{"id":540,"date":"2021-02-11T15:29:30","date_gmt":"2021-02-11T15:29:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=540"},"modified":"2021-02-19T12:11:52","modified_gmt":"2021-02-19T12:11:52","slug":"shy-sarah-and-the-draft-pick-lottery-by-ted-kosmatka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=540","title":{"rendered":"Shy Sarah and the Draft Pick Lottery by Ted Kosmatka"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Shy Sarah and the Draft Pick Lottery<\/em><\/strong> by Ted Kosmatka (Asimov’s SF<\/em>, January-February 2021) starts off with a woman called Sarah arranging an encounter with a fan called Ames at a baseball match. She sits in the seat next to him after a supposed ticket mix-up (his girlfriend has been delayed by the rest of her team) and, after a certain amount of pretence and social chit-chat, she eventually introduces the idea of sabermetrics (statistical analysis of baseball results), and also that teams want particular fans\u2014superfans\u2014because they positively influence the outcome of their matches.
After this we see Sarah with her bosses, who quiz her about the suitability of Ames as a \u201ccandidate\u201d and, later on, she arranges to bump into him. They go for a walk, and she tells him about her job:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt works like this,\u201d I say. \u201cMost people are normal, but one out of a hundred is different. They have some kind of talent that\u2019s hard to explain. For me it started in childhood\u2014crippling shyness, the obligate side effect. I was sent to see specialists.
My parents thought it was therapy, but the specialists had their own ideas. In reality, they were conducting a search.\u201d
\u201cSearch for what?\u201d
\u201cFor children like me. Who could help them with people like you.\u201d I glance at him.
\u201cThe real prospects.\u201d
\u201cSo you\u2019re saying I\u2019m one of these prospects?\u201d
\u201cThat you are. A certified, top-tier, can\u2019t-miss prospect, and no going back now. But don\u2019t blame me; it was the spreadsheet cowboys who found you. I just gave the final nod.\u201d
The Walk sign flashes and we cross the intersection.
\u201cFound me how?\u201d  p. 130<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

She goes on to tell him more about the world of \u201cshies,\u201d \u201cply-mouths,\u201d \u201cdaykeeps\u201d and \u201clatents.\u201d And of \u201cprospects,\u201d fans like him whose luck rubs off on the teams.
The rest of the story shows us a draft meeting where Ames is discussed by various corporate types and sold to a team in Texas (all of this without his attendance or knowledge). We also see Sarah telling Ames of a much wider conspiracy that involves the drafting of people into various other jobs (valets, blackjack dealers, cashiers, Uber drivers, etc.), which may be in locations they do not want to live (there is also a crack about only untalented people being allowed to become bankers and lawyers). She finally advises him that when he gets an upcoming job offer he should accept it\u2014or he will experience unpleasant consequences.
The story ends (spoiler) with Ames missing the flight to his new job, and Sarah tracking him down and telling him she wants him to help her fight the system.
This is a readable enough story but I wasn\u2019t convinced by the Sabermetric conspiracy gimmick, and I\u2019m not that interested in baseball stories (or the author\u2019s infatuation with \u201cknuckle ball throwers\u201d). Finally, I\u2019m getting a bit bored of stories with simplistic anti-capitalist subtexts, most of which never amount to much beyond conspiracies and\/or smash the system endings.
* (Mediocre). 8,250 words.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shy Sarah and the Draft Pick Lottery by Ted Kosmatka (Asimov’s SF, January-February 2021) starts off with a woman called Sarah arranging an encounter with a fan called Ames at a baseball match. She sits in the seat next to him after a supposed ticket mix-up (his girlfriend has been delayed by the rest of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[151],"tags":[21,50,4,12,152],"class_list":["post-540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ted-kosmatka","tag-21","tag-50","tag-asimovs-sf","tag-short-story","tag-ted-kosmatka"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=540"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":629,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540\/revisions\/629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}