Just Get On Base jordanmarsh6, September 21, 2021April 5, 2023 I’m a total sucker for sports movies. Rudy, Hoosiers, Glory Road, The Blind Side, Remember the Titans, Concussion, Invincible, etc. My #1 sport growing up was always basketball, but I can appreciate every sport. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Moneyball. I’ve never read the book by Michael Lewis, but I have probably watched the movie three times now. If you’re not familiar, here’s a basic idea: Billy Beane was the general manager for the Oakland A’s back in the early 2000’s. Oakland was a small-market team that frequently had their talent poached by higher paying teams. Billy had to figure out how to win games in Oakland when teams like the Yankees had a payroll triple that of the A’s. Billy Beane began to implement something known as sabermetrics. I have no idea why it is called that, but it was a way to evaluate players based on statistics. The single most important statistic to evaluate a player? On-base percentage. How often did the guy get on base? Beane didn’t care about how nice the player’s swing was, he didn’t care about how nice the player’s face was, or whether the player got on base by hitting or by walking. Out of how many at-bats the player had, what percentage of the time did the player get on base? He essentially assembled a roster of misfits on a budget; players no one else thought was valuable, but that had stellar on-base percentages. With a pitiful budget compared to the rest of the league, that 2002 Oakland A’s team rattled off a record 20-win streak. They unfortunately lost in the playoffs, but the league was now on notice that the A’s approach to evaluating players was legit. Other teams were playing double and triple the amount of money that the A’s were paying for the same result in the playoffs. What’s the equivalent of on-base percentage in your efforts to improve? Maybe you want to be healthier. Six-pack abs might be an enticing way to measure how healthy you are, but maybe watching your blood pressure fall as you exercise more is a more reliable way to achieve your goal. Maybe you want to start a business and envision yourself at the New York Stock Exchange ringing the bell on your IPO; but a more reliable measure of your success is watching the business you’ve created help your employees provide for themselves and their families. It’s such a great message. Baseball is full of interesting statistics, tradition, history, and romance. Yeah, you heard me say romance. Billy Beane in the movie kept saying, “How can you not be a little romantic about baseball?” It’s fascinating how such a complex game and tradition like baseball could be boiled down to one all-important winning statistic: on-base percentage. Ain’t nothing happening for your team if you can’t get guys on base. I’d encourage you to think about the “on-base percentages” of your life. How could you work smarter, not harder, to achieve the things you care about? Self Improvement