If you are immediately wondering what baseball has to do with investing, don’t worry, I’ll get to my “growing as an investor” teachable moment in a second. First, let’s talk about sports as an analogy that bleeds into that moment.

Have you ever heard of Oscar Gamble?

In 2014, Bill James wrote an article covering his analysis of the best ever players coming off the bench in baseball. If you are not a sports fanatic, the bench consists of the players that back up the starting player lineup.

Bill concluded that Oscar Gamble’s “coming off the bench’ performance” in 1979 was the best of all time (as of 2014). Oscar was an outfielder and designated hitter while in the major leagues between 1969 and 1985, a span during which he played for seven different teams.