When you combine these analyses with marketing-campaign data for ticketing and merchandise, simple questions can get interesting, and the effort to seek insight from these data troves can get complicated.

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The trick is to keep it interesting and fun-but simple.

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You quickly learn that if your explanation is not simple to understand or interesting, they are going to move on and talk to someone else.

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Whether because of his interesting backstory, his funky pitches, or the simple fact that the guy has been winning and giving hope to a fan base that was devoid of such when contemplating their 2012 chances of contending in the National League East, the Dickey Effect upon attendance is very real.

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