Leading Winning Teams

2Lessons That Transcend Sports

The Underdog Story

I love the overachiever story, or the story of the underdog. They are never boring. So it always bothers me when people say, “Baseball is so boring!” For the novice who does not know most of the rules and the strategy of the game, it may look like there are a lot of people standing around for a long time. There appears to be little activity between short bouts of action. Over the years people have decided baseball is “slow” and there is a general misunderstanding of baseball's intensity. What is happening is mental and strategic warfare—there is always great intensity.

One of the major challenges in baseball is hitting—being a batter. This is often considered one of the most difficult skills of all athletic endeavors and is therefore rewarded handsomely when someone is successful 30% of the time.

A batter steps into the batter's box for what appears to be a game of one-on-one. But the pitcher invites eight of his closest friends to help reduce the risk, or eliminate the threat of the batter reaching base, by strategically coming behind him, and the batter (catcher) covering up most of the exposed areas inside the boundaries where the batter might hit the ball. The batter is scouted, and the team works in tandem through their alignment to eliminate the threat to the best of their ability. It becomes a one-versus-nine scenario and the odds become increasingly poor for the batter.

The other significant challenge is that the batter ...