In baseball, it is often said, finding success at the plate only one third of the time will get you into the hall of fame.

Nobody bats a perfect 1.000. Even the very best players can’t manage even a 40 percent success rate.

But success, as it is defined in baseball, is very different than the definition of success almost anywhere else. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the financial regulatory arena.

In a perfect world, of course, the regulatory system would be, well… perfect. Red flags in corporate filings would be both observed and acted upon. Corrective actions would be completely enforced, and follow-ups would be the rule, not the exception.

But, obviously, the world isn’t perfect. The regulators at the heart of regulatory agencies are human, after all. Mistakes are made. Potentially egregious violations often slip by un-noticed. And even when one regulator notices something fishy, there is too often no guarantee that supervisors will act on his recommendations.

So when Rob Kimmett, spokesman for the Massachusetts Credit Union League, told us recently – in response to queries regarding a series of failures by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) – that “The enforcement authorities don’t bat a thousand,” he was right.

But recognizing the nature of human failure and excusing repeated instances of apparently falling down on the job are two wildly different propositions.

Yes, mistakes happen. But blithely dismissing those mistakes – especially the kinds of financial regulatory mistakes that more often than not result in millions of dollars in damages and insurance payouts – and too readily turning a blind eye to them is an enormous mistake in its own right.

The repeated failings of the NCUA as documented in this issue of Banker & Tradesman should at least cause grave concern within the credit union community, if not overt outrage.

Credit unions, in particular, are more vulnerable to the excesses and transgressions of their peers than others within the financial services industry. Credit unions rely almost exclusively on their community reputations to help attract new members and build new business – a reputation that is badly tarnished when even one local executive falls off the rails and brings his institution down with him.

And more so than their banking cousins, the entire credit union bunch is exceedingly vulnerable to one spoiled apple. An institution with scant assets numbering in the tens of millions of dollars – a case far more common among community credit unions than community banks – can ill afford the kinds of jacked up regulatory insurance fund assessments levied in the wake of the failure of one (or more) of its peers.

Just because regulatory failure is essentially inevitable does not mean that failure should ever be accepted. Similarly, dismissing failure with a shrug and a recognition that nobody is perfect and regulation is a tough job should not be acceptable, either.

Now, we’re probably being too harsh on Kimmett here. As spokesman for the Massachusetts Credit Union League, it’s his job, in part, to deflect the negatives and highlight the positives in a given situation. He’s right in pointing out that modern criminals are sophisticated and intelligent and can often put themselves far in front of the regulators charged with bringing them to justice. And yes, by and large, the local credit union industry is strong – a strength owed, in no small part, to the good work done by the Massachusetts Credit Union League.

But the fact that Kimmett isn’t technically wrong doesn’t excuse the larger issue. It seems that we live in an age in which failure – especially regulatory failure – is too readily accepted, and too readily dismissed as just another part of the job.

NASA, during the potentially disastrous but ultimately heroic Apollo 13 moon mission, famously declared that “Failure is not an option.”

It wasn’t then, and it shouldn’t be now. Not with so much at stake.