“Neal, they’re looking for you in the office,” the pitching coach, Raymond, advised. Neal Grand was starting to get a bit worried; he wasn’t performing as well as he knew he could, and all the supposed Upgrade skills were hard for him to figure out. He trudged from the locker room to the upstairs offices where the suits did their thing.

Thankfully, they had at least given him time to shower and change. Walking through the business offices reminded him of how many non-players were needed to keep a Double-A baseball team running. Sadly, most of the support staff were making triple what he earned as a player, but he kept at it, trying to fulfill his childhood dream of being a professional ballplayer. Now, it looked like that dream was about to end.

“Neal, come on in,” The General Manager of the team, Jacob, said, shaking his hand as he entered the office. “This is Lou Franz, from the big house,” Jacob advised. For some reason, Jacob referred to their major league partner as the big house. Neal wasn’t sure if that was just Jacob being weird, which he was, or if other clubs used the same terminology. Neal shook Lou’s hand, a bit confused as to what exactly was going on.

“Neal, I bet you’re wondering why I’m here to talk to you today?” Lou asked.

“That would be an understatement, sir, what can I do for you? Neal asked.

“You can do a lot for us, Neal. The Knoxville Volunteers need your arm for the coming season,” Lou advised. Neal was stunned. He had dreamed of moving to the big leagues and had joined the Moonshiners Double-A club precisely because they fed players into the Volunteers, a major league team that was struggling. He felt his chances of being called up into the majors were better on a team that wasn’t thought of as one of the best. Still, why him?

“I would love the opportunity to move up, but what exactly do you think I can contribute?” He asked, curious enough to risk the question.

“Neal, the Upgrade has created a lot of problems for the world, but sometimes, on occasion, it fixes a few problems as well. We have a guy on staff that can analyze trends and skills in the game better than a supercomputer and he figures, with a little coaching, your particular Upgrade skills can help us to enjoy a winning season,” Lou answered confidently.

Neal wasn’t quite convinced, his Upgrade skills hadn’t exactly led to him pitching any no-hitters here in the minors, and the guys in the majors were much more skilled than what he faced.

“I can see the confusion in your face, Neal, but trust me, we have the best coaches on staff to bring out the killer arm we know you’ve got. Now, before old Jacob here chases us out of his office, I need you to review and sign the contract,” Lou said, pulling a stack of papers from his briefcase.

Neal figured there was no chance of Jacob kicking them out anytime soon, from what he understood, Jacob received a nice fat bonus for one of his players being called up. Speaking of bonuses, Neal couldn’t believe the numbers in front of him.

People really had no idea how poorly minor league players were paid. He was only paid during the season and it was barely enough to rent a shared room and put food in the fridge. Most of them had part-time jobs to make ends meet during the winter months.

At least Neal didn’t have a family depending on him like some of the other guys did, it was just him. Today, it looked like his dreams were about to come true. There, sitting on the page, was his salary. Neal was looking at making $555,000 per season as well as a $100,000 signing bonus. Sure, that was on the low end of the pro scale, the very bottom to be exact, but it was more than he would make in decades of playing in the minors.

You have completed the quest, You’re in the Big Leagues, and have been awarded 1000xp.

You have completed the quest, sign on the dotted line, and have been awarded 2500xp.

Congratulations, you have reached Level 6 and have gained one stat point and two skill points to distribute.

Congratulations you have reached Level 7 and have gained one stat point and two skill points to distribute.

“I can see from the look on your face that you’ve gained some levels. Make sure you do not spend any of your points yet until you meet with our trainers. I should point out the clause in your contract that nullifies it if you spend points outside of what our trainers direct you to do,” Lou warned.

Neal was fine with that, he didn’t’ even bother to read the whole contract, stopping after he saw the salary offered. If they wanted to pay him half a million dollars to spend a couple of levels worth of skill points, sure.

Things passed in a whirlwind after that. He gathered his few belongings and packed them into a used car he purchased with part of his sign-on bonus. Neal was smart enough not to fall into the trap of buying something flashy and had chosen an inexpensive, used sedan that still had a lot of life left in it. The car would be fine to get him to Knoxville from the farm team’s location in Kentucky.

A few hours on the road led him to a rather nice apartment the team had rented for him. He was advised that the team would pay half of the rent, and the other half would be deducted from his pay each month. It was nicer than he would have picked, but it was close to the field and would be a great location to explore more of the city he was going to live in.

Despite being a rather poorly rated team, the Knoxville Volunteers had a top-notch stadium. Not as ornate as some of the other pro teams, it had ample seating for the loyal crowds of fans and offered excellent training facilities. Barely forty-eight hours after signing the contract, he was walking into the locker room for the first time as a professional baseball player.

