After bidding farewell to Sano, Sawamura immediately rushed off to share the good news with his teammates at Akagi.
"A practice match!"
The baseball club had only been established three days earlier, and most of its members still hadn't properly grasped how baseball worked.
Now, one by one, they stared blankly at Sawamura.
"Captain, you're not pulling our legs, are you?"
"Pulling your legs?"
Sawamura looked positively astonished.
"Why would I do that? Go and ask around! Everyone in Nagano knows that I, Sawamura Eijun, am famous for being an honest, trustworthy fellow!"
Honest?
Aotsuki Wakana stared silently at Sawamura.
The expression on her face was rather telling.
"All right, fine! Whatever!"
Unfortunately, Sawamura hadn't quite developed a thick enough skin to withstand the scrutiny of his childhood friend.
Under Wakana's unwavering gaze, he eventually began to feel a little embarrassed.
"But most of us still don't know anything about baseball," Nakagawa Shin pointed out hesitantly.
"Doesn't matter! Doesn't matter!"
Sawamura smiled and shook his head, gesturing for everyone to stop worrying.
"Baseball's the sort of sport you naturally learn by playing!"
"Of course, as the team's captain and ace pitcher, I do need you lot to help me with one thing."
His expression suddenly became serious.
"I need a catcher who can catch my pitches."
A catcher?
The others simply stared at him.
It wasn't as though they were completely ignorant about baseball. Most of them had at least some idea of what a catcher was supposed to do.
But…
Could a baseball team really play a match as long as it had a catcher?
"That's more than enough!"
Sawamura flashed a brilliant smile.
Against a weak team like Shirin Junior High, all he needed was someone capable of catching his pitches.
"Right, then! Everyone take turns putting on the catcher's gear and have a go! Whoever manages to catch my pitches gets to come along for a Chinese meal tonight!"
"Yeah!"
The moment they heard that Sawamura was offering to treat them to another meal, everyone's enthusiasm immediately skyrocketed.
Unfortunately, Wakana wasn't nearly as pleased.
"You're treating everyone again? How much money have you even got left?"
The 10,000 yen the school had provided was already long gone.
"No problem! I'll invite Sano-sensei along as well!"
Sawamura spoke with complete confidence.
"I'm sure he'll be absolutely delighted to contribute a little more funding towards our newly established baseball club!"
Meanwhile, inside the staffroom…
"Achoo!"
Sano suddenly sneezed for no apparent reason.
"Goodness! Could someone be thinking about me?"
Having just returned from meeting a young woman, Sano's plump cheeks were tinged with a faint blush.
He had a feeling that his own personal springtime might finally be approaching!
Meanwhile, back at the baseball club, the members took turns attempting to catch Sawamura's pitches.
After everyone had given it a try, only Yamaguchi Ken managed to catch them successfully.
Consequently, he naturally inherited the responsibility of wearing the team's number two jersey and serving as their starting catcher.
Just as Akagi's newly established team finally settled on its pitcher-catcher battery, news arrived from Shirin Junior High.
Apparently, Shirin's schedule was rather flexible.
The practice match was arranged for Saturday afternoon.
As for the venue, Shirin were happy either to visit Akagi or to host the match at their own school.
"We'll go! We'll go!"
Sawamura Eijun, the newly appointed captain of Akagi Junior High's baseball team, immediately declared with an expression of utmost righteousness.
"We're the ones who requested the practice match! Naturally, we should be the ones travelling over there! How could we possibly make the students from Shirin go out of their way to visit us?"
"But aren't our schools practically next door to each other…?"
Whether innocently or deliberately, Wakana pointed out the rather obvious flaw in his argument.
Sawamura's large eyes widened indignantly.
"What does distance have to do with anything? It's the sincerity that counts!"
"You're just worried because our school doesn't have a proper baseball field, aren't you?"
Wakana had clearly had enough of Sawamura's ridiculous posturing and exposed his true intentions without hesitation.
Naturally, there was no possibility that Akagi Junior High, having only just established its baseball club, would possess a dedicated baseball field.
Considering how stingy Headmaster Takada was, Sawamura even suspected that they might not get one by the time they reached their third year.
