You Don't Have to Swing at Every Ball

In his excellent account in yesterday's Wall Street Journal of Warren Buffett's investments the past year, Scott Patterson writes:
"Warren Buffett believes his best deals during the economy's biggest belly flop since the crash of 1929 may well turn out to be the ones he didn't do..... I don't think Buffett gets enough credit for all the pitches he doesn't swing at," says Paul Howard, an analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott. "And he gets a lot of pitches."
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Scott Patterson, In Year of Investing Dangerously, Buffett Looked 'Into the Abyss', Wall Street Journal, December 12, 2009

Buffett would agree. He frequently refers to the following baseball hitting analogy when describing his investment philosophy.

"Ted Williams wrote a book called “ The Science of Hitting.” In that
book he had a grid of 77 little zones in the strike zone. He said if he
only swung at the balls in this one area, “the sweet spot,” he would bat
over 400; if he swung at the balls on the outside corner and low but
still a strike, he would bat at about 225. So he said everything in life
is about waiting for the right pitch. In baseball if you have 2 strikes
already and you get one of those 225 balls you still have to swing at
it because there aren’t any more balls. In investing, you never have to
swing. Now, if you swing and miss, it’s a strike, but if you wait and the
pitcher gets tired and he keeps throwing balls at you and finally you see
one right in your sweet spot and you understand and you swing at it
and you only have to do that a few times in a lifetime. You only have to
get a few hits, you don’t have to get up everyday and take five at bats
and swing at every ball."
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Warren Buffett, "In His Own Words-Conversation With Charlie Rose," PBS (May 2, 2004).