“Neal Grand, welcome to the big leagues! You’ll find your uniforms already in your locker. Get suited up and into the bullpen to throw some pitches. You’ll be meeting with Yang, our analyst, to go over your character build. I know you’ll do great!” Lou said in an overly jovial manner that kind of rubbed him the wrong way. He followed instructions, pausing for a moment to look at himself in the mirror before he stepped out onto the field.

“Well, six-year-old me, we did it, we’re a professional baseball player,” Neal whispered to himself, still stunned at the turn of events that led him here. Out by the bullpen area, another pitcher was finishing up his workout.

“Hey new guy, good luck out there and welcome to the team,” Rafael Guzman, the team’s starting pitcher said as he passed by Neal on his way to the locker room. It was surreal to be greeted by one of the players he was a fan of, even more so to be greeted as a colleague. Turning his attention to the task at hand, Neal walked up to a slender man in a team polo who was tapping away at a tablet and waving him over to a bench in the shade.

“I’ve got your data here, tell me you didn’t spend your points yet?” The man asked without introducing himself. He didn’t feel the man was trying to be rude, Neal got the impression he was just socially awkward and very focused on his work.

“Hi, I’m Neal, and no, I didn’t spend my recently gained points yet,” Neal offered.

“Oh, yeah, sorry, I’m Yang, the guy who’s going to help you with your character build,” the man replied before passing his tablet over to Neal. It displayed any current skills, tied to baseball. Neal knew some abilities allowed a person to view information, but it was kind of creepy and seemed like an invasion of privacy to have his selections displayed by someone else. The permission for Yang to do this was probably hidden away in the fine print of his contract.

Skills:

Targeted throw: 12.

Catching: 6.

Maneuver object: 9.

Analyze opponent: 5.

Batting/crushing weapons: 4.

“Your skills are on par with any new pitcher in the majors, save for your Targeted Throw being a bit lower than the average by three points. Your Analyze Opponent is also a bit weak, but the main reason I was interested in talking with you was due to your Maneuver Object ability. Tell me, how does it actually work?” Yang asked. So that was it, he kind of figured the other pitchers had Maneuver Object, but from what Yang was asking, maybe it was a bit less common.

“Well, before I throw, I see the targeting reticle where my pitch is aimed and I can modulate speed and rotation, but that’s all done through the Targeted Throw ability. Once I release, I’m able to move the ball if I exert mana on it. It’s not a huge amount and it drains my reserves pretty quick, so I only use it sparingly. If I burn mana on the ball all the way in, I can adjust its position about five or six inches. Can’t other pitchers do that?” Neal asked.

“Oh no, you’re the first and I think this will give you a leg up on the opposing batters once we work out a few kinks. First off, let's have you spend your ability points. I want you to drop one point in strength to boost your max pitching speed and the other point into your constitution to beef up your endurance. For most athletes, the constitution stat also has a bearing on your mana pool and regen rate. We need to be careful how we allocate stat points, it’s just been found out that after level ten, you no longer get a guaranteed stat point with each level,” Yang advised.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Neal did as he was asked, after all, it was in his contract. Like the other times that he had spent his ability points, Neal could feel a little tingle on his muscles as they improved. Constitution didn’t make him feel any different, but the knew that he would now recover from a hard workout easier and would be less prone to injury. Yang nodded, seeing that he had spent the points as asked.

“Good, now let’s talk about your skill points. We need to improve your Analyze Opponent skill, but that will have to take a back seat until you level up again. For now, we need to get Targeted Throw to fifteen and then the last point will bring your Maneuver Object up to ten.

“We know fifteen skill points for Targeted Throw is a landmark level and unlocks a better interface while pitching. Maneuver Object might also hit a landmark level at ten, but I’m not sure. It seems most skills improve a bit more or unlock variants at the five and ten-level marks,” Yang told him. Neal did as he asked, dropping three skill points into the Targeted Throw ability and his final free point into Maneuver Object.

“Alright, now I want you to throw a few pitches, but first, I’m going to send over a request to view your interface. Hit accept, the link only lets me see things that affect your pitching, nothing private,” Yang tried to assure him. Neal received the prompt and hit yes to grant Yang temporary access. Roland Haines, the team’s catcher came over to work with them.

“Don’t worry about signals right now, just throw what you want and let Yang do what he does,” Roland told him. Neal nodded and took his position on the mound. As he prepared to pitch, a now-familiar interface displayed. He could see the targeted area around the catcher’s glove and based on the pitch he selected; he could see the various ways he could adjust the ball with his Maneuver Object ability.

