Sure Thing Player Application

Player Name: Sure Thing
Weight: 180 lbs.
Height: 6’2”
Age: 18?
Gender: Male

There are few guaranteed things in life.

Sure Thing – a birth name, not an acquired one – showed up one day on an orphanage’s doorstep as an infant with little more to his name than the box, blanket, and hastily-scrawled note that accompanied him. But those notes – detailed as any with favorite foods, toys, and preferred nap times – gave his orphanage caretakers quite a lot to work with. And, perhaps most surprisingly, all of those notes were accurate. Sure Thing was just that from the get go – everything was certain, and that made everyone’s lives a lot easier.

Though Sure was as rambunctious and adventurous a child as any, there was always an anticipatory pattern one could follow to see what he was doing next. His actions weren’t necessarily predictable, but the end-result (whether it was a skinned knee or meticulously constructed block tower) was generally the same. And these notes kept arriving to the orphanage without any further details, adding to his mystifying nature. “Let him play basketball outside for a half hour a day.”

“Give him a baseball glove and let him play with the neighborhood kids.”

Sure Thing’s development was fantastic and unheard of, prompting many parents to at least investigate what went on with him. He performed well academically, and scored precisely the same amount on every test: 90%. Just enough for an A- and not one point better (unless that wasn’t possible, in which case his average would be 90%). When it came to baseball practice, he was good for exactly two hits per five at-bats, an astronomical rate of .400, even if he hardly ever hit for extra bases or a home run.

This drew the interest of several sports leagues – as very little is guaranteed in life. Predictability was a wonder and a rarity for many sports analysts. Indeed, there was only one season in his pre-professional league career where he finished the season under .280, and he never finished above .500 no matter how menial his opponents’ fielding statistics were. Naturally, then, he submitted his player application in hopes of landing on a team that could use him as his namesake suggested: an unerringly effective player with nothing more than a guaranteed hit or two to his name per game.