Baseball: A Two-Way Player

"We must advise the team to start preparing early. For a player like this, as long as they develop normally over the next two years, adapting to professional matches will be a matter of seconds."

On the field, the game continued.

In the second half of the tenth inning, the lineup of Waseda Jitsugyo rotated to the latter half, with Sato Ken as the eighth batter and Egami Kenji as the ninth. Both were players known for their excellent defense but batting depending purely on luck.

Facing National Academy Kugayama, who were also performing well today, the two were relatively easily struck out by Kawaguchi Kiyotaka.

By the time it was Chongxin Shen Zhong's turn, the situation on the field had already become two outs, making it hard to stir up any waves — after a difficult full count struggle with Kawaguchi Kiyotaka, he was still caught by a highly deceptive outside pitch, missing the swing and being struck out in the end.

As the game entered the 11th inning, the atmosphere on the scene became even more intense — after several rounds of fighting, the lineups of both sides had rotated back to the front half.

The upcoming inning would be a real showdown.

To everyone's surprise, it was Lin Guanglai's Waseda Jitsugyo, who had been in such excellent form, that couldn't hold up first in this match:

Facing National Academy Kugayama's first batter Shigetsugu, Lin Guanglai, whose stamina fluctuated, gave away his second walk of the match — this act also lit the spark of hope in the long-dormant lineup of National Academy Kugayama, suddenly reviving their spirits.

The second batter, Izumimiyama Yuuki, advanced the first batter to second base with a sacrifice bunt; then the third batter, Matsuda Jin, was strongly struck out by Lin Guanglai.

When the fourth batter, Mukai Yuuto, was lured by Lin Guanglai into hitting a weak ground ball, the players of National Academy Kugayama lowered their heads in disappointment.

Throughout the match, their lineup was completely suppressed by Lin Guanglai alone, and Shigetsugu was the first player on their team to reach Waseda Jitsugyo's second base;

This hard-earned excellent opportunity was once again squandered by them.

But then, the most controversial ruling of the entire match appeared:

The baseball hit by Mukai Yuuto fell on the infield, and the bounce of the baseball was high, making it easy to create an overhead ball if rushed forward; therefore, Egami Kenji, the third baseman who came to catch the ball, chose to wait for a second bounce opportunity.

The baseball was safely collected into his glove and thrown towards first base, while Mukai Yuuto kept dashing desperately, diving directly towards first base in the end.

The batter's burly body kicked up a huge cloud of dust on the ground, blocking the view of the first base umpire.

After a slight hesitation, the first base umpire made his ruling:

"Safe at first!"

In an instant, the entire Shengong Second Stadium was in chaos.

The faces of the players of National Academy Kugayama lit up with great surprise, the joy of a miraculous survival filling their hearts — with two outs and players on first and third base, this was their perfect scoring opportunity.

On the Waseda Jitsugyo side, the players' emotions were extremely agitated: first baseman Hagiyama Mitsuo kept telling the umpire that he received the ball first, and it should be a force-out, ending this half-inning; yet the first base umpire didn't say much, just shook his head to indicate respecting the ruling.

While the field was in turmoil, the TV broadcast director switched to the replay of the play — the super slow-motion showed clearly that the baseball indeed first contacted the first baseman's glove before Mukai Yuuto's hand touched the first base bag.

This was undoubtedly a misjudgment — possibly the umpire's eyesight was obscured by the flying dust on site, leading to the current decision.

For the supporters of Waseda Jitsugyo watching in front of the TV, such a ruling undoubtedly broke their spirit; some hot-tempered middle-aged men even started cursing the head umpire.

"It appears that luck is on National Academy Kugayama's side." As the commentator, Sugai Masakazu had to remain neutral; he expressed understanding of the umpire's ruling, after all, umpires are human and humans inevitably make errors.

At first base, Hagiyama Mitsuo was almost brought to tears; just when he wanted to argue with the umpire a bit more, he was pulled back by Lin Guanglai, who had walked over to first base.

"Trust me, okay?"

Lin Guanglai looked blankly at the emotional Hagiyama Mitsuo, saying nothing long-winded, just uttering these few words.

Gathering his infield teammates around him, Lin Guanglai's eyes were like a sharp sword slicing across their faces one by one.

"Trust me, okay?"

He repeated those words once more.

As the infield teammates returned to their defensive positions, Lin Guanglai stood again on the pitcher's mound.

Not far from the batter's box, National Academy Kugayama's fifth batter, Kawaguchi Kiyotaka, was standing outside the box, swinging his bat repeatedly.

Lin Guanglai glanced briefly before averting his gaze.

His eyes were as cold as ice.