Chapter 127

Short Summary
The Lycaons use the L tickets for the first time in their game against the Eagles. The team are disgruntled when some players end up earning very little.

Long Summary
It’s the first game in which the Lycaons will be using the new L-tickets. Tokuchi tells them this match contains only about 20,000 L-tickets since some normal tickets had already been sold, meaning the team will have about 20 million yen to share between them. He says he’s looking forward to seeing how things turn out and Fujita suddenly yells at him to ‘stop fucking around.’ As owner he’s been doing whatever he pleases, and rather than waste time with ridiculous tickets he should be worrying about the 7-game gap between them and the Mariners. He grabs the font of Tokuchi’s shirt and accuses him of not focussing on making the team stronger. Tokuchi pushes his hand away and says that’s what the MVP tickets are for. He asks the team what they need in order to beat the Mariners and Ideguchi answers 'teamwork'. Tokuchi says that’s right, but the problem is none of them understand what teamwork really is. Fujita gets angry again and says it’s obviously about combining their strength and helping each other to maximise their performance. Tokuchi laughs and tells them that’s wrong and that’s why they’ve been stuck in class B. When they can give him the correct answer they’ll have really become a strong team.

Tokuchi pitches for today’s game against the Eagles. He strikes out all the batters. In nine innings, only two hit attempts were made. Kojima manages to score the Lycaons’ only point and they win 1-0.

At the follow-up meeting, Tokuchi announces it’s payout time. The total worth of the MVP tickets for that game was 21 million yen, but not all of them were filled out, leaving them with 17 million. The player voted number 1 MVP was Tokuchi himself, with 11 million yens' worth of tickets. Second is Kojima with 4.5 million yen and 3rd Ideguchi with 413 thousand. In ninth and last place is Kurumizawa, who gets only 200 yen. Ideguchi shouts at Tokuchi that the system is unfair and some didn’t even get a chance to play this match. Tokuchi doesn’t see the problem and says they should get into the starting lineup then. He announces from now on, the starting lineup will be based on how many MVP tickets they’ve received. For those who sit out, if they position themselves right they could end up grabbing half of them. He tells them if they want money, they need to take it.

Characters

 * Tokuchi Toua
 * Ideguchi
 * Kojima
 * Fujita
 * Kurumizawa