Three is Everywhere

What is your favorite number? Ask that question of a group of people and you will get a range of different answers. They are as varied as the individuals asked. My favorite number is three. I found over time that three keeps coming up in too many places for it merely to be a coincidence. Being a math major and practicing probabilistic risk assessment for many years taught me to be skeptical of coincidences. Let me give you a quirky example.

My late father's birthday was December 9th. My first son was born on December 9th. My late father-in-law's birthday was December 9th. Two people in a family with the same birthday is not all that rare. But, three is just a bit much. (There is a classic mathematical rationale why any group of 30 or more people is likely to have two people with the same birthday, but I digress.) My wife and I joke that God was trying to tell us something but we were two thick-headed to listen. When my wife came out of the bathroom holding the EPT test strip in her hand that showed she was pregnant, we were overjoyed. Then came the doctor visit for the ultrasound and not one, not two, but three babies present. Oh boy! We walked around in shock for a few days trying to figure out how we were going to handle having triplets and finally decided it was a Nike moment – Just Do It. So, on 11/11/1996 she gave birth to three wonderful children at the Franklin Square Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.

But that wasn't the end of the eeriness. As it turns out, no one carries triplets to term these days; it is too risky. So doctors perform Caesarian Section births about a month early for safety's sake. That's right, if they had been carried to full term, they would have been born on December 9th. Now if you are humming the theme song from "The Twilight Zone" right about now, you're correct. But it gets weirder.

Franklin Square Hospital had experienced a triplet birth a few years earlier. And one of the two doctors performing our delivery was also there for the birth of that previous set of triplets. But, instead of standing by the operating table during delivery, she was on the table giving birth to triplets.

You just can't make this stuff up. So, the number three had a big impact on my psyche. The more I looked around the more I saw the number three. Here are a few examples.

1. Ever try to sit on a one-legged stool? OK, if you're a member of Cirque du Soleil you can probably do a one-armed hand stand on a one-legged stool and contort your body into unimaginable positions while beautiful music plays amid a laser light show; but most of us in the real world can't do that.

2. We live in a three-dimensional world. I have a height, width, and unfortunately more "depth" than I care to admit.

3. Christians believe in a Triune God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit).

4. The mission statement of the U. S. Naval Academy (which we all had to memorize on our first day there) is "To develop Midshipmen morally, mentally, and physically and to imbue them with the highest ideals of duty, honor, and loyalty in order to graduate leaders who are dedicated to a career of naval service and have potential for future development in mind and character to assume the highest responsibilities of command, citizenship, and government" Notice the three sets of threes: morally, mentally, and physically; along with duty, honor, and loyalty; and command, citizenship and government.

5. Three way communication – command, echo, acknowledgment.

6. Comedy (Larry, Curly, and Moe – the Three Stooges).

7. Baseball – Three strikes and you're out; three outs per at bat.

8. Really old baseball – Tinker to Evers to Chance.

9. Music – Three Coins in a Fountain, Three Dog Night.

10. Movies – The Three Faces of Eve, The Three Amigos.

The list could go on for quite a while but you get the gist. An interesting story about one of the entries above. Some baseball historians believe that the Chicago Cubs of the early 1900s were the best team in all of baseball history. In fact, it was in 1908 that the Cubs last won a World Series title. They had an amazing double play combination during those years of shortstop Tinker, second baseman Evers, and first baseman Chance. They became famous not just for their fielding exploits, but because the Cubs were from the "Second City" of America and they kept beating the beloved Giants of New York (the undisputed First City of America). The New York sportswriters were so upset that one penned a poem that ended up cementing their legacy.

    Baseball's Sad Lexicon

    These are the saddest of possible words:
    "Tinker to Evers to Chance."
    Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,
    Tinker and Evers and Chance.
    Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,
    Making a Giant hit into a double –
    Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:
    "Tinker to Evers to Chance."

Leadership Lesson – Mission vs. Personality

Now you are probably wondering what this has to do with leadership, so an explanation is in order. Tinker's and Evers' feelings for one another went way beyond dislike. They despised one another. They even came to blows on the field in 1905. Nowadays, we have all seen the replays on ESPN where a fight breaks out at a ball game and both benches empty and the bullpen players rush in from the outfield, etc. Imagine the poor guys on the other team witnessing this fight. "Hey look, a fight, let's go!" cries one voice from the bench. As people begin to exit the bench a voice answers, "Wait a minute, that's Tinker and Evers fighting." "Well what are we supposed to do now?" Cue the music for "Ripley's Believe It or Not"!

If you know much about baseball, you probably know that turning the double play is one of the riskier events in a game wherein your health is totally dependent on the good will of the person trying to "break up the double play" and the person trying to provide the ball to the "turner" so they can complete the play without the need of an orthopedic surgeon. In the early days of baseball when people like Ty Cobb were notorious for coming into second base with "spikes up" (and in Cobb's case, sometimes sharpened), getting the ball there just a bit late or in the wrong spot could end a player's career. So the fact that these two players who hated each other's guts were willing to do what was necessary to win despite their personal feelings says a lot about their dedication to their team and the game.

They feuded for years and would not speak to one another except as necessary in the course of a game. Only 33 years later when both were asked to appear on a radio broadcast (where neither one knew the other was invited) did they...