In fact, during his previous life, right up until Akagi was merged with another school, Sawamura had never once had the opportunity to use a proper baseball field at Akagi.
The only makeshift field they'd possessed had been built by the club members themselves.
"Have you never heard that good friends know when to keep their mouths shut?"
Having been thoroughly embarrassed, Sawamura glared furiously at Wakana.
"Oh, dear! Being glared at like that is giving me such a terrible headache."
Wakana pressed a hand to her forehead with an exaggerated expression of discomfort.
"At this rate, I might not be able to attend Saturday's match after all."
"My lady! What's the matter? Who's upset you? Just tell me who it was, and I'll teach them a lesson!"
Sawamura immediately performed a complete about-face.
Rolling up his sleeves and baring his arms, he adopted the stance of someone preparing to fight to the death on her behalf.
"Oh, get lost! Who are you calling 'my lady'?"
Wakana was thoroughly embarrassed by Sawamura's words.
A peculiar blush spread across her delicate cheeks.
"How good do you think our chances are?"
Before their trip to Shirin, Wakana asked Sawamura this question with genuine concern.
After all, this would be the first match in the history of Akagi Junior High's baseball team.
Naturally, Wakana desperately wanted everyone to begin their journey with a victory.
If they managed to win their opening match, everything that followed would become considerably easier.
If the team could develop into a competitive side, represent the school in official tournaments, achieve respectable results and bring honour to Akagi, then even someone as stingy as Headmaster Takada would surely have to show his appreciation.
When a school club produced outstanding results, all sorts of opportunities became possible.
Some particularly successful clubs could even attract sponsorship!
And since baseball was such a well-established sport, a successful baseball club would surely stand an even better chance of receiving additional support.
As Wakana happily imagined the wonderful future awaiting their club, Sawamura's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.
Hang on.
What did Wakana just ask?
How good are our chances of winning?
Is she having a laugh?
Japan's major baseball tournaments all followed a single-elimination format.
That meant there was a considerable difference in strength between teams eliminated in the first round and those capable of progressing to the second.
And Shirin Junior High regularly reached the third round!
Their strength should have been obvious.
Akagi, on the other hand, consisted almost entirely of complete beginners.
Frankly, avoiding an absolute thrashing would already be something worth celebrating.
And she was seriously asking about their chances of winning?
Young lady, there's a limit to how ridiculous your daydreams can be!
"Well… I suppose we've got a few chances in ten."
After studying Wakana's expression, Sawamura ultimately couldn't bring himself to tell her the brutal truth.
Instead, he offered an extremely vague answer.
A few chances in ten!
Wakana immediately felt reassured.
Having grown up alongside Sawamura, she understood his personality extremely well.
Although he frequently made outrageous boasts, his actual judgements were generally quite accurate.
If Sawamura said they had a reasonable chance of winning, then surely they really did have a chance!
The following day, when Sawamura met his teammates again, he noticed something rather peculiar.
Every single one of them was standing tall, their chests puffed out and their heads held high.
They looked positively overflowing with confidence.
It was almost as though they'd already prepared themselves to celebrate a victory.
Sawamura genuinely couldn't understand where their confidence was coming from.
Perhaps this is what they mean when they say young calves aren't afraid of tigers.
After gathering everyone together, Sawamura went through the basic rules of baseball once again.
Then he began leading them through their training.
Before their match against Shirin, he wanted to teach his teammates as much as he possibly could.
Even if they could only absorb a little more knowledge, it would still be better than nothing.
After all, even a spear sharpened at the last moment was better than a blunt one!
Time passed remarkably quickly.
Before they knew it, the day of their scheduled practice match against Shirin had arrived.
Akagi was a district within Nagano Prefecture.
There were three junior high schools situated close together in the area.
Akagi Junior High School.
Akagi West Junior High School.
And Shirin Junior High School.
Both Akagi and Akagi West were public schools, whilst Shirin had been established with private funding.
Consequently, Shirin enjoyed considerably better facilities than its two neighbouring schools.
The distance between Akagi and Shirin was barely two hundred metres.
It took the members of Akagi's baseball club less than two minutes to reach Shirin's baseball field.
And here, on this very ground, they would play the first practice match since the establishment of the Akagi Junior High School Baseball Team.