Harvard University

It hit me like a freight train, or, more appropriately, a Boeing 737: I just missed my flight. “My boarding pass says that my flight for Tampa leaves from this gate! Please, can they hold the plane?” I frantically plead with the gate attendant, nearly bursting into tears. “How could this have happened?” It was hard to admit, but I had gotten lost: not lost in the airport, but completely lost and submerged in a sea of data. This journey began a year earlier, when I read an article from a July 2011 issue of The New Yorker about Tampa Bay Rays’ outfielder Sam Fuld. Despite being a die-hard Red…