Run The Numbers

In 1954, when I was ten and my cousin Donnie was eight, our mothers let us stay home from school and play number games.  The first game was our own creation and came about because we were baseball fans but too young to play the actual game.  Instead, we developed a game using dice and a mathematical model that transported us to a make believe world that became an all-consuming passion for years.  We never let up until I left to start college in 1962.

The first game model we built was for baseball as there were lots of data available to us on the backs of baseball cards and in the newspaper.  Once we had constructed the baseball game model we would play a complete game, keep a detailed box score, and then update the statistics we kept for individual players and teams.  Our game schedule followed the real schedule in the major leagues at that time.  There were two leagues, the American and The National, eight teams in each league, and each team played a total of 154 games in a season.  The baseball season would last six months and during that span, Donnie and I would play a total of 2,464 games every year.

The games were quick.  A single game would be finished in less than fifteen minutes and 2,464 games took a total of 616 hours.   The majority of our time was maintaining statistics for each of the 288 individual batters and pitchers and the 16 teams.  We had neither computer nor calculator, yet we managed to keep up with twenty statistical categories for individuals and teams including batting average, runs batted in, slugging percentage and earned run average.  It was a massive undertaking that would last the entire weekend and run over into the following week, thus bringing about a conflict with school.

Donnie lived eight houses down the street, making it easy for us to join forces on Sunday nights and plead our case to our mothers.  We would explain we had a schedule to maintain and falling behind was not an option.  As far as school was concerned, we would only miss the endless repetition of the same information they fed us the previous week.  Unfortunately, my mother and her sister are no longer here for me to ask what they thought of all this.  Whatever they thought, they let us skip school so we could keep up with the numbers.

As the games went on we continued to revise the model by comparing game results versus actual results.  We became aware of nuances – yes it was a fly out, but did the runner advance?; and if he did, was it one base or two?  We were constantly making minor adjustments to the 216 outcomes that would bring the game closer to the level of complexity found in the major leagues.

The most significant affect the game had on me was of a philosophical nature.

Commercially available games existed at the time, but the results were driven by individual performance profiles of real players.  Thus every season you could count on the same players excelling at their strengths – the Mickey Mantle profile would hit the most homers, the Ted Williams profile would have the best batting average, etc. 

Our model did not have individual profiles.  We had all the players by name, but their results were determined strictly by probability.  Once our season launched, every player had an equal chance to succeed or fail, and we would be fascinated to watch the year unfold.  Our model produced heroes and goats but they were never the same as those in the major leagues.  During the unfolding of each season, we would attach our selves to certain favorite players and teams, pulling for them to win.  It was when we started to care about these imaginary beings that we realized an unsettling truth about the universe.  You can wish and pray for a good break, or even a miracle, but in the long run, unrelenting probability is always going to have the last word.  This hit us like a ton of bricks.  We talked about it frequently as it was demonstrated consistently throughout the season.  We suspected that no one other than the two of us was aware of what we had stumbled upon, and chances were nil they would, without committing to the same grinding mission we had taken on.

In Malcolm Gladwell's best selling book, The Outliers, he introduces" the 10,000 hour rule".  He theorizes that 10,000 hours devoted to a discipline during one's youth can position an individual to excel beyond normal limits in an avocation, niche or field.  He also stresses that other factors are required in addition to the hours, and uses Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and professional hockey stars to prove his point.  Donnie and I put in the 10,000 hours, and then some.

A brief description of our game model:  We used three dice, each a different color.  The three dice were tossed together and the result read in sequence: first the green die, then the red and lastly the white; or as an example, 3, 1 and 5. 

With three dice used in this manner, there were a total of 216 outcomes; or 6 X 6 X 6.  We used the official major league statistics from the 1953 season to apply a game result to each outcome.  As an example: dice toss 3-1-5 is "Hit by pitch"; a game result that took place in 1953, approximately 1 out of every 216 times a batter stepped to the plate.

We used graph paper to create a master matrix for game results (think excel).  The 216 game results ran down the vertical axis, and the game situations ran across the top as columns.  Column headings were attempting to bat, attempting to steal, attempting to bunt, etc. 

