Numbers game

When my brother Boyd was younger he used to take his baseball cards, some dice, a pad of paper, a calculator and a pencil and play a game he called "statistics." Foreign to me, the game somehow involved the numbers on the back of the baseball cards, rolls of the dice and what seemed like endless sheets of numbers, all written in Boyd's trademark chicken-scratch style. The object of the game? I'm not sure. But I do know the hours spent in his room playing this funny little game has provided me and his other siblings endless fodder for mockery in this, the "post-statistics" era.

Today, we are all grown up and have jobs and responsibilities. And Boyd has a hernia. Or had a hernia, I should say. It was surgically repaired yesterday. Actually, he's had two hernias to date, both in the last few years. What are the stats on that?

In a related topic, I'm reading a book called "Moneyball" by Michael Lewis that looks at how a professional baseball team used statistics to build a winning team out of "misfit" players, those the rest of the league viewed as bit players or worse. No superstars on this team, sir. Just a ragtag bunch of guys who, when combined, created a superhuman baseball force. The concept got me thinking. What other seemingly marginal things could be put together to create unstoppable juggernauts?

For example, what if the boring lady who works in my office merged with the other lady in my office who is so "fake nice" it makes me want to staple all of my orifices shut to keep the fake out? They would be unstoppable in their efforts to bore me to death in a really kind and gentle, but fake, way.

Or what if my brother's two hernias decided to band together? One hernia is bad news, but TWO!?! He would never be able to move his lower abdomen again. And by "lower abdomen" I mean genitals.