The first baseball card I vividly remember receiving was the infamous 1989 Fleer Bill Ripken Error Card. You would think I would remember it because of the words “F*ck Face” written in big, bold lettering on the bat knob in the photo, but surprisingly it wasn’t. 

For years my family had a tradition where on Christmas, my brother and I would receive a complete set of Topps baseball cards from that year. This tradition had gone back to many years before I was born, probably to some time in the mid 80s when my dad would get a complete set from the convenience store my grandpa owned. In 2020 however, beside my box of baseball cards was an individual card in a plastic case, the Bill Ripken card. As soon as I grabbed the card, I was already looking at the stats on the back. I analyzed them in my mind for at least a minute thinking, “Hey, a .308 batting average in 234 at-bats isn’t that bad for a rookie. Wait… what happened the next year? He dropped more than 100 average points in his second big league year to a .207? That's interesting.”

In that moment, underneath the Christmas Tree, was when my love of statistics first started to bud out. 

For weeks after Christmas I spent hours of my day in my freezing basement sorting through thousands of baseball cards. I would sort by team, name, and position. Most often though, I sorted them based on different statistics. For example, one pile would consist of players with more than 100 home runs and another pile would consist of players with a batting average over .250. In between them sat a pile with cards of players that achieved both of these stats. Intricate networks of cards snaked across the carpet connecting common stats to stats the average person doesn’t even know like WAR (Wins Above Replacement). Around this time was when I watched the movie Moneyball for the first time, and man did that just invoke my interest in stats even more. I wanted to be Billy Beane, the Oakland Athletics’ General Manager in Moneyball, with every ounce of my being. He found a new sort of algorithm to win games aside from the traditional standards and won plenty of games with it in the first seasons it was implemented.  His famous quote, “How can you not get romantic about baseball?” summarized my passion into a single rhetorical question.

The statistics fascinated me. They made me think. They weren’t just numbers like they seemed to the naked eye. They could be used to predict outcomes of games or to predict a player’s production; as well as for a competitive advantage and to change the game of baseball just as Billy Beane had.

 In my future, I see that statistics and analysis can be used in all sorts of industries and fields, and while it’d be great to work in sports, I’ve learned that my interest in stats doesn’t just end there. The science used in analyzing baseball stats can apply in business settings which invokes even more interest on how simple data affects multi-billion dollar corporations.

 I don’t spend hours on end looking at and sorting cards any more, but when I do have free time every once in a while I grab the Bill Ripken card. I quickly glance over the swear word on the knob and just admire the numbers on the simple piece of cardstock with a picture on it that exposed my love for statistics. I’ve learned that all anyone really needs is a little push in a certain direction (in this case a baseball card and movie) to expose a new passion; as well as that simple numbers really do have meanings and are powerful in finding patterns in life.