Hal v. Stice: Hal is book, and book doesn't miss

Hal's body is a known quantity, and the knownness is the point. Off a ball "this ripe" he's "book to pass a left-handed volleyer cross-court" — his response is statistically pre-written — and "Hal Incandenza does not fuck up passes off floater half-volleys." He's less a player making choices than a highly reliable function returning its expected output; the spectators can feel the point's outcome because the machine's behavior is that predictable. Which is exactly what makes the anti-book point rare enough to chart.