Winding up, Neal fired off a fastball, opting to move it a few inches over with his skill. With a loud snap, the ball hit the leather of the catcher’s glove. He received an internal readout with the pitch now, it showed the fastball was 105 miles per hour. That would be a top tier pitch before the Upgrade, now, it was on the lower end for pros and the best were firing them off at 115 mph or so.

For his next pitch, Neal threw a curve, burning mana the whole way. His pitch looked like a wild one at first, one that would have beaned the batter. Instead, the ball made an astounding curve and the catcher only had to adjust his glove a tiny bit to intercept it.

He tried a few more of those and found that after four throws using full effort to maneuver the ball, his mana was shot. Yang and Roland then walked him out of the bullpen and onto the field near the home plate.

“That was insane, can you throw that craziness the whole game?” Roland asked.

“No, I’m out of mana now, it would take a few minutes to recharge enough for another pitch. If I go with a little less wild of a hook, I can throw a dozen or so,” Neal admitted.

“Not bad, I can see where this guy will be useful to close out a game,” Roland said. They continued with different pitches and varying amounts of mana before another player was called over to hit. They gave Neal enough of a break to recharge half his mana and set him loose on a batter, practicing him for most of the afternoon. He fell into the familiar pattern of practice days, getting to know his team and honing his craft.

Neal and the team put even more effort into their training as the season opener approached. They were playing at home against New York, the top-rated team in the league which had a formidable batting lineup. Pushing himself every day in practice, Neal was able to gain another level and Yang suggested he place his ability point into constitution to improve his mana base and regen, while he placed all his skill points into Analyze Opponent which unlocked the ability to predict the most dangerous places to throw a pitch.

On the day of the opener, Neal took the field for the first time as a professional baseball player. Sure, he wasn’t a starter, but he was there. The only pang of regret was that his father wouldn’t see him play. His dad had always loved going to his games from when Neal was a kid in little league and all the way through high school. It was not an easy thing to do for a single father. In college, his dad’s health had declined, and he died in Neal’s senior year. The small inheritance that his dad left enabled Neal to finish school and survive on the pittance he had earned in the minor leagues.

The game played out as he suspected. The Volunteers did much better against New York than they had done the previous season, but it was clear they were outmatched. New York had notoriously deep pockets to recruit the best of the best players in the league and while Knoxville had done as well as it could with recruiting, but it appeared that even Yang’s analytical help couldn’t overcome the gap in skill between the two teams.

Knoxville only had one run on the board to New York’s seven. Their bottom of the Knoxville lineup went out one, two, three to the expert pitching of the New York team at the end of the eighth inning. As the Volunteers prepared to take the field, the pitching coach waved Neal over form the bullpen, he was going to get his first chance to pitch in the majors.

“Neal, do you think you can close this one out for us? Last year they beat us ten to zero and I’d like to keep them from scoring another point today,” Head Coach Fernandez asked him. Was he ready? Neal felt a little unsure for a moment, looking over to see Yang staring at him with that creepy gaze that let you know he was analyzing your skills. Yang smiled and gave him a thumbs-up, if the analyst thought he was ready and the coach thought he was ready, how can he doubt himself?

“I got this coach, lets shut them down,” Neal said with confidence.

“Now appearing for his debut with the Tennessee Volunteers is number thirty-nine, Neal Grand!”

At hearing himself announced, Neal hustled out to the mound. The catcher, Roland, ran up to meet him on the mound, handing him the ball that would be the first one he threw in a pro game. His teammate didn’t say anything, and Neal realized he didn’t need to.

They had practiced so much together that the two almost instinctively knew what to do. With a smile of support, Roland jogged back behind the plate as the first batter stepped up. It wasn’t going to be an easy one for Neal, New York was back at the top of their lineup and Julio Jimenez had gotten on base every time he had been up this game.

Looking at his catcher, Roland signaled a fastball and Neal shook his head. This guy was too good, and his fastball was mediocre at best, even with his maneuver object ability. He nodded at the second choice, a slider. As the batter took a couple of practice swings, Neal saw the now-familiar overlay appear in front of his opponent. The strike zone showed in green, and as Neal selected the pitch he wanted from his interface, the green strike zone took on various colors. At the tiniest tips of the outside edge, the field remained green, anything closer to the batter was red now, indicating the batter would almost always hit a ball thrown there.

The overlay changed as Neal selected how much mana he wanted to apply to his Maneuver Object ability, watching as the green on the outside corners of the strike zone expanded a bit more, giving him a better target. He wound up and threw, knowing even as the ball left his hand that it was good. Despite space alien superpowers granted by the Upgrade, Neal still had to make the pitch. It was perfect, the ball looking like a wild pitch, only to curve in and clip the outside edge of the strike zone.

