How Math Can Defeat Bullies
Impressed by this extraordinarily bad ERA, I mentioned it diffidently to my teacher during a class discussion of sports. He looked pained and annoyed and sarcastically asked me to explain the fact to my class. Being quite shy, I did so with a quavering voice, a shaking hand, and a reddened face. (A strikeout in self-confidence.) When I finished, he almost bellowed that I was confused and wrong and that I should sit down.
An overweight coach and gym teacher with a bulbous nose, he asserted that ERA’s could never be higher than 27, the number of outs in a complete game.
For good measure he cackled derisively.
.. Later that season, the Milwaukee Journal published the averages of all the Braves players. Since this pitcher hadn’t pitched again, his ERA was 135, as I had calculated. I remember thinking then of mathematics as a kind of omnipotent protector. I was small and quiet and he was large and loud. But I was right and I could show him. This thought and the sense of power it instilled in me was exciting. So, still smarting from my earlier humiliation, I brought in the newspaper and showed it to him. He gave me a threatening look and again told me to sit down. His idea of good education apparently was to make sure everyone remained seated. I did sit down but this time with a slight smile on my face.
We both knew I was right and he was wrong.
Oddly, this particular teacher did give me a potent reason to study mathematics that I think is underrated: show kids that with it and logic, a few facts, and a bit of psychology you can prevail over blowhards no matter your age or size.
.. It seemed obvious to me that an atom couldn’t think, and so I “thought” that this proved that humans couldn’t think either.