BITTERNESS.(The Talk of the Town)(Interview)

On a gray afternoon of what would, for the time being, at least, prove to be his last weekend with the Mets, Jae Weong Seo, a pitcher once touted as a prospect blessed with vast possibilities, paused to chat about the eternal struggle against pain and disappointment. "Sometimes I wish life was easy and there were no struggles," he said. "But then, without them, life would not be that fun to live."

It is unusual to hear such talk from major-league ballplayers, who tend to think in terms of the present--a game, an at-bat, a pitch at a time. Seo, however, is Korean, and he has inherited a condition so particular that Koreans have a name for it: han. Loosely translated, han means "irresolvable bitterness." Han is not a static emotion. It often manifests itself in a strong incentive to show the world that you've been shortchanged. Although han can, in theory, go away, it will not do so incrementally. Think of clouds parting suddenly, a burst of blinding light. Koreans endure han collectively--as inhabitants of a small country or, rather, two countries, stuck between powerful neighbors, China and Japan, who have seldom been kind--and individually. "We Koreans feel han," Seo said. "It's the struggle within ourselves, in good times and in bad times."

Seo, who is twenty-seven, first came to the Mets' attention in 1997, when, as an undergraduate at Inha University, in the port city of Inchon, he pitched well against an American college all-star team. The Mets signed him later that year. Elbow surgery cost him most of the 1999 season, however, and all of 2000. There followed a lonely, han-sustaining trek through the minor leagues: he had barely enough English to talk to his teammates and a palate that did not take to Western cuisine. Still, he made the big club in 2003, and pitched so effectively that by spring the Mets and Seo assumed that he would be their fourth starter.

It has been a sour season, for both Seo and the Mets. Seo pitched dreadfully in spring training, and was remanded to the minors. "I knew I had a struggle when I found out that I wouldn't make the team," he said. "I felt in a really dark area, and I ...