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Alternate Baseball Universes

Posted by kdawson on from the say-it-ain't-so-joe dept.

Jamie found a NYTimes op-ed by a grad student and a professor from Cornell, outlining some research they did into alternate baseball universes. The goal was to find out how unlikely in fact was Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak, played out in the 1941 season. No one since has even come close to that record. The math guys ran simulations of the entire history of baseball from 1885 on — 10,000 of them. For each simulation they put each player up to the plate for each at-bat in each game in each year, just like it happened; and they rolled the dice on him, based on his actual hitting stats for that season. (Their algorithm sounds far simpler than whatever the Strat-O-Matic guys use.) The result: Joltin' Joe's record is not merely likely, it's basically a sure thing. Every alternate universe produced a streak of 39 games or better; one reached 109 games. Joe DiMaggio was not the likeliest player in the history of the game to accomplish the record, not by a long shot.

5 of 229 comments (clear)

  1. i came here to make an insightful comment by circletimessquare · · Score: 4, Funny

    unfortunately, not many of my comments are insightful, so with my batting average, you will have to refer to a parallel universe

    there you will find that this comment contains something worthwhile reading. sorry

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  2. Re:How to Make Baseball Even MORE Boring? by pchan- · · Score: 5, Funny

    You don't understand. Baseball is so boring, the fans find the statistics exciting!

  3. Re:How to Make Baseball Even MORE