In baseball, small ball refers to the concept of scoring runs without big hits. All hitters are streaky, going hot and cold and though everybody loves to see home runs, what separates great teams from good teams is the ability to score runs with few or even no hits. In the 1960's there was something called the Dodgers home run where short stop Maury Wills would walk, steal second, go to third on a bunt, and score on a sacrifice fly. A run scored without a hit! The metaphor here is that small ball is found in all activities and playing it well distinguishes successful people. Dieting isn't about not eating for a day or starving yourself to your target weight. It is about small ball, thousands of better decisions each year. Eating 100 calories less at every meal, hardly a difficult thing to do, is 110,000 calories a year (which is 35 pounds lost). Small ball produces big results.
In philately, valuable collections have expensive pieces, which takes big money to acquire. But great collections have unusual pieces that can be surprisingly inexpensive, and are put together with care and diligence. The lesson from baseball is that God makes sluggers, but we can each make ourselves disciplined enough to do the small things that make for success. In stamps that means study and searching for arcane (not expensive) items. Certainly we all like to see collections of rarities, but a collection of the unusual, assembled with forethought and care gives me more pleasure than all airmail inverts in the world.