A Homerun Mindset: How Baseball is Built on Failure

The best baseball players in the world are failures. It’s simple math, really.

Some people say that the hardest thing to do in sports is to hit a baseball. Having retired from the game in 4th grade because I couldn’t make contact, I don’t doubt that. The numbers, though, back up that claim.

Tim Anderson of the Chicago White Sox was the best hitter in all of baseball last year. Considering Major League Baseball has the best players in the world, it’s safe to say that Anderson was the best hitter in the entire world--the entire universe, even. He finished the year with a 0.335 batting average. In baseball terms, that is phenomenal.

In math terms, he hit the ball 33% of the time. He got a 33% on his baseball test. Although that’s a hit every game (players get up to bat about three or four times in a game), it also means that most times when Anderson gets to the plate, he is likely to walk straight back to the dugout.

In the classroom, that is one of my go-to examples of embracing mistakes. Students are bound to get things wrong and to get them wrong consistently. The process of moving from “I don’t know” to “I get it now” involves many, many mistakes and wrong answers. For some reason, though, there is a need in students, educators, and parents to make sure that those mistakes are extremely limited; a 70% on a test is a just-got-by score for many, and for others it is devastating because of how seemingly far away from 100 it is.

If 33%, though, is ultimate success in one arena, how is 60% a measure of failure in another? The question really seems to be, What is success?

Just like kids’ extracurricular interest, the answers vary. And they should. Students should feel differently when they succeed in a natural area of strength than when they overcome an area of challenge. Success is relative.

Failure, though, seems to be the only other option; there is an implied either/or when it comes to measuring skills and abilities.

Much like everything else, the reality is there is a spectrum. There is a range of what kids--and people--can do, and context is a factor. Did you sleep well? Is your crush sitting next to you? Are you trying to impress your parents? Have you been taught that this won’t define you?

If we reexamine what constitutes success, if we reframe our understanding of an either/or dichotomy, we will better enable students to embrace the process of getting better, of learning. Tim Anderson was the best hitter in the entire universe last year, and according to the math, he didn’t even get a D+ in hitting.

Maybe a part of his skill lies in his ability to get back up to the plate.