At last, evening came. With summer approaching, the days had grown longer, and it would not truly get dark until six or seven at night. Still, Sendou would not let them train that late.
"Alright, that's enough for today!"
The moment he finished speaking, the group collapsed onto the ground. Beside them, Sawamura lay sprawled out with the expression of someone who had already gone cold.
"Heh!" Sendou gave a very soft snort, one corner of his mouth curling upward in a somewhat wicked grin.
"In five minutes, run back! Wakaba, ride your bike and supervise them! Also, gather on the main road at five-thirty tomorrow morning. Run to school together, then keep running here until class starts. Don't slack off. Run at least ten kilometers every morning. Oh, and remember to practice your swings after you get home."
"Well then, good work today. I'll be heading back first."
"You bastard!" The second Sawamura heard that Sendou was leaving, he sprang up and shouted.
"What's wrong? I only said I'd be your coach. I never said I'd train with you! Besides, I have plenty to do. Wakaba, I'll leave the rest of today and morning practice starting tomorrow to you. Well then, sa-you-na-ra!"
With that, he left without looking back.
"Didn't Sen-chan say we weren't allowed to practice big swings?" Takada asked.
"But he never said we couldn't practice on our own. He must think our batting can't help the team right now. In other words, the ban will be lifted once we improve our batting enough to satisfy him.
So Sen-chan only meant that he wouldn't be leading our swing practice for the time being. What he just said means we have to rely on ourselves. Let's do our best! Baseball is a sport for nine people." Ono immediately replied.
"Yeah!!!"
"Huh? Yeah!!!"
That last shout came from Sawamura, whose reaction time was absurdly long. He had not listened to his teammates' conversation at all; he merely followed along because everyone else had shouted together.
"Hahahaha!" Sure enough, the group burst out laughing at him.
"Hahahaha!" Sawamura had no idea why they were laughing, but he laughed along anyway. Just like that, much of the day's exhaustion seemed to vanish.
At that moment, Sendou was genuinely considering several things.
"I'm home!"
"Welcome back, Akila! How was the first day of practice?"
"It was even worse than I imagined. The kids in my grade on my first day at Wildcat were much better than them. Still, I discovered a few things I hadn't considered before. I'm going to my room first, Grandma!"
With that, Sendou headed straight upstairs.
That night, Sendou did not turn down his childhood friend's request for help. While guiding her studies, he also thought about how to improve the Baseball Club.
To be honest, Sendou was not particularly good at explaining problems directly, but he was good at explaining ways of thinking. As long as Fumino learned those thought processes, it would be a valuable accumulation of experience. The two of them worked rather well together.
Today, they continued yesterday's practice.
"Again?"
"That's right. Your fielding is still far from good enough. The balls in a game won't be this gentle. Oh, I misspoke. If you make it through the first few rounds, the balls won't be this gentle." Halfway through, Sendou suddenly remembered the pathetic slugfest from some time ago and immediately corrected himself.
"Oh, right. I noticed that all of you have serious problems with your catching posture. Also, your gloves—don't catch the ball with your palms..."
Before they began, Sendou told them about the basic techniques he had thought of and specifically looked up for them, then they started practicing.
At first, since they were unaccustomed to it and had to think about where to catch the ball, they made mistake after mistake. But Sendou would not let them off. If their catching position was wrong, they had to do it again. The goal was to make their bodies remember, to turn their posture and catching position into instinct. To be honest, Sendou himself was not very good at doing these things either.
However, compared to the rest of this group of poor students, there were two who stood head and shoulders above the rest: Ono and Kondo, the former First and second batter combination.
After adjusting their posture, their catching ability had become quite good in just an hour. The balls Sendou hit to them were also quite fast. Of course, that was only relatively speaking.
"Ono! You bat!"
"Huh?"
"I'm going to check on that idiot. As for you and Kondo, I haven't figured out how to give you intensive training yet. Let me think it over when I get back today!"
"Oh, okay!"
"Takeda, lend me your catcher's mitt. You go catch balls too!" As he spoke, he tossed Sawamura's glove to him.
"Okay!"
Casually carrying the mitt in one hand, Sendou walked toward Sawamura, who had already stopped to rest.
"Get up, Eijun!"
"What are you doing?" Sawamura asked warily, staring at Sendou.
"Throw a few pitches so I can take a look! I'll catch!"
"Okay!" Sawamura obediently got to his feet.
"Alright, begin!"
Sawamura lifted his leg and swung his arm.
Smack!
Sendou's brows furrowed slightly.
"Idiot, I didn't tell you to play catch. Throw it at full power!"
"But—"
"But what?"
"But everyone says—"
"Oh, that. Ignore them. Just throw at full power."
This time, Sawamura's arm swing was much more complete. With the full set of methods Sendou had taught him years ago to improve his velocity, his pitches were not exceptionally fast, but they still reached around 125 to 130 kilometers per hour.
After all, Sawamura's top velocity in his second year of high school had only been 138 kilometers per hour, while his first-year velocity was around what it was now. Naturally, Sendou knew nothing about that.
Smack!
Sendou frowned again!
"Hey, I already threw at full power!" Seeing his frown, Sawamura immediately shouted, making it clear that he had listened and was not at fault.
"Was that pitch... a strike?" To Sawamura's surprise, Sendou pondered for a long time before saying that.
"How the hell would I know? You're the catcher!" Sawamura shouted. From over fifteen meters away, there was no way he could tell.
I'm weak at judging that, Sendou silently admitted.
Of course, he would not expose such an embarrassing weakness. During games, he judged the Strike Zone using the field markings and the batter's knees as reference points. There were no reference points here, so his weakness as a batter was laid bare.
Good thing he's an idiot! Sendou reassured himself again.
"Eh, forget it. Let's skip that for now. Keep pitching!" He immediately changed the subject.
"Okay!" The idiot continued pitching without the slightest suspicion.
Smack!
Smack!
Smack!
Smack!
Smack!
Five pitches in a row, all right down dead center. Yet every one of them drifted in a different direction like a Changeup.
A ball right down the middle can't drift out of the Strike Zone, can it? Probably! Maybe! Yeah! That's right! Sendou gradually convinced himself.
But it also strengthened his resolve to find a batter among his teammates in a month or two and have him participate.
I'll let him throw to his heart's content today! With that thought, Sendou called out.
"Eijun, you can keep pitching without stopping. I'll keep track of your rest time and pitch count. We'll talk about running tomorrow!" By keeping track of the time and pitch count, he meant arranging rest periods based on real game matchups and the number of pitches in each inning. After all, for a team like theirs, a pitcher's stamina was extremely important.
"Yeah!!!"
I didn't know whether middle school had an Autumn Tournament. But in Major League 2, Daigo said there were quite a few middle school games, so I'll assume there was one. Practice would continue for a while. For a team made up of complete amateurs, this period would be one of constantly discovering problems and solving them. Lastly, please recommend and bookmark this story. Thank you!
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