As "The Slump" unfolds, it introduces us to a professional baseball player caught in the throes of a batting slump. The story's outset deftly sidesteps directly addressing his current predicament, allowing the title to subtly hint at his struggles, while diving straight into a whirlwind of speculation about its mysterious cause. The narrator first considers "reflexes" as a potential culprit, a theory echoed by both his coach and the media. Yet, he dismisses this idea, bolstered by a recent bedroom escapade where his wife, donning a rubber gorilla mask, startled him into ducking under the bed in an instant—a swift reaction she timed with a stopwatch.

Recalling the days when he could effortlessly connect with the ball, he reminisces about how it would seem to float serenely before him, every detail vivid and clear. Now, however, the ball is shrouded in a "spiral of vagueness," elusive and intangible. Borrowing a thought from Søren Kierkegaard, he reflects on the impossibility of perceiving one's own blind spot. Aware that his formidable batting prowess is the cornerstone of his career, he contemplates a grim newspaper prediction that his team might trade him.

Paradoxically, the inability to hit has relieved him of a burdensome pressure. He remembers the days when approaching the stadium would fill him with anxiety, his nerves fluttering like butterflies in his stomach. He felt like an impostor, likening his walk to the locker room to a condemned man's march to the electric chair. It was a surreal experience, having seasoned players he idolized acknowledge him. The whole adventure of being on the team was so overwhelming that he was constantly tense—so much so that by the time he reached the batting cage, he sometimes forgot whether he was a lefty or a righty.

Since the onset of his slump, the pre-game jitters have vanished. He drives to the stadium, singing along to the radio, pays no heed to the fans on the street, confidently enters the stadium, and even performs flawlessly in the batting cage before the game. Yet, once he stands at the plate, a wave of self-consciousness crashes over him, rendering him incapable of hitting the ball.

He labels his predicament as "panic hunger," a desire not driven by necessity but by a frantic need to succeed, which his critics argue he lost with his success. He likens this panic to a child's fervent attempt to catch a ball, so engrossed in doing well that they shut their eyes as it approaches. Despite his efforts to keep his eyes open, to fix his gaze on something distant (he imagines "some nuns in far left field"), his eyes betray him, closing involuntarily.

This slump extends its tentacles into the rest of his life. He shies away from closeness with his wife, knowing it leaves her both frustrated and angry. He compulsively mows the lawn to the point of killing the grass. Haunted by a nameless fear, he dreads seeing his children play baseball. While in Florida with the team, the repetitive crash of waves upon the shore mirrors the unending cycle of batting opportunities he faces, each one as indistinct and meaningless as the last. In search of answers, he turns to Kierkegaard, but finds himself unable to read; the pages of Concluding Unscientific Postscript seem as empty as "the rows of deep seats in the shade of the second deck on a Thursday afternoon, just a single ice-cream vendor sitting there, nobody around to sell to, a speck of white in all that shade, old Søren Sock himself, keeping his goods cool."

He ponders the indignity of his...