Rookies Pecking at Each Other

Citizens Stadium

"It should be starting soon, right? Today's game!" Sendou muttered to himself as he waited in the shade.

Not long after.

"They're coming in!"

Some student's parent shouted. Both teams walked onto the field, exchanged bows, and Akagi Middle School returned to the dugout.

"Today's first game, Akagi middle school versus Nagano High School's middle school division, will begin shortly. Akagi middle school will attack first. Nagano's middle school players, take the field for defensive practice!"

The announcement officially declared the start of the game. After twenty minutes of defensive practice by both teams, the game began.

"Top of the First Inning, Akagi Middle School's offense! First batter, shortstop, Ono!"

Ono was one of Akagi's good-looking guys, with a hairstyle somewhat like Kuramochi's. His athletic ability was decent too—though "decent" was only compared to the chubby kid, bespectacled Wakaba, and the others. He was an infielder who had appeared in Wakaba's memories.

(From here on, no introductions would be given except for the chubby catcher, Shin, and the bespectacled ones with especially obvious traits.)

"An in-stadium announcement? That really sets the mood!"

Sendou found this atmosphere quite interesting.

Baseball was a sport with long intervals between every pitch. After each pitch, batters could step out of the batter's box and take a few practice swings to find their rhythm. Pitchers likewise had time to adjust, and before every inning, the defensive side had to do defensive practice and pitching practice to get a feel for things.

"Youxia!" Ono shouted, psyching himself up before stepping into the batter's box.

In middle school, during the first and second rounds of prefectural tournaments, to put it bluntly, most games were just rookies pecking at each other. The pitch speed might not even match that of an ordinary Little League pitcher.

Around 100 kilometers per hour at most—some weaker teams could not even throw 80.

What was more, many players simply tried to settle things by throwing right down the middle. Nagano was also a weak baseball prefecture. Akagi's luck was neither good nor bad. Their opponent's pitch speed happened to be the under-100-kilometers-per-hour type.

First pitch.

"Strike!"

He swung and missed. Ono had swung through a pitch that was under 100 kilometers per hour.

Second pitch.

"Ball!"

Third pitch.

"Ping!"

The bat hit the ball, but it did not travel far. Rather than flying, it was practically rolling along the grass, though it bounced with wide gaps between each landing. The opposing defense was even slower.

(In Cross Game, the sandlot baseball game Ko and his friends played after graduating middle school had balls like this rolling into the outfield, just faster.)

Ono reached base on a relatively quick ground ball through the infield.

"Second batter, second baseman, Kondo!" Kondo was also a good-looking guy, probably.

"He'll be okay, right? He looks really nervous!" Sendou snarked at someone from outside the field.

Then the second batter struck out swinging on three pitches!

"That was right down the middle! And it was so slow! My stomach hurts! Hahahaha!" Just as Sendou had expected.

"Third batter, catcher, Takeda!"

"This one looks even more nervous!"

But the third batter reached base thanks to an infield error.

"Fourth batter, pitcher, Sawamura-kun!"

One out, runners on first and second. With the fourth batter at the plate, this should have been a perfect opportunity.

"Youxia!"

"Swing!"

"Swing!"

"Damn it, I was so close!"

"..."

"Eijun, don't worry about it!" Someone on the field called out to comfort him!

"Right? Yeah!?" Sawamura immediately replied, full of spirit again!

"Hahahaha! Cough, cough... hahahaha, I'm dying—blegh!"

Someone laughed until he started coughing, then failed to catch his breath and dry-heaved. He finally recovered after holding his head with one hand for a while.

"His swing is smooth and powerful, but... hahahaha!" He immediately started laughing again.

Sendou had to admit that Sawamura's swing was the smoothest he had ever seen. Even Harada Masakatsu could not compare. It was the smoothness brought by his full-body flexibility.

His body and bat looked like a single whip, but even knowing it would turn out this way beforehand, Sendou still laughed so hard he could not straighten up.

"Fifth batter, center fielder, Omura!"

The game would not stop for something like that. After giving the next batter time to practice his swing, it continued.

"Bang!" A solid hit. The batted ball was not fast and traveled along the ground, but it rolled through the infield for a hit. Under the opposing outfielder's return throw, they ultimately scored one run.

Only the first batter and this fifth batter looked remotely like baseball boys. Even their batting was ordinary; they were the sort of hobbyists who disliked practice and just played casually.

"Sixth batter, right fielder, Aoki."

Bespectacled Aoki. After all, middle school outfield play was fairly simple.

In the end, Aoki's ball, which lacked the ability to roll, was easily handled by an infielder with the defensive skill of a newly enrolled Little League player.

Then they changed fields. The offensive players came off to change equipment, followed by defensive practice and pitching practice. (Unless something happened, this would not be described from now on.) Middle school games generally used the in-stadium announcement to call each player by name.

Though it was a match between rookies, Sawamura's pitch speed was clearly higher than that of ordinary middle schoolers. Even though he had held back his strength, it was still not easy to catch the center of the ball.

But aside from Ono and Kondo, the other three infielders were Sawamura, Wakaba, and Oyama, who often missed catches. The rest also made frequent errors. With a group of teammates who usually made people watching them break out in cold sweat, the outcome was obvious.

In the end, the first batter was handled by the infield. The second batter reached second base on an error by the third baseman.

The third batter bunted the runner to third. The opposing team had clearly seen a chance to win and was using tactics to scrape together runs.

The fourth batter was caught out by shortstop Ono. The fifth batter scored with an Infield Hit, and the sixth batter reached base after Wakaba mishandled the ball.

Amid missed catches and all sorts of bizarre errors, Sawamura allowed two runs. The inning only ended with the ninth batter.

But Sendou could no longer laugh at this point. When his own side gave up runs on defense, he would not make fun of them.

"Top of the second inning, Akagi Middle School's offense! Seventh batter, third baseman, Oyama!"

Seventh batter Oyama no longer had his earlier luck. He hit a pop-up to first and was caught out. Likewise, after one inning of offense and defense, Akagi's first-year group was clearly no longer as nervous as before.

Except for one utterly carefree guy.

After that, eighth batter, the chubby Takada, and ninth batter, first baseman Wakaba, also came away empty-handed.

This game was clearly rookies pecking at each other. Both teams consisted of amateurs who played casually, and one ridiculous scene followed another. There were even several performances where ground balls with barely any bounce rolled right between fielders' legs. Combined with a certain person's special performance, the entire game made Sendou's stomach hurt from laughing.

By the end, he could barely stand. He found a spot with few people and clutched his stomach as he laughed.

He was not the only one. Laughter came from throughout the stands. Even some of the opposing parents could barely hold it in, though they still had to force themselves to cheer for the players.

Sawamura in particular never learned. His bold, carefree swings were enough to make people incapable of straightening their backs.

The entire team batted the same way. The opposing pitcher was clearly in poor form; if they simply stood there without swinging, they would have drawn plenty of Four Balls. But aside from pitches far outside the Strike Zone that were obviously impossible to hit, they swung at everything. Sawamura, meanwhile, insisted on settling everything with pitches right down the middle, so neither side drew a single Four Balls throughout the game.

The game was very uneventful, just a normal matchup between middle school baseball hobbyists.