By Drew Little, Director of Corporate Development
You don’t have to be a baseball fan to understand that what the Royals have done over the last few years has been remarkable. They have gone from a perennial “also ran” with a revolving door of talent to a stable team that is a perennial contender and now World Series Champions. That story is probably worthy of a book all its own, but a key chapter would be on their approach to offense. How the Royals approach offense is a philosophy with much broader applications.
Against what could arguably be called the best pitching in the majors, the Royals scored early and often to win the Series in just five games, two of them in extra innings, coming from behind three times! Commentators with decades of experience have been agog at the Royals’ ability to avoid striking out, the rareness with which a third strike could pass by them without the batter swinging, and the relatively low number of home runs they hit. Their secret is simple: the Royals swing the bat.
As a youth coach, I’ve had the privilege of coaching my own son for several years. When he was younger he developed into a significant asset on offense—not just a good hitter, but a smart batter who didn’t swing at garbage. Last spring he moved up to the first age level where we start to see teenagers, truly young men, competing. As an 11 year old he was one of the youngest and smallest players. The head coach of his new team knew him from earlier seasons and had high hopes for my son, but he had a rough start.
Predictably, he was intimidated by bigger kids, faster pitches, longer base paths, and the significantly higher skill level of opponents and teammates. At bat, he was overloaded and didn’t trust himself to swing the bat during the games. In practices he did well though. After the first few games of poor performance my son was killing pitch after pitch during batting practice. One of the other coaches said something off the cuff that turned out to be momentous: “Good things happen when you swing the bat!”
Late in the next game we were behind for the first time that season and my son came up to bat with two runners on and two outs. That same coach and several of the players started calling to him: “Good things happen when you swing the bat!” He swung at the first pitch and hit a two run double that started an offensive rally which lasted for several batters and put us in the lead.
As the next batters in the lineup came up the call continued to them: “Good things happen when you swing the bat!” We ended the game with a convincing win when just two innings before we’d been thinking through our “You can’t win ‘em all speeches.”
We continued on to win every game including the championship and outscored our opponents by a combined 120 runs. Certainly, we had a lot of talent, but we were in no way unbeatable until we discovered what the Royals know. When an opportunity comes your way, swing the bat and don’t even think about stopping until the game is over.
The Royals don’t crush homeruns out of the park nearly as often as some teams, but they get on base, they stay alive and move forward 90 feet at a time, better than any team in baseball. They jump on opportunities to move forward a little bit while other guys are still thinking about that game changing home run. Sometimes the homer gets it done, but more often the team that lives by the big hit, dies by it. As time gets short, the chance of one big score becomes more unlikely and morale suffers, creating a negative feedback loop that reduces expectations and results. Kansas City comes back from behind to win over and over again because their game isn’t built around one star or one swing of the bat. They swing the bat, they get on base, and they move forward consistently and that is something that is just as likely to happen in the 9th inning, or as the Mets can attest the 12th, as it is in the first.
In your business and in your life, home runs are great, but the real success and the real progress comes not from waiting for the perfect pitch, but from swinging the bat at every reasonable opportunity (don’t swing at junk!) and taking small steps forward consistently and relentlessly. Because you swing more and get more hits, you’ll get your share of home runs along the way and they’ll be great—in the moment. But play your game aggressively and consistently for all nine innings, or 12 if you’re so lucky, and you’ll be a winner in the larger game.