Waiting for the Fat Pitch

In The Science of Hitting, Ted Williams carved the strike zone into 77 cells, each the size of a baseball. Swinging only at balls in his best cells, he calculated, would let him bat .400; reaching for pitches in the worst spot, the low outside corner, would drop him to .230. Waiting for the fat pitch meant the Hall of Fame; swinging indiscriminately meant the minors. Buffett quoted this in his 1997 letter to explain why Berkshire, sitting on billions after a 34.1% gain in book value, was buying almost nothing: the business 'pitches' on offer were barely catching the lower outside corner, and swinging would lock in low returns. He added the twist that makes investing easier and harder than baseball at once — nobody can call you out for letting three good-looking pitches go by, but 'just standing there, day after day, with my bat on my shoulder is not my idea of fun'.