Altoona Mirror, September 24, 2017

Sports statistics are everywhere. The explosion is so profound, we're all lucky decimal points are round and less dangerous as shrapnel.
When Bob Prince called the Pirates games a million years ago, he wouldn't even give a batting average for the first six weeks of the season. Instead, he'd offer a speech about how the averages jumped around so much that they were meaningless that early in the season.
He was espousing the idea of "small sample size" without ever meaning to. The Old Gunner's idea of small sample size was a shot glass only half filled with vodka, but forgive the digression.
Given Prince's minimalist approach, it's easy to understand why the audience was so jolted when Milo Hamilton replaced him. Milo loved numbers like a CPA, and had a compulsion to share them.
He would not only tell listeners what Phil Garner was hitting on April 14, he would break it down into lefthander-righthander, home-road, starter-reliever and whatever other categories were handy.
Computers and independent researchers made the numbers expand. If there wasn't a stat to illustrate the point, they would create one. Welcome, WAR, OPS, WHIP and all their upper case brethren.
Some of them have fallen into common use while others remain arcane.
NFL broadcasts now bombard viewers even though the sport is more of a collaborative effort than baseball and doesn't have the constant one-on-one drumbeat that establishes a context.
The Steelers play in Chicago today and one of the local TV guys somberly noted that the Bears hold a 12-1 edge in those games, "all-time." It really is "all time," a time when George Halas prowled the sideline, when Gale Sayers galloped through a lousy Steelers defense and Dick Butkus frightened Steelers linemen with his savage approach to the game.
None of that will have any relevance today, considering that Halas died in 1993, Sayers retired because of hopelessly wrecked knees almost 50 years ago and Butkus is still mean but wobbly as his 75th birthday approaches.
If the Steelers have any problems with the Bears today, dusty ghosts from old ledgers won't be among them.
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--ON THE MEND AGAIN
When you have one of those seasons where very little goes right, even the smallest details work against you.
The health care giant that partners with the Prates has been running commercials for a lot of the season. They brag about how the group's superior care is helping to keep injured players like Francisco Cervelli and Josh Harrison on the field.
Both Cervelli and Harrison are finishing the season on the disabled list.
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--SIMPLY THE BEST
Nobody does PR like Sidney Crosby.
Every year, he drives to the home of some Penguins season ticket buyer to deliver the tickets. He says hello to everybody, he signs autographs, he poses for pictures, he goes out in the driveway and plays street hockey with the kids.
He would probably edge the lawn if someone asked. He just does it. He never tells the Penguins, "Aw, Kris Letang can do it this year."
For all of the marvelous things he's done on the ice, his most amazing feat is getting through 12 years of a very public life without one behavioral misstep.
Credit to him, obviously, and to his parents, Troy and Trina Crosby.
(John Mehno can be reached at: johnmehnocolumn@gmail.com)