Insert your own genie/radiation/super ring story here. Then pick a superpower based on the following rules:
Must be a superpower that improves just one facet of your game in any sport. So you can’t say “I can make every single pool shot I ever try,” because that’s the entire game of pool. The rest of your game is still up to you.
Your superpower must be within the possibilities of physics and the human body. So no “I can jump 30 feet.” or “I can kick a football 700 feet.” Also, you’re still you. If you’re in a wheelchair, you still have the wheelchair unless you opt for functioning legs. If you’re 62, you’re still 62 unless you want to go back to the 25-yr-old you.
Your power can seem extraordinary or freakishly talented to outside observers, but not to a degree that people actually think you’re magical. So you can’t choose to always be dealt pocket aces, because people would start looking for your cheat method.
It must be a personal ability, not a fortuitous circumstance or group blessing/curse. You can’t say “I’d score a touchdown every game,” because your teammates would need to help you do that. You can’t say “The pitcher always hangs a curveball on the second pitch,” because that’s cursing someone else. You can’t say “It never rains on my court,” because weather isn’t a personal ability.
So what’ll it be? Always throw the football precisely where you wanted it to go? Always catch a reachable line drive? Always correctly read a popup? Hit the ball on the sweet spot of the bat every time? Never get thrown out taking second? Never drop a pass? Always fire the puck at the top corners of the net? Never let a puck past your stick hand?
I’m personally going to choose “Never miss a putt from the green.” I figure I can learn the rest of golf on my natural ability and still get a green jacket.
Never miss a field goal from within the 50 yard line. In a short while, I imagine I’d be the highest paid kicker in the NFL, which is somewhere around 5 mil/yr according to SI. I could retire after a decade or so and live a ludicrously fabulous lifestyle without taking too many concussions.
But that’s basically your entire game. For kickers, you have to split it into short, medium, and long. So let’s say from inside the 23, 23-35, or 35-beyond.
I play soccer, so I’d want perfect touch with the ball. If someone passes the ball to me, I won’t need to trap the ball first; I won’t worry about the ball bouncing off my foot as if I’d just thrown a tennis ball againt a brick wall; I’ll simply bring the ball in comfortably, and I’ll be able to feel calm about what I’m going to be next. No more anxiety, wondering if I’ll give the ball away before I even have full possession, etc. mkecaniesta!
How about just being incredibly fast? Then you could pretty much pick your sport and excel, whether the obvious like football or track, the slightly less obvious like boxing (if your reflexes are fast enough, you won’t get hit hard), or even less obvious like golf (the swing analysts say that hip speed is what makes players like Tiger and McIlroy great).
Be a baseball pitcher with pinpoint control, I guess. I’d have to get my left arm back into shape (80 MPH fastball, wicked slider, decent changeup in long-ago high school), but I could throw barely hard enough to bruise a baby’s lips if I could control to the millimeter where it went.
Hockey player with impeccable stick handling skills (keep the Puck on a rope, more or less, doing exactly what I want with it while skating). The shot I could improve with practice, as could my conditioning and skating, but superhiman stickhandling would enable a tremendous amount of scoring chances and such.
From a batter’s perspective, I’d love to be able to time my swing to connect with virtually any pitch in the zone so the ball leaves at whatever angle and force I desire. Like the “angles” guy in “Alphas”. I’d be the perfect DH.
Interesting quandary: what if your superpower met my superpower? I suspect yours would prevail because no matter where I placed the ball in the strike zone, you would be able to tee off on it. I’d probably pitch out on you then try to double you up (unless of course you pulled a Roy Hobbs and slammed a pitchout into the cheap seats).
The easiest one would be to be incredibly fast. Like a 4.0 40 time. However, I’m 35 and unless it came with a caveat that it wouldn’t degrade over time and I wouldn’t be able to be injured, it wouldn’t really be that lucrative since I doubt I’d be drafted all that high at my age even with that speed and I’d still have to develop the vision, hands, elusiveness that NFL players need or the ball handling shooting that a NBA player needs. Not many other sports value speed that much. I could run track, and make a decent living, but I couldn’t give two shits about track and the money isn’t that good.
My first instinct is to be an amazing FG kicker. Powerful leg, 65 yard range, reliably straight. Saying “never miss” feels like a violation of the rules. That’s like saying you “make every pool shot”, however the OP violated his own rule with the “make every putt”. I know there’s more to golf, but it seems to be against the spirit of it. I’d rather be a great QB, but like the speed thing simply having a powerful, accurate arm only get’s you 25% of the way there. Having an awesome kicking leg, I could rake in $5M per year and kick well into my late 40s and have little risk of injury and not have to work particularly hard between games.
The most profitable skill would probably be the hand-eye coordination to always make solid contact with a baseball. If you can always put the ball in play you can reliably play in the MLB until you’re in your late 30s and make $5M+. If you hit the gym and stay in shape you could make $20M when you develop the power and speed to apply that skill as a all around player. Still, there’s a lot of variables in baseball and longevity is an issue.
My putting is okay, and my approaches are also. There is room for improvement on both, but I’d really love to be able to hit the ball 300 yards into the centre of the fairway.
Makes me wonder a bit about the OP’s “can’t be the entire game” stipulation. I mean, let’s say I want to help along my knack for catching touchdown passes by running a bit faster than humanly possible; the quarterback may well fumble the ball away or get sacked before he gets off a throw, and I might fail to make any given catch despite outsprinting defenders to get into the endzone, so it’s not “the entire game” by any stretch.
Can I then, in the off-season, show up to play track star at the Olympics, racking up gold medals whenever “the entire game” really is just running fast?
I’d go with the ability to put the ball on target. That is, straight at my intended target, or with the desired amount of hook/slice. With direction and spin out of the way, I’d still have to work on getting the right length, and choosing the right direction/spin for the situation. I see those as reasonably conquerable, to let me be competitive on the tour.