Al peddles himself to the devil. Not for power, knowledge, sex, or anything else, but for a .368 lifetime batting average. What's more, he does it for Muncie, a single-A minor league team. He's had endless chances to make it in the major leagues, but his considerable hitting abilities always dry up the day he leaves Muncie. Al is trapped there, and he doesn't particularly care. Billy, his longtime manager, thinks it's a confidence game, but Al knows he's wrong -- so one season, when his team starts a series against Des Moines, he bets his boss five dollars that he'll score a hit on his first at-bat. When he wins, he offers Billy double or nothing. Again, he rockets one into center field. Over the next few games, they keep doubling their bet, and Al keeps winning, even against Des Moines's star pitcher. Thirteen hits later, Al has won $2560 from his manager. That game and the next several are rained out, but a doubleheader is coming up on Sunday. Realizing that he could end up running Billy out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, Al steps up to the plate and sends the first pitch bouncing straight to the shortstop, falling on his way to first base just to be sure. At the end of that season, Billy moves to a different team, and a new manager, Red, joins up. After a hot streak that July, Red has the inevitable conversation with Al. They need him in the majors. But first, Al wants to know what his lifetime batting average is. When Red tells him that it is, in fact, .36802, Al quits on the spot. He's gained exactly that for which he peddled himself. But what does he want now?