AI Story Hour: Ship of Fouls. Chapter 2 – The Meeting

AI Prompt: Write the second chapter of this short story. Have Henry have a team meeting with his fantasy players after the team gets off to an 0 and 3 start to the season.

Henry slammed his fist on the desk, rattling his bobble head collection. The rage burning within him was incandescent.

“Zero and three?! How is this possible?” he sputtered, spraying spittle across his screen.

His beloved Ship of Fouls, the product of countless obsessive hours of strategizing and tinkering, was floundering hard to start the fantasy baseball season. Losses didn’t just demoralize Henry – they cut him to his very core.

In a move that bewildered his friends and family, Henry called for a team meeting. Not through a message board or email, but in the flesh—or so he believed. He set up chairs in his living room, placing name tags in front of each seat, each bearing the name of his fantasy players. The room was filled with the silent congregation of his imaginary team, waiting for their manager to speak.

One by one, his fantasy players materialized for the meeting – Juan Soto, Shohei Ohtani, Nolan Arenado, Jorge Soler, and the rest. They avoided making eye contact as their unmotivated manager joined the meeting.

“Fellas,” Henry growled, struggling to keep his fury in check. “This performance is utterly indefensible. I put my heart into constructing an analytic masterpiece of a roster and this is how you repay me?”

Uncomfortable silence lingered until Soto cleared his throat. “Hey man, we’re just…ya know, not hitting that well right now. Slumps happen.”

“Slumps?” Henry’s nostrils flared. “I expressly constructed cutting-edge hitting metrics to ensure protracted cold stretches were impossible! You should be incapable of slumping based on my revolutionary OPS-Plus-Exit-Velocity formula!”

The players exchanged bewildered looks. Arenado finally broke the silence with a sigh.

“Look Henry, we appreciate all the…uh, advanced analytical stuff. But at the end of the day, we just need to swing the bat better.”

A vein pulsed in Henry’s forehead as he shot daggers around the room.

“Swing the bat better? You spoiled millionaire prima donnas are lucky I constructed a pitch sequencing program that optimizes every at-bat! I’m out here doing calculus while you makers hit .197!”

Henry buried his head in his hands, struggling to regain his composure. These underachievers simply didn’t appreciate the monumental efforts he expended to ensure their success.

“Just…just win some games this week,” he muttered finally. “Or you can say goodbye to the Rutherford Reverse OBP Inning Strategy, along with your measly salaries.”

Henry angrily walked out of the room and returned to his desk. He snatched up his notebook and began furiously scribbling, charting out elaborate new strategies.

If his team wouldn’t rise to his level through sheer talent and effort, he’d simply have to develop a whole new statistical battle plan to force their hands. Henry’s eye twitched as the ideas fired through his fevered brain – there was simply no other way.

The disastrous start made one thing clear: Henry’s obsessive quest to usher in a fantasy baseball revolution had only just begun.

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