity opened.

Suho looked Frank straight in the eye without hesitating.

There was a savage desperation in the look, and a burning will.

“I’ll do it. No. I’ll get it done.”

There wasn’t a tremor in the answer.

He had a chance to play baseball again.

And with it, a chance to learn mechanics that fit him, inside the best system in Major League Baseball.

All of that fortune arriving at once, like a miracle.

End of Chapter 6