Examining the 10,000-hour rule for success as it applies to baseball in the U.S. and Japan

This story originally appeared in the Japanese newspaper Yukan Fuji in 2011.

TOKYO — In his book “Outliers,” author Malcom Gladwell examines factors that separate outstanding successes in any given endeavor — composers, basketball players, figure skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals and, yes, sports writers. He cites numerous studies indicating that in all cases, the one common factor is getting 10,000 hours of practice. That goes even for people with innate ability. 

Gladwell cites a study of violinists at Berlin’s elite Academy of Music. Records were kept of everyone starting to learn to play the violin at age 5 for the next 15 years. In the first few years, everyone practiced 2-3 hours a week. Some showed great natural talent, others had good talent, others were just average. But then from around the age of 8, some began to practice harder than others.