Hal Stern's thoughts on the economy, software, services, technology, and snowmen. Hal Stern: The Morning Snowman

As a pre-teen, I only wanted to be an astronomer as an adult. While most of my friends wanted to play for the Mets (the Yankees were not in dynasty form at that time), or be policemen, I wanted to study the skies. Fittingly, the last - and most lasting - piece of education I received was delivered by Gillian Knapp, astrophysics professor, in a course I took partly because of that childhood interest. What she said has colored my views on religion, science, mathematics and yes, sports.

Professor Knapp's final lecture concerned the infinite nature of the universe. In an infinite, ever-expanding universe, all possibilities must exist, because, well, the possibilities are infinite. It's that old completeness versus consistency thing, if you're a Godel fan; if not, don't think about it because many 19th and 20th century mathemeticians who studied the infinite ended up with serious mental issues. I digress, of course, because Professor Knapp's point differentiated the enumeration of the possible states of the universe (variations in her sweater color, class reaction at the end of her lecture, and so on) from the implication of the infinite. In a truly infinite universe, anything is possible. There is always hope. Sometimes the path to the desired possible state takes 86 years, but there must, always, be hope.

The Red Sox have reversed the Curse of the Bambino. And in some small way, the legend of the man who was larger than life was overturned by one who lives life smaller than those around him: Theo Epstein, general manager of the Red Sox. Theo is a nerd. I make the bold claim because Theo is an acolyte of the Billy Beane religion of baseball management, chronicled in Michael Lewis' bestselling "Moneyball". Beane ball is not the chin music of beanball but the brain music of applying statistics and science to baseball. The effects of one 1918 management decision were undone by pointing to a spreadsheet rather than right field.

In addition to Beane and Epstein there's Paul DePodesta, former junior Beane and this season's new general manager in Dodgertown. Yes, the Dodgers, who also made it to the post-season for the first time in a while. There is hope for every stat nerd who gets hung from the locker hooks by his jockstrap: you may have a future in management.

The Red Sox brought home the World Series hardware in part because of science, but also with large doses of heart, teamwork, and fun. Scott's mantra for Sun employees has been "kick butt and have fun;" now there's evidence the aphorism has broad applications.