What the heck is the connection between baseball and investing? Read on and find out from Warren Buffett how you can become a home run investor all the time.

1. Buffett, Investing & Baseball
By Jae Jun
www.oldschoolvalue.com

2. What You Will Learn
● Why Buffett loves baseball
● What investing has to do with baseball
● Tips you can learn from baseball
● How to become an investing homerun hero

3. Foreword
What do all these things have in common?
Buffett and investing definitely go together, but how does
baseball fit in? Buffett, a fan of baseball, regularly uses
baseball analogies to compare his investment methods.

4. In the investment world, where Mr Market is the
pitcher, Buffett is one of the best batters in the world.
As always, Buffett is kind enough to share his
techniques and strategy to all those that listen.
Marks of a truly great sportsman.

5. Player, Manager, Coach, Spectator
To a lot of people, especially to those starting out, investing
is considered daunting, time intensive and difficult. True.

6. Not everyone is capable of saying they were born
with natural investing talent, and not everyone is
capable of saying they were born to play baseball.
Some are better at managing and some are better
at coaching.

7. First you have to figure out what type of player
you are. If you get giddy with losing even a
couple of dollars, constantly fret over the market
fluctuations or just blindly follow the herd,
investing in index funds will do you more good.
However, I think most of the people reading this
would be players.

8. Slugger
Sluggers are great fun to watch. They bring in crowds,
create noise in the stadium and they carry aura and a
sense of expectation.

9. Now sluggers are huge crowd pleasers, but I believe
they fail to create that return to the spectators more
often than they do.

10. It seems to be the same with investors.
Ever heard the phrase “I just need to find the
next Microsoft or Google”?

11. I too was subject to this type of thinking until
Buffett kindly intervened.
A majority of people look for and chase
opportunities just because they think it has
potential.

12. All pitches have the potential to
be a homer, but actually getting
a homer off it is a different story.

13. Home Run Hero
I define slugger and home run hitters a bit
differently.
Sluggers will mostly swing at anything.

14. Home Run hitters wait
patiently for the perfect fat
pitch to swing at.
To me Buffett is a Home
Run Hero. Much like Babe
Ruth.

15. Buffett told CNBC
“What’s nice about investing is you don’t have to
swing at pitches. You can watch pitches come in
one inch above or one inch below your navel and
you don’t have to swing. No umpire is going to
call you out. You can wait for the pitch you want.”

16. This quote reflects the style of Ted
Williams, whom Buffett refers to quite
frequently.

17. The reason behind
Williams success is that
he had the discipline and
patience to wait for the
pitches that were exactly
in his hitting zone.

18. Williams divided his strike zone into 77
cells and swung at only the pitches that
flew through his best hitting cells.

19. Betting On A Sure Thing
Buffett himself only waits for the “straight fat
pitch”, and when he gets it, he bets big. Wall
Street thinks otherwise.

20. If you bet 10 times at a casino table
where the odds are 10-1 for you,
obviously you will bet huge each
time.

21. The final result will have you win handsomely and with little risk.
This seems to be a concept people find hard to comprehend.

22. Buffett has the conviction and
was able to bet 40% of his
capital in his purchase of
AMEX during the whole salad
dressing debacle.

23. However, a lot of people think that was risky
and a big gamble.
That is understandable. What Buffett did
took a lot of guts.

24. “I didn’t become a
billionaire by chasing after
mediocre opportunities.”
Charlie Munger

25. Single Hitter
● Many people succeed in the market by
constantly hitting singles.
● What I mean by single hitting is going after
the sure opportunities more frequently.

26. ● Accumulating these singles win the
game.
● In the game of baseball, constant
singles win the game, the division
championship and the world series.

27. Taking singles also requires strict discipline.
As an investor, we must always work within
our circle of competence and do it the right
way over and over again. We don’t want our
emotions or minds to become clouded.

28. All Star
Whether you are a home run hitter or single
hitter, discipline is required in order to
succeed.

29. As long as you maintain
discipline, go after the sure
hits and don’t do a lot of
things wrong, you will
ultimately end up as an All-
Star elite.

30. “Investors should be more like
pilots; always checking their
checklist prior to taking off.”
Charlie Munger

31. Jae Jun (jae.jun@oldschoolvalue.com)
http://www.oldschoolvalue.com
Old School Value improves your investment
decisions and performs deep fundamental analysis
and valuation for you. Just like a personal stock
analyst.