The Draft and The Whisper
The air in the living room was thick with unspoken tension, a humid June evening in Miami, Florida, mirroring the sweat gathering on Elias Vance's palms. The television, usually a source of background noise, now held the family's collective breath hostage. On the screen, Commissioner Rob Manfred was a blur of motion, his voice a muffled drone until the final, resonant words sliced through the quiet.
"With the first overall pick in the 2018 Major League Baseball Draft, the New York Yankees select… Elias Vance, shortstop, John F. Kennedy High School."
A collective gasp, then an eruption. His parents, their faces a mixture of relief and overwhelming pride, surged forward, engulfing him in hugs. His younger sister, Clara, shrieked, already envisioning trips to Yankee Stadium. Eli, however, felt a different kind of surge. It wasn't just the adrenaline of a lifelong dream realized. It was the familiar, almost imperceptible ping at the back of his mind, a sensation he'd known since he was old enough to hold a bat.
Task: Maintain composure. Visualize the next step.
It wasn't a voice, not exactly. More like a sudden, crystalline clarity, an instinctive push in a particular direction. For Eli, it had always been there, guiding him. When he was eight, trying to figure out how to lay off a curveball, a sudden, almost physical impulse had directed his eyes to the pitcher's wrist angle. Ping. He'd laid off, then crushed the next fastball. At fifteen, struggling with a double play pivot, a clear, internal blueprint had materialized in his mind's eye, showing him the exact footwork and hand placement. Ping. He'd executed it flawlessly.
He'd never spoken about it. How could he? It sounded crazy. But it was real, and it was the secret engine behind his relentless pursuit of perfection. He wasn't just naturally gifted; he was guided. And he worked, harder than anyone he knew, to follow those internal directives.
Just last week, during a pre-draft workout for the Yankees, the system had been a whirlwind of precise commands.
Task: Achieve 105 MPH exit velocity on 3 consecutive swings.
Eli had felt the muscles in his core tighten, the bat-head snap through the zone with an almost unnatural whip. The satisfying crack of the ball meeting the barrel had echoed across the empty stadium, and the readings had flashed exactly what the system had asked for.
Task completed. Attribute boost: Power +2.
He'd felt the surge then, too. Not a jolt, but a subtle, empowering shift in his physical being – his core felt stronger, his bat felt lighter, the ball seemed to leap off it with more authority. It was like his body simply understood, implicitly, how to be better.
Now, the Yankees. The Pinstripes. The biggest stage in baseball. The tasks, he knew, would become exponentially more demanding.
"You ready for this, son?" His father, a former collegiate player himself, squeezed his shoulder, his eyes shining.
Eli looked at the Yankees cap clutched in his hand. A calm settled over him, the kind that always followed a system prompt.
"More than ready, Dad," he said, the words ringing with a quiet confidence that belied the teenage excitement bubbling beneath. "This is just the beginning."