Danny Duffy was in the fifth grade when he began to track the weather in his hometown of Lompoc, Calif. And at first, it was just kind of a fad. A local meteorologist had visited his school. A 9-year-old boy was mesmerized by the weather patterns of El Niño. A somewhat nerdy hobby was born.
But pretty soon, the interest kept growing, and Duffy, the future ace of the Royals’ rotation, wanted to learn more. So he found a spiral notebook and began to fill it up with numbers and trends, taking a turn as an amateur Al Roker.