Barry Ritholtz, Columnist

What Buffett Saw in Baseball's Greatest Hitter

Ted Williams understood the probabilities of a strike or a hit.

February 29, 2016 at 4:03 PM UTC

Barry Ritholtz is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is chairman and chief investment officer of Ritholtz Wealth Management, and was previously chief market strategist at Maxim Group. He is the author of “Bailout Nation.”

Waiting for the right pitch.
Source: Diamond Images/Getty Images

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Long before quants ruled Wall Street, before Stratomatic, before Bloomberg View columnist Michael Lewis conceived of “Moneyball,” the man destined to become baseball’s greatest hitter was also baseball’s first quant.

Ted Williams’ lifetime stats are astonishing: a .344 batting average, 521 home runs and a .482 on-base percentage. During his two decades with the Boston Red Sox, he was responsible for more than a fifth of the team’s runs. It isn’t a coincidence that he also wrote the book “The Science of Hitting.”