“Strike one!” The umpire called out, the people in the stands giving an encouraging cheer. His opponent now looked at Neal more intently, no longer underestimating the rookie’s skill and likely using an Upgrade ability to try and figure out his next pitch. Roland called for another slider and Neal nodded. The overlay appeared, but this time there was no green to be seen at all until he applied the maximum mana he could to a pitch. Even with a full mana expenditure, the outside edges of the strike zone only changed to a yellow-green color. Neal wound up and threw.

“Strike two!” Was called by the umpire. The batter, Jimenez, almost had this one, barely missing the ball. Roland threw back the ball to Neal and signaled a fastball. It wasn’t his best pitch, but the batter was catching on to his slider, so Neal nodded his agreement. A fastball, even his mediocre one, traveled too quickly for much in the way of Maneuver Object. Most of his overlay was red, with a dark orange color in a couple of spots, one of those was oddly enough dead center. Burning a small amount of mana on the fastball, Neal watched the dark orange color of the area he was targeting turn to a slightly lighter yellow-orange. It was a risky, but not impossible pitch.

Crack!

Neal dreaded that sound, the sound that Jimenez’s bat made as it hit the pitch. But it wasn’t quite right, the sound was a bit off due to the batter only clipping the edge of the ball. The ball popped up toward their third baseman, Garvey, who easily caught it. One out, two to go. Any nerves that Neal felt were gone, he could do this. The second batter wasn’t as difficult as the first, going down to three curveballs in a row. New York’s third batter was a different story.

Aaron Hollow was considered the second best hitter in the league, causing Neal to chose his most formidable pitch and max the mana contribution to Manipulate Object. After all his preparations, Neal only saw red and dark orange in the overlay.

The first ball was clipped by the bat, a foul ball that gave him one strike. Neal’s second and third pitches were just outside the strike zone as he tried to bait out a bad swing. Hollow was too good a player to fall for swinging at anything outside the strike zone, Neal finally realized as he threw the third ball in a row.

The count was one and three leaving Neal no choice but to hit the strike zone or risk walking the batter. He had to put this one away, the cleanup man batting fourth was the best batter in the league. If Neal was having this much trouble with Aaron Hollow, there was no way he could strike out Jack Lavelle.

Readying a fastball, Neal’s overlay was completely red. Sadly, his curve, slider, and any other pitch he tried were also showing completely red overlays. Hollow was going to hit this pitch no matter what Neal did. Whether it was some Upgrade skill or the man was just that good, he didn’t know or care.

If there was no way to prevent him from hitting it, maybe Neal could make it the hit one that worked in his team’s favor. Using nearly all his remaining mana, Neal had the ball decelerate as it approached. A fastball started to streak in, only to wobble a bit as it lost velocity approaching the plate.

Crack!

True to prediction, Aaron Hollow connected and ripped the ball into right field. With disappointment Neal watched the ball approach the fence, the outfielder running to keep pace with it as they neared the wall. Then he realized that it wasn’t going to go over, the lower speed of his wobbly pitch had robbed the hit of the last little bit of oomph it needed to get over the wall. The outfielder reached up and snagged the ball, out number three.

The crowd cheered and Neal practically floated off the field as his teammates slapped him on the back and offered congratulations. Sadly, the Volunteer's final at-bat didn’t do much better and they lost their opener one to seven. Neal sure didn’t feel like he lost, he couldn’t wait to get back on the field again and after tonight’s performance, he was pretty sure he was going to get a second crack at it.

Neal Grand played for a total of four seasons before retiring when players began developing methods to counter his Upgrade skill. That was the way of things for sports, skills were uncovered and then eventually countered by new builds or clever Upgrade selections. Neal left baseball and became a history teacher and baseball coach for a local high school team.

From what I could tell, he is perfectly content with the way his life turned out, honored to have played the game he loved at a professional level, even if was for a brief time. Why did I choose to include Neal’s story in this work? Did he link ominously with some other entry we’re about to read? No. I’m just a fan of the Knoxville Volunteers, I’ve got season tickets and everything.

Okay, it wasn’t just because I was a fan. The story shows a unique look at professional sports and the effects that the Upgrade has on them. Sure, the Upgrade skills can empower the players to great feats on the field, but those abilities must be backed by a skilled athlete to compete at the top tier.

Most of us aren’t professional athletes, but we all have something we excel at. For myself and the majority of my readers, this usually turns out to be some work-related skills that the Upgrade chooses to enhance. In the case of gamers, many were granted techniques for survival that reflected their preferred game’s skill set. The first weeks of the Upgrade were particularly interesting for some of them…