Steve the Owl's Blog

The World Series came to an end on Monday, with the San Francisco Giants upsetting the heavily-favored Texas Rangers four games to one for their tenth World Series title (equalling the St. Louis Cardinals for second all time), and the first since 1954, when they were still the New York Giants, and a team led by Willie Mays’ famous catch in Game One propelled them to an upset of the Cleveland Indians, winners of 111 games in the regular season, in four straight games.

In order to commemorate the World Series, a read an excellent book by Ron White, the famed motivational speaker and memory coach, 22 Success Lessons from Baseball. After reading this excellent book (which is pretty short, and can be knocked out in less than two hours), I thought of some lessons from baseball that I didn’t see in the book that I thought I would share with you.

Never Too Late

There is some allusion in the book to the fact that one thing that sets baseball apart from just about every other sport is that there is no clock. One of the quotes in the book states that this means that it is impossible to stall and play keep-away, because every team gets its fair turn to score. I saw this in evidence in Game One of this year’s American League Championship Series (ALCS) between the Texas Rangers and the New York Yankees. The Yankees sent their top pitcher, CC Sebathia, to the mound against the high-powered Texas offense. He left the game early, and the Yankees trailed the game 5-0 after seven innings. However, the Yankees have the best relief pitching in baseball, and they shut out the Rangers after Sebathia left. Then, the Rangers’ bullpen imploded and the Yankees scored six runs in the eighth inning to take a 6-5 lead, which they turned over to the greatest closer in the history of the game, Mariano Rivera, and the score held. This shows that it is never too late to enjoy success, as long as we never give up.

Know Your Teammate’s Roles

One of the more interesting displays in the playoffs came in Game Four of the National League Championship Series (NLCS) between the San Francisco Giants and the Philadelphia Phillies. In that game, knowing that he had a pretty depleted bullpen, Charlie Manuel, the Phillies manager, called upon Roy Oswalt, the Number Two starting pitcher in the rotation, to pitch the ninth inning with the game tied at 5-5, hoping to turn the ball over to Brad Lidge, the closer, in the tenth inning if the Phillies could score in the top of the tenth. Oswalt managed to get two outs, but the second out was a sacrifice fly, allowing the winning run to score, and the Giants to take a commanding 3-1 series lead. This happened because of the difference between a starting pitcher and a relief pitcher. This is nothing against Oswalt, who pitched brilliantly in a Game Two win and a Game Six no-decision. However, a starting pitcher uses more pitches and often settles into a game as he sees a batter several times. A closer uses only one or two pitches, and has to come out of the gate with his best stuff. Because he was used to settling into a game, Oswalt had difficulty with his first two batters, and that was enough. If Manuel would have used Oswalt in the eighth inning, and used Ryan Madson, who normally acted as the set-up man (the relief pitcher who usually pitches in the seventh and/or eighth inning as a bridge between the starter and closer in close games if the starter pitches seven innings or less) for Lidge, the results might have been different. In our own teams, we each have players who have their own roles, and putting people in the wrong role is often a recipe for disaster.

Know the Fundamentals

The reason the Texas Rangers were so heavily favored in this year’s World Series was their offense. It is true that they also had Cliff Lee, the best postseason pitcher of 2009, who dominated in the American League playoffs as well, but the Giants were a team that relied almost exclusively on its pitching, as attested by their .238 team batting average, far and away the lowest of any of the eight teams that qualified for the playoffs. However, I went against the grain and picked the Giants because of their excellent pitching. I did so because great pitching almost always beats great hitting in the World Series. The Giants knew this as well, and they built their team around the most important foundation, and this gave them the edge that was hard to see on highlight reels, but one that was enough. How many times are you building your first priority first?

The Paradox of Baseball

This is one of my all-time favorite baseball statistics. Did you know that the same pitcher has the record for wins and losses? Cy Young won 511 games in his career (Walter Johnson is second at 417, and the two pitchers tied for third, Grover Cleveland Alexander and Christy Mathewson, are at 373, a full 138 games behind Young) and he lost 316. To put that number in perspective, only sixteen pitchers have won that many games, including Young. Also, the career strikeout leader, Nolan Ryan (5714) has far and away more walks than any other pitcher (2795). This is because these records were earned by people who worked hard and went out there over and over again. It was their dedication to be the best and do the hard work required that gave their managers the faith to put them on the mound in the rotation year in and year out, and they succeeded in ways that may never be equalled. (Because of the fact that most starting pitchers these days only get 30-35 starts a year, I think it is safe to say that the win record will probably never be broken.)

One of the things that has amazed me the most in the world of business is the dichotomy between those who seem to try to make things too difficult, and those who try to make them too easy. I think that the steps themselves to success in business are pretty basic, although some of them definitely take know-how, and we cannot ignore the fact that there are some external and intangible forces that must always be accounted for. It is times like these when I am reminded of something my sixth-grade teacher said in math class that has given me a lot of confidence whenever I think about it:

Every addition problem ultimately breaks down to nothing bigger than “what is nine plus nine?” There may be a lot of steps, but this is what it is at its most basic.

The more I thought about that, the more that I realized what a profound statement that really was. Of course, in a room full of 11- and 12-year-olds, we did not realize what he meant at the time, and some of the people who had difficulty with math really seemed offended by his statement. Then, he explained it by putting a math problem on the board, and his statement was right, because any two numbers that you added was a series of additions with basic elements that were no more than 9+9, no matter how big the number got.

What This Means for Business

I am not trying to see that the world of business is nothing more than adding single-digit numbers. However, at its core, there are several basic elements to any business. Look at blogs: some blogs can look pretty complicated, but once you get the hang of it, some of the plugins are extremely easy to operate and maintain. While there are definitely going to be times when there are things that we don’t understand yet, I think that we can definitely use the things that we do know and build each of them by breaking them down into smaller parts that are not so overwhelming.

How I Applied This Later

In high school, when I did track and cross-country, I had trouble in the beginning doing the run up Oakford Avenue, the steepest hill in town. Then, I was told something counterintuitive that was really surprising. I was told not to look at the top of the hill, because that would only make it seem farther away. The road was paved, so simply trust my navigation and focus on the next step. The very first time I did it, I was able to touch the steps at the top of the hill without resorting to walking once! This was another example of Nine Plus Nine Thinking (I just came up with that phrase. I don’t mind if you share, but please acknowledge that you got it from your old friend Steve ) at work. After all, the elements of running are really simple, and it involved lots of smaller actions, but the end result was the same.

Even Easier Than School

Still, despite such advice, there are some people who are not as good in math at others. There are also going to be some people who are better at marketing and blogging than others. However, we don’t have to have the perfect blog in order to make our business work. All we really have to do is have the basic tools in place. Something else that I’ve noticed is that so many bloggers are more than happy to share the basics with others for free. With that in mind, I know that nothing is too difficult, and I know that in time I will reach my goals because everything that we need can be broken down to its most basic element where it can be understood.