Slim is a man of few pastimes, apart from baseball, which attracts him because of his passion for statistics.  His favorite team is the New York Yankees.  He can recall obscure statistics, such as Sandy Koufax’s minimum number of strikeouts per inning or the batting averages of the stars of the Negro leagues.  Occasionally, he publishes rhapsodic articles about the sport.  “The numbers speak on a limitless diamond: of memory, imagination, the making of legends,” he wrote in 1999.  “The love of the game has a new beginning; the mind is once again at play.” [emphasis mine, obviously]