30 investing lessons from Ted Williams's 1970 book, "The Science of Hitting"
Investing lessons that we can learn from one of the greats in baseball.
Ted Williams - one of the greatest hitters in baseball
Ted Williams is widely regarded as one of the greatest hitters in baseball history and was the last player to hit over .400 in a season in 1941. His baseball lifetime stats are astonishing: a .344 batting average, 521 home runs and a .482 on-base percentage. He was probably baseball’s first quant when he wrote the “The Science of Hitting.”
While researching my previous article, “Batting average versus slugging average in investing,” I devoured Ted Williams's book in one sitting. Ted’s insights are not just theoretical but practical and applicable, making it a must-read for anyone interested in baseball and its parallels to investing.
Below are my favourite quotes from Ted William’s book. I try to relate these practical baseball parallels to the world of stock investing, providing actionable insights for readers.
My 30 Investing Lessons from Ted Williams
1 | Hitting a baseball is easy. But to really hit, it is tough, and very few do it well, and to do well, one really requires dedication.
“Hitting a baseball, I’ve said it a thousand times—is the single most difficult thing to do in sport.”
”Everybody knows how to hit—but very few really do.”
”Hitting is the most important part of the game; it is where the big money is, where much of the status is, and the fan interest.”
Most hitting faults came from a lack of knowledge, uncertainty and fear—and that boils down to knowing yourself. You, the hitter, are the greatest variable in this game, because to know yourself takes dedication.
➡️ There are very few excellent investors who can outperform and beat the market. Most of them really know themselves and what game they are playing, and they are highly dedicated to mastering it, and eventually, they do well.
2 | Hitting can be improved once you know what it takes to be a good hitter, from theory to mechanics to application
“I think hitting can be improved at almost any level, and my intention is to show how, and what I think it takes to be a good hitter, even a .400 hitter if the conditions are ever right again— from the theory to the mechanics to the application.”
➡️ I believe one’s investing performance too can be improved if one learns from first principles to mastering the psychological aspects of it
3 | Though it is a science, it is not an exact science
“If there is such a thing as a science in sport, hitting a baseball is it. As with any science, there are fundamentals, certain tenets of hitting every good batter or batting coach could tell you. But it is not an exact science. Much of it has been poorly defined, or not defined at all, and some things have been told wrong for years.”
➡️ Investing too is both a science and an art; once you understand the science, you can go only to master the art of it and yet know what is seemingly conventional but wrong.
4 | You learn from actual batting practice; that’s how you improve.
“Most players hit with those golf gloves, to begin with, but more important, they don’t take as much batting practice—as much extra batting practice, and that’s how you learn.”
“So he got left-handers to throw him curve ball after curve ball in practice. Every day the same thing. He wound up hitting .300 or better seven years in a row. That’s the kind of dedication I’m talking about.”
➡️ Long hours of actual practice is how one improves; only with real experience and real money vested in it can you get real-life experience.
5 | Three rules in baseball - (1) good ball to hit, (2) proper thinking and (3) be quick with the bat
“There are three things I would emphasize to any hitter before even considering the rudiments of a good swing.”
“To get a good ball to hit. The first rule in the book.”
“The second is something you must always take up there with you: proper thinking. Have you done your homework? What’s this guy’s best pitch? What did he get you out on last time?”
“The third thing is to be quick with the bat. It applies all the time, and I’ll tell you ways to increase your quickness.”
➡️ Wait for a suitable investment to come your way; don’t force them. Be thoughtful about your evaluation of it as an investment. Once you decide, buy it, don’t keep deliberating. Time compounds the value of great companies; time erodes the value of poor companies.
6 | Don’t go and hit all the balls that come your way. Wait for good balls to hit, don’t hit with bad balls, even the greatest can’t hit bad balls good
“And the first rule of thumb is this: Don’t hit at anything you haven’t seen.”
“Pitchers still make enough mistakes to give you some in your happy zone. But the greatest hitter living can’t hit bad balls good.”
