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Ripple effect

The problems caused a ripple effect at airports in other cities, including Montreal, where most Air Canada flights from Toronto and one to Toronto have been cancelled, while most other arrivals were delayed.

- Air Canada blames ‘higher than usual’ bookoffs for delays, CBC News, March 18, 2017.

3. In A memorable scene from the 1994 film “Dumb and Dumber”, Jim Carrey’s character asks his love interest to assess the probability of their becoming a couple. “Not good”, she responds. “Not good, like, one out of a hundred?”, he presses her, seeking statistical precision. “I’d say more like one out of a million,” comes the reply. Mr Carrey then concludes jubilantly: “So you’re telling me there’s a chance. Yeah!” Such logic may indeed be dumb when applied to romance. However, after what may well have been the most improbable confluence of events to occur in a professional sport within a single day in history, it seems an entirely apt description of baseball.

Let’s turn back the clock a few weeks. On September 3rd the Boston Red Sox had a won-lost record of 84-54, while the team behind them, the Tampa Bay Rays, was at 75-63. According to the calculations at coolstandings.com, that gave Boston a 99.6% chance of making the postseason tournament. Five days later, the Atlanta Braves’ record was 84-60, while that of their rivals, the St Louis Cardinals, was 76-67. Atlanta was then 98.4% likely to advance to the playoffs.