The 216 game results for attempting to hit were as follows:

119 of 216 game results were ground outs, fly outs and pop ups

  37 of 216 game results were singles

    9 of 216 game results were doubles

    2 of 216 game results were triples

    5 of 216 game results were home runs

  19 of 216 game results were walks

  24 of 216 game results were strike outs

    1 of 216 game results hit by pitch

Over time, Donnie and I memorized the outcomes and wouldn't need to look at the spreadsheet to see what the outcome was.  This sped up the games and began a transfer of data to our cerebral cortex that evidently has a lot of ram.

When it came time to update the game statistics, the calculations of percentages took the most time.  Here too, we began to commit to memory decimal equivalents of fractions, such as 5 hits in 16 attempts, or 5/16 which is 0.3125.

This isn't as difficult as it might seem at first, as once fractions are reduced to their lowest common denominator (the number on the bottom) you mostly are dealing with a range of 2 to 20.  Once you know the decimal equivalent for each of these, such as one sixteenth is .0625, the rest is easy.  Hell, after 1,500 hours a year, for seven years, a chimpanzee could do it, and probably has.

When I went off to college (which sounds absurd since it was one block from my house), I lost contact with Donnie altogether.  I met him one day when I saw him at the college.  He was still in high school.  I really enjoyed talking with him as it was probably the first time in over a year that we had seen each other.  I recall thinking it was strange to have been so close with him for so long, only to have our time together cut off so abruptly.  Donnie was wearing combat boots and camo pants and some sort of flight jacket despite it being a warm day.  I had no idea if this get-up meant anything.  A few years later, before I graduated from college, my mother told me that Donnie had committed suicide. 

I have no details, as I didn't pursue it.  I suppose it was normal to have feelings of guilt in this situation, and I did.  I felt that if anyone could have communicated with him, it would have been me.  I had so many thoughts, some self-critical, some overly-dramatic, and some ridiculing myself over the notion that I could have made any difference at all.  I wondered if the game was what drew us together and not each other.  It seemed somewhat of a rationalization at the time, but there was no way that any of these thoughts could ever be resolved, so I just let it go.  

After graduating from college, I built a new game model.  At the time there was only one other pastime that could rival baseball for statistics, and that was thoroughbred horse racing.  I built the model, and ran the numbers for several years until I got married in 1971.  I needed to find a job and I had not a clue as to where to start.  I was talking one day with a sculptor that lived in the neighborhood, and he encouraged to go see a friend of his – an Architect that had an office on north Figueroa in Eagle Rock. 

I called the architect and he agreed to offer his help.  When I met with him, he asked, "What do you like to do?"

It took an excruciatingly long time for me to figure out where he was going with this.  The fog finally cleared when he said, "Left to yourself, is there something you enjoy doing to pass the time, a hobby, something you really throw yourself into."

 I said, "I like to design games to match real life."

 I got somewhat of a strange look from him, so I unloaded a lot of what I've covered above, which took a while.  He listened through all of it.

 He said, "If you get that much out of numbers, you should go downtown to one of the Insurance companies.  They're all about numbers and statistics.  Just tell them what you told me."

 I thanked him for the advice.  I wasn't real keen on the idea of working in a big glass box, wearing a coat and tie, and I didn't see a big difference between the insurance industry and the mafia.  Never the less, I needed a job, so I went down to 12^th and Olive, and applied for work with the Occidental Life Insurance Company.  I was sent to a room to take a test with forty other applicants (there were actually full time jobs available in those days). 

The test was a tradition and had been given to every employee, including the CEO, since 1906 when the company started.  The test was called the "LOMA", and though I was unaware at the time, your "LOMA score" was something that followed you as long as you worked there. 

The  LOMA test had a time limit and was made up almost completely of math problems dealing with fractions and percentages.  I learned later that it was extremely rare for anyone to finish within the allotted time, let alone answer all of the questions.  We were told by the personnel geek administering the test, that the test was designed with the intention that it would not be finished and that your score would simply reflect how many questions you were able to answer correctly.  I was done in half the time.  

The next day I was asked to return to be interviewed by Clayton Meyers, who headed up the Improved Methods Department that measured and analyzed work activities.  I was taken by the personnel geek to meet Mr. Myers who was a very nice man.  We sat down in his office and he looked over my application and some other papers.

He sad, "Lord Almighty, that is one hell of a LOMA score.  I always thought mine was pretty good, but not anymore.  That has to be a record".

Spoken like a man who hasn't put in his 10,000 hours.