“I knew then exactly what I would say to him if I ever got the chance: the value of knowing the strike zone. The value of proper thinking at the plate. The importance of getting a good ball to hit. Of knowing when not to be too big with his swing.”
➡️ Be very patient and wait for the good balls to swing hard.
7 | There are different types of pitches that will come your way - fast balls, curve balls, knuckle balls, sliders, spitballs,
“The bad thing about the knuckle ball, of course, is that it’s not only hard to hit, it’s even hard to catch. It can be a liability if you’ve got a catcher who can’t handle it, and most catchers can’t…He’d strike guys out and they still got on base because the ball went through the catcher.”
“The slider is probably as good a pitch as there is in baseball. All hitters have trouble with the slider; Mays says it’s the toughest, Aaron says it’s the toughest. I say it’s the greatest pitch in baseball. It’s easy to learn. It’s easy to control. Immediately, it gives a pitcher a third or fourth pitch for his repertoire.”
“The spitball is the biggest piece of fiction there is. They’re always talking about the spitball. All a batter has to do is have the umpire look at the ball, because to be an effective spitter, the ball has to be loaded up good…He threw spitters all the time, and I know he had to get the ball gobbered up with that slippery elm, and the more he got on it, the better it was.”
➡️ In real life, there are many kinds of companies for you to invest in that will keep swinging your way. We think 99% of companies are not worth investing in, and only a tiny list of companies that more or less fit what we are looking for.
8 | A hitter starts to realise where his happy zones are that they likes to hit in, to wait for specific pitches, in his sweet spot and strike zone
“A hitter learns in time where his happy zones are. There isn’t a hitter living who can hit a high ball as well as he can a low, or vice-versa, or outside as well as inside. All hitters have areas they like to hit in. But you can’t beat the fact that you’ve got to get a good ball to hit.”
“Hitting is 50 per cent from the neck up. You are not just “taking” pitches, you are taking specific pitches. You learn from them.”
“Since some players are better high-ball hitters than low-ball hitters, or better outside than in; each batter should work out his own set of percentages. But more important, each should learn the strike zone, because once pitchers find a batter is going to swing at bad pitches he will get nothing else.”
➡️ After some time (years), when you start to realise where your sweet spot and preferred strike zone is, your success percentages begin to edge higher over time.
9 | You will know when you have a perfect pitch to hit all; you will know the feel of it.
“Ty Cobb once said, “Ted Williams sees more of the ball than any man alive—but he demands a perfect pitch. He takes too many bases on balls.” I didn’t resent that. I’m sure Cobb thought he was right. What is “seeing”? I had 20-10 vision.”
“A lot of guys can see that well. I sure couldn’t read labels on revolving phonograph records as people wrote I did. I couldn’t “see” the bat hit the ball, another thing they wrote, but I knew by the feel of it. A good carpenter doesn’t have to see the head of the hammer strike the nail but he still hits it square every time.”
➡️ If you have been investing well for a long time with your defined strategy, you will be able to tell near-perfect pitches from others when they come your way. You will know it, and you can feel it.
10 | There will be bad calls, you can’t do anything about it. You are far better forgetting it, and concentrating on the next pitch.
“It’s very likely that once you’ve made yourself sensitive to the strike zone, you’ll be a little more conscious of what you think are bad calls by the umpire. But don’t waste your time arguing with umpires. Number one, you can’t do anything about it. Two, they’re not that far wrong the majority of the time. I would say umpires are capable of calling a ball within an inch of where it is. As a hitter, I felt I could tell within a half-inch. There is no question that some strikes are called balls, and some balls are called strikes, but you’re far better off forgetting the calls that hurt you and concentrating on that next pitch, or that next turn at bat. If you’ve struck out on a ball you thought was bad, don’t argue.”
➡️ You will have bad swings, losers, and get it wrong. Not always, you will get it right. More often than not, the market tends to get it more right than you think over the long term.
11 | Start recognising patterns with a framework to guess better rather than guess blindly. Develop the discipline to wait for the good balls to hit.
“Obviously, you don’t just “guess” curve or “guess” fast ball. You work from a frame of reference, you learn what you might expect in certain instances, and you guess from there.”
“Certainly if you are the kind of impatient hitter who will swing at anything at any time you will do yourself no good guessing at all because with that kind of latitude a pitcher will throw you nothing good to hit. But if you have developed discipline at the plate, and can wait for that good ball to hit, you have a right to think along with the pitcher, and you will surprise yourself how often you outguess him.”
➡️ You cannot just try and guess blindly. There has to be a disciplined framework and strategy to it. Without one, you cannot learn and improve.
12 | You need to do your homework to allow you to guess and to anticipate the pitches that come your way for you to decide to swing and hit
“Proper thinking” is 50% of effective hitting, and it is more than just doing your homework on a pitcher or studying the situation in a game. It is “anticipating,” too, when you are at the plate, and a lot of hitters will say that is college talk for “guessing” and some will be heard to say in a loud voice, “don’t do it!” They’re wrong. Guessing, or anticipating, goes hand in hand with proper thinking. A simple example: If a pitcher is throwing fast balls and curves and only the fast balls are in the strike zone, you would be silly to look for a curve, wouldn’t you?”
“Well, you’ve got to guess, you’ve got to have an idea. All they ever write about the good hitters is what great reflexes they have, what great style, what strength, what quickness, but never how smart the guy is at the plate, and that’s 50% of it. From the ideas come the “proper thinking,” and the “anticipation,” the “guessing.”
➡️ You need to do your homework, spend time doing the research, evaluate all points of view, both the good and the bad, write your thesis, and then make a decision.
13 | Make your pitcher pitch so you have information, and eventually, they will give you the pitch you want
“You must learn to make that first time up a key time by striving to find out as much about a pitcher as possible, and you do that by making him pitch. It’s simple arithmetic: You figure to face a pitcher at least three or four times in a game. The more information you log the first time up, the better your chances the next three. The more you make him pitch, the more information you get.”
“The best hitters can take care of the whole strike zone, but then all have certain spots they hit better in. If you start going out of your area, you’re just helping the pitcher. The very best pitchers would have a hard time throwing the ball consistently in a foot square. That’s about their limit. You make them work, make them throw curves, fast balls, sliders, and they will eventually miss and give you the opening you want. So: Make the pitcher pitch.”
➡️ You can see companies' past track records. The past usually provides us with some clues as to what the future could look like. It can be wrong, but one has a higher chance with it than without it.
14 | You need to learn how to anticipate the different pitches and hit them, not hitting every ball that is obviously to you
“The point, of course, is that you can’t beat a good hitter with the same pitch every time.”
“One of Mike Epstein’s problems has been learning to anticipate. He practices as much and as hard as anybody on our club, but he wasn’t practicing the right way. He was having the pitcher in ordinary batting practice tell him what was coming, rather than make a game of it and try to hit anything he saw. I watched him put on a helluva exhibition one day, slamming balls up in the seats, really crashing them, but he called for every pitch.”
“I didn’t say anything then, but the next day I said, “You know, Mike, I could go out there right now as old as I am and do the same thing you did if I know what’s coming. What you did was worthless, and it gets you into bad habits besides. Don’t tell the pitcher what to throw, learn to hit anything you see.” I think it helped him because he had better results after that.”
➡️ Investing is all about the future. One needs to be different and right. You cannot buy what is obvious and consensus today and hope to do better than others. You need to be constantly thinking about what you are doing differently from the rest, and the right long-term game you are playing.
15 | Ted Wiliams first started off as a pitcher, so he can know how to hit
“I didn’t make a big thing about it, but I said when I took over the managership of the Senators in 1969 that I felt I could help not only the hitters but the pitchers too. Nobody ever studied that little game between the hitter and the pitcher more than I did, so if I know hitting, I must know pitching.”
“I started out as a pitcher, on the playgrounds of San Diego, was signed as a pitcher-outfielder, and even after I got to the big leagues I was exercised enough to get Joe Cronin to let me pitch a couple of innings against the Tigers one day. But the main reason I think I know pitching is that I know what made it tough for me. Hitting is 50 per cent from the neck up, and the most of what you learn concerns the pitcher.”
➡️ Stocks are part ownership stakes of businesses. You could be running a business to appreciate investing in companies. If you don’t, you can read and learn about businesses, and practise with real money.
16 | Pitchers don’t study hitters. All they are interested in is throwing the ball. The worst is a pitcher who doesn’t know where he’s throwing
“All the great hitters could hit fast balls no matter how fast the pitcher was. Average pitchers don’t spend enough time studying hitters. They concede too often to a hitter in a tough spot. Their biggest mistake is they don’t work on getting the hitter to hit what they want him to hit.”
“Very few pitchers know the game between the hitter and the pitcher, not the way a good hitter knows it. Very few know how to play certain hitters. They’re not observant, partly because of their long activity lulls.”
“I don’t say pitchers lack intelligence, but I do say most of them aren’t smart about the game. They don’t understand it as well as the players. How could they? They play once every five days. All they’re interested in is throwing the ball—turning that hip, humping up, throwing the ball.”
“This is a hitter’s guide. Pitchers don’t pick up things very easily anyway. Half of them don’t even take batting practice. And isn’t it funny? The way the game is played they represent 11 per cent of the team’s batting lineup going into a game. They should be as much concerned about their hitting as anybody.”
“They were always challenging you anyway, and they wanted to let you know they were in the park. But they were good pitchers who knew what they were doing. It’s the guy who doesn’t know where he’s throwing who really bothers you.”
➡️ Many out there are going to send you many pitches your way; you need to learn how to differentiate between who is the real deal versus the rubbish.
17 | Truly understand why a ball curves
“Half the pitchers can’t tell you why the ball curves, why it’s important to grip it across the seams a certain way to improve the curve. It’s simple enough: The more seams that spin in the direction of the pitch, the more resistance to the rotation of the pitch, the greater the curve. The curve itself ties in with Bernoulli’s principle: As speed increases, pressure decreases.”
“What happens is this: say the curve ball is thrown 80 miles an hour. On a perfectly still day the resulting wind the ball passes through is equal to that speed (the same as the wind you hit when you stick your head out the window of a moving car). The wind goes on both sides of the spinning ball, but on the top side it is buffeted by the spin itself, slowing it down. The seams also work against it.”
“On the bottom side, however, the speed is complemented by the spin of the ball. The result is a greater air speed on that side, and therefore less pressure, and that makes the ball drop or curve.”
➡️ Understand why stock markets go up over long periods and why there can be a difference over shorter periods. When you truly understand that, you can see; once you can see, you can no longer unsee.
18 | Don’t be the one who has been told the answer, but still doesn’t make an effort to really fully understand why and how
“I have to laugh. We had a young pitcher on our staff who has as much stuff as anybody—Joe Coleman. I had him at my boys’ camp in Lakeville, Massachusetts, when he was a teenager, and as I usually do, I told him what makes the ball curve, why it’s not just an optical illusion, etc., etc. I told it to him twice.”
“I didn’t see him again until the opening of spring training in 1969. One of the guys came to me the day Coleman arrived in camp. He said, “Ted, Coleman’s worried.” “Yeah?” “Yeah. Scared to death.” “Why?” “He’s afraid you’re going to ask him what makes the ball curve. He says he knows how but still isn’t sure why.”
➡️ Make an effort to study and understand why. If your surface understanding is superficial and not deep enough, luck can only carry one so far.
19 | It is about staying in the game and not bailing out
“A good hitter knows it’s part of the act; the thing he must do as long as he plays is fight to stay in there, because once he starts bailing out, the pitcher has him beaten.”
➡️ Investing can be a long-duration infinite game; it is not about who does well on any given day, month, or year, but if one can never be wiped out, you can keep doing it for decades. Focus on extending your duration to the maximum.
20 | Be alert, consider the environment, the park, the background, make corrections and adjustments
“The reason hitting a baseball is so tough is that even the best can’t hit all the balls just right. To do so is a matter of corrections every minute, in practice as well as in the game. Ground out a lot? You’re probably swinging too early. Popping up? Probably swinging late. It’s a slight upswing, remember, and when you’re late you’re under the ball, when you’re early you’re on top.”
“The batter who is alert will consider the environment, the park, the background. What kind of a day is it? Is the wind blowing a gale from centerfield? If so, it will be silly to try to hit the ball 480 feet. Strive to have more finesse that day, to exercise greater bat control, to be more conscious of hitting through the middle, of hitting line drives.”
“Is it damp and rainy? The ball you hit won’t go as far because on a damp day the air is heavier. A curve-ball pitcher will be even more effective on a heavy day. Be alert to these things.”
➡️ As much as macro matters less over the long-term, we are far more bottom-up focused. Yet we prefer prevailing and emerging long-term trends and tailwinds that our companies can ride than to be constantly headbutting into persistent headwinds.
21 | Don’t let distractions take you away from good hitting
I happen to be a nut about distractions at the plate, but I think a lot of hitters aren’t smart enough to realize how much a distraction can be a detriment to good hitting, no matter how small. A white shirt in the center-field bleachers, a house that stands out through the trees, a scoreboard in the line of vision— they can all be distractions. Shadows can disturb a hitter, and if it were up to me there would be a number of parks in baseball that would be made to turn on the lights whenever those shadows become a factor.
➡️ There will be many distractions along the way. Stay focused on the North Star at all times. Once you know what it is, don’t let others steer you away from it or distract you. Remember, energy is everything; where your attention goes, your energy flows. Don’t let your attention and energy flow away to something that will not benefit long-term.
22 | Every hitter will have their own individual unique style. The style will depend on your and must fit you, you can adopt and adjust accordingly over time
“Show me ten great hitters and I’ll show you ten different styles—Ty Cobb with his hands apart, Joe DiMaggio with his extra wide stance, Hank Greenberg with his bat flattened out, Stan Musial all coiled up in the back of the batter’s box.”
“Again, this depends on an individual’s taste, his size, his bat length, his style. Some of the best hitters did not have classic stances.”
➡️ There is no single investment style that works for everyone. There are many ways to do well. Everyone has different experiences and expertise. Know your circle of competence, what you prefer, what you are good at, and play your own game.
23 | Don’t let anyone change you. Your style is your own
“He said, “Son, whatever you do, don’t let anybody change you.” Your style is your own.”
“Now, there are all kinds of hitting styles. The style must fit the player, not the other way around. It is not a Williams or a DiMaggio or a Ruth method. It is a matter of applying certain truths of hitting to a player’s natural makeup. If you’ve got a natural talent to work with, you sure don’t try to take anything away from him. You add to what he already has, or you suggest a little adjustment.”
“Much of your style will depend on your size and strength and will determine how pitchers pitch to you. You adopt and adjust accordingly.”
➡️ Many others will tell you theirs is better. Adopt what works best for you, discard the rest, and focus on growing and improving along the way.
24 | It has to be tailored to you, be natural, and fit you
“It is more tailored to the individual, more natural. “Be natural,” Tris Speaker used to say, “it’s the most important thing.””
“Altogether, much of what you’ve done up to now has been a matter of personal preference, fitting your individual style and stance to fundamentals, of feeling comfortable and ready in the batter’s box.”
➡️ Recognise that your investment strategy is one that uniquely represents you. You can keep doing it for years and decades when you are naturally at ease.
25 | Be observant; know what you swung at, the pitch you hit or missed, and the pitcher’s pattern
It’s not really so complicated. It’s a matter of being observant, of learning through trial and error, of picking up things.
Observing that you can pick up some guys’ curve ball the moment they throw it, the way they have to really snap it off to get it going. And knowing what you’ve swung at, knowing the pitch you hit or missed. Knowing the pitcher’s pattern.
“It dumbfounded me when a batter couldn’t tell what he had hit.”
➡️ Start recognising patterns, eventually you start building a latticework of them all. You start recognising what a good investment and business looks like, and what a poor investment and business looks like. You need to be able to know
26 | No hitter can have it all
“No hitter has it all.
There probably never has been what you would call the “complete” hitter.”
➡️ There is no investor who can be great at all styles of investing. They focus.
27 | Greater hitters are not born. They are made out of practice, fault correction and confidence
“A great hitter isn’t born, he’s made. He’s made out of practice, fault correction and confidence.” Hornsby was talking about himself, I think. He had a lot of confidence. He wasn’t a very diplomatic guy. He’d come right out and say things, whatever was on his mind. If the owner of the club said something about baseball he didn’t like, Hornsby would just say, “What the hell do you know about it?” But he knew what it took to hit.”
➡️ My belief is that good investors are not born but can be made, and their journey will involve lots of practice, fault correction, and confidence.
28 | Practice, practice, practise
“I don’t think you can emphasize enough the importance of practice. When I say practice, I mean with a bat. But if he didn’t have the interest, if he wasn’t willing to practice, to sacrifice, I didn’t want to waste my time. I expect that now out of my players in Washington. I think there are things you learn growing older in the game which practice brings out. You should, for example, never miss the ball in practice. You should always get a piece of it. If you’re missing, something is radically wrong and you had better step out and think about it.”
➡️ Have lots of deliberate practice so you can keep getting better at it.
29 | You will have slumps, but you need to get out of it
“Chances are if it’s that bad you will be in a slump, and slumps always follow a familiar pattern. When you first start going bad, you just try harder. Then you press, which means you do things unnaturally. Then you imagine you’re getting all the tough breaks and you start feeling sorry for yourself.”
“It ought to be pretty nearly automatic what you do to straighten yourself out. Breaking a slump is very much the same as protecting yourself on a two-strike pitch. You start thinking in terms of going through the box. You make up your mind you’re going to handle the bat better and you’re not going to go after bad pitches or try to pull the ball. You’re going to shorten up and be a little quicker.”
➡️ There will be price declines, zigs and zags. The journey is not going to be linear. There will be tough times; you need to know whether the price decline corresponds to a structural business decline. Learn from your mistakes, recover, and keep moving on.
30 | Lastly, have realistic goals to keep you excited so you can pursuing it, keep learning (especially the tough times), or else you will go through the motion
“I think that every player should have goals, goals to keep his interest up over the long haul, goals that are realistic and that reflect improvement. For me, if I couldn’t hit 35 home runs, I was unhappy. If I couldn’t drive in 100 runs, if I couldn’t hit at least .330, I was unhappy. Goals keep you on your toes, make you bear down, give you objectives at those times when you might otherwise be inclined to just go through the motions. You certainly cannot go through the motions and be a great hitter. Not even a good hitter. It’s the most difficult thing to do in sport.”
➡️ This must be something that you enjoy doing and are happy with. Have goals and dreams, enjoy your rewards over time, don’t keep it all, and remember that you bring nothing of the material with you to the grave. Spend quality time with your family, loved ones, and friends.
14 July 2024 | Eugene Ng | Vision Capital Fund | eugene.ng@visioncapitalfund.co
Find out more about Vision Capital Fund.
You can read my prior Annual Letters for Vision Capital here. If you like to learn more about my new journey with Vision Capital Fund, please email me.
Follow me on Twitter/X @EugeneNg_VCap
Check out our book on Investing, “Vision Investing: How We Beat Wall Street & You Can, Too”. We truly believe the individual investor can beat the market over the long run. The book chronicles our entire investment approach. It explains why we invest the way we do, how we invest, what we look out for in the companies, where we find them, and when we invest in them. It is available for purchase via Amazon, currently available in two formats: Paperback and eBook.
Join my email list for more investing insights. Note that it tends to be ad hoc and infrequent, as we aim to write timeless, not timely, content.