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Using baseball statistics from 1871 to 2005, the authors run 10,000 computer recreations of baseball’s history across parallel universes. Rather than asking only about DiMaggio, the analysis estimates how likely any player could have produced a streak as long or longer. Results show that very long records emerge frequently in simulations, turning the unlikely into something plausibly common within chance.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/a-journey-to-baseballs-alternate-universe-by-samuel-arbesman-and-steven-strogatz/142176/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/a-journey-to-baseballs-alternate-universe-by-samuel-arbesman-and-steven-strogatz/142176.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Aditya","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-09-30","2026-08-25",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":8},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"Why does the article focus on simulation rather than a single probability for DiMaggio?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"It argues the key question is how likely it is that anyone achieved a streak that long or longer, not just how likely DiMaggio’s outcome was in 1941. The simulations test outcomes across all players and seasons.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What data range is used to build the baseball universe simulations?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"The authors use a comprehensive collection of baseball statistics from 1871 to 2005 to model performances across many hypothetical histories.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What do the simulation results suggest about the 56-game record?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"They show that long hitting-streak records frequently appear in the simulated universes. More than half the time, the record exceeds 53 games, and two-thirds of the time it falls between 50 and 64 games.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},142176,1790742858,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":8,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":81,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":143,"read_time":39},962085564549,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_085a072bc5b1113ac321206ff7593b45","A Journey to Baseball’s Alternate Universe-New York Times  \n4/24/08  \n1:12  \nPM  \n\n| HOME PAGE |  | MY TIMES |  | TODAY'S PAPER |  | VIDEO |  | MOST POPULAR |  | TIMES TOPICS |  | My Account  Welcome, psdodds  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  Log Out  |  |  Help  |\n| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |\n| |  |  |  |  | Opinion |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | |  |  |  |  |  | |  |  |  |\n| WORLD | U.S. |  | N.Y. / REGION |  | BUSINESS |  | TECHNOLOGY |  | SCIENCE |  | HEALTH |  | SPORTS | OPINION | ARTS | STYLE | TRAVEL | JOBS | REAL ESTATE |  |  | AUTOS |  |\n| EDITORIALS COLUMNISTS CONTRIBUTORS LETTERS THE PUBLIC EDITOR |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |\n| |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |\n|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |\n| OP-ED CONTRIBUTORS\u003Cbr>A Journey to Baseball’s Alternate Universe\u003Cbr>By SAMUEL ARBESMAN and STEVEN STROGATZ Published: March 30, 2008\u003Cbr>Ithaca, N.Y.\u003Cbr>Multimedia\u003Cbr>\u003Cbr>Length of Record Hitting Streaks\u003Cbr>\u003Cbr>How Often the Record Hitting Streak Occurred in a Particular Season\u003Cbr>Related\u003Cbr>Times Topics: Baseball\u003Cbr>WITH the baseball season under way and the memory of scandal in the sport so fresh, many fans yearn for an earlier era, a time when mythology mingled with baseball. The sport’s most mythic achievement is Joe\u003Cbr>DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak, a feat that has never come even close to being matched. Fans and scientists alike, including Edward M. Purcell, a Nobel laureate in physics, and Stephen Jay Gould, the evolutionary biologist, have described the streak as well-nigh impossible.\u003Cbr>In a fit of scientific skepticism, we decided to calculate how unlikely Joltin’ Joe’s achievement really was. Using a comprehensive collection of baseball statistics from 1871 to 2005, we simulated the entire history of baseball\u003Cbr>10,000 times in a computer. In essence, we programmed the computer to construct an enormous set of parallel baseball universes, all with the same players but subject to the vagaries of chance in each one.\u003Cbr>Here’s how it works. Think of baseball players’performances at bat as being like coin tosses. Hitting streaks are like runs of many heads in a row. Suppose a\u003Cbr>hypothetical player named Joe Coin had a 50-50 chance of getting at least one hit per game, and suppose that he played 154 games during the 1941 season. We could learn something about Coin’s chances of having a 56-game hitting streak in 1941 by flipping areal coin 154 times, recording the series of heads and tails, and observing what his longest streak of heads happened to be.\u003Cbr>Our simulations did something very much like this, except instead of a coin, we used random numbers generated by a computer. Also, instead of assuming that a player has a 50 percent chance of hitting successfully in each game, we used baseball statistics to calculate each player’s odds, as determined by his actual batting performance in a given year.\u003Cbr>E-MAIL\u003Cbr>PRINT SAVE SHARE\u003Cbr>|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | More Articles in Opinion »\u003Cbr>\u003Cbr>MOST POPULAR\u003Cbr>E-MAILED BLOGGED SEARCHED 1 . Maureen Dowd: Wilting Over Waffles\u003Cbr>2. Editorial: The Low Road to Victory\u003Cbr>3. Well: Boy or Girl? The Answer May Depend on Mom’s Eating Habits\u003Cbr>4. American Exception: Inmate Count in U.S. Dwarfs Other Nations’\u003Cbr>5. Well: A Hard Plastic Is Raising Hard Questions\u003Cbr>6. Debt Collection Done From India Appeals to U.S.\u003Cbr>Agencies\u003Cbr>7 . For Obama, a Struggle to Win Over Key Blocs\u003Cbr>8. A Good Appetite: You Call That Pudding, Grandma?\u003Cbr>9. Making Money, the How-To Way\u003Cbr>10 . Op-Ed Contributor: Visible Man Go to Complete List »\u003Cbr>\u003Cbr>\u003Cbr>[nytimes.com/tech](nytimes.com/tech)\u003Cbr>|  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |\n\n[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/opinion/30strogatz.html?_r=1&oref=slogin](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/opinion/30strogatz.html?_r=1&","cbCaifduAGORzkdj","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaifduAGORzkdj","pdf",305663,"English","# Method: Simulating baseball history\n## Data sources and parallel universes\n## Coin-flip analogy and player probabilities\n# Results: How long streaks emerge\n## Record distribution across simulations\n## Interpreting likelihood beyond DiMaggio","[{\"question\":\"Why does the article focus on simulation rather than a single probability for DiMaggio?\",\"answer\":\"It argues the key question is how likely it is that anyone achieved a streak that long or longer, not just how likely DiMaggio’s outcome was in 1941. The simulations test outcomes across all players and seasons.\"},{\"question\":\"What data range is used to build the baseball universe simulations?\",\"answer\":\"The authors use a comprehensive collection of baseball statistics from 1871 to 2005 to model performances across many hypothetical histories.\"},{\"question\":\"What do the simulation results suggest about the 56-game record?\",\"answer\":\"They show that long hitting-streak records frequently appear in the simulated universes. More than half the time, the record exceeds 53 games, and two-thirds of the time it falls between 50 and 64 games.\"}]","A Journey to Baseball’s Alternate Universe - By Samuel Arbesman and Steven Strogatz | PDF",1787676242]