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\\xad\\xad\\xadWhen it comes to guessing a person\\u2019s email address, most of us would agree that the best way to optimize your odds of success is to first assume that the person was using their actual name as part of the address. From there, your next decision arguably is whether to spell out the individual\\u2019s first name or use an initial for it.

For Tim Zue, the calculation behind one guess was a bit more nuanced because although the first name of the person he was emailing was Lawrence, the man was widely known as Larry. With little to lose, Zue addressed the email to LLucchino@redsox.com.

Sixteen years later, Zue is CFO of the Boston Red Sox, and his \\u201cinitial decision\\u201d sticks with him perhaps as a reminder that every carefully built career contains serendipitous moments.

Still, the email that Boston Red Sox then-CEO Larry Lucchino received from Zue did not come from a career-minded controller or accountant, and it was not a job inquiry. At the time, Zue was teaching 8th-grade math in the Boston public school system, and with a summer break quickly approaching, he had a thought: \\u201cHey, wouldn\\u2019t it be cool to work for the Boston Red Sox as an unpaid intern?\\u201d

Such a thought is not unlike one widely shared today by Zue\\u2019s CFO peers, but in this case, there\\u2019s one necessary modification: \\u201cHey, wouldn\\u2019t it be cool to be CFO of the Boston Red Sox?\\u201d

Meanwhile, not wanting to overstate the rewards of a correctly addressed email, it\\u2019s probably worth mentioning here that Lucchino\\u2019s unpaid intern was an MIT graduate with a prior tour of duty at Bain & Company as a management consultant. \\u2013Jack Sweeney

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