Aside from the fact that I am a big baseball fan, my wife loves eBay, and consumer-driven health care happens to be my field of employment, I would say - nothing! At least that is what I would have said yesterday.

I am a Yankees fan. I know very little about eBay. And I work in the health insurance arena. In other words, I am not very popular at cocktail parties. What I did not realize, however, until listening to a presentation today, is that these three seemingly independent subjects can provide very interesting commentary on the state of consumerism in our industry.

Many baseball fans may remember a pitcher by the name of Tommy John who played for both the Dodgers and the Yankees during his 26-year career in the majors. Even if you didn't know that Tommy John was a pitcher, you may be familiar with a fairly common type of elbow surgery that bears his name. It all started in the middle of the 1974 season, when Tommy permanently damaged the ligaments in his pitching arm. But instead of being forced into early retirement, Tommy underwent a revolutionary surgery that succeeded in repairing his ligaments, thereby granting him a full recovery and allowing him to pitch for another fourteen years and win another 164 games. The surgery and his recovery were considered so miraculous that the operation was named after him and has since been referred to as the "Tommy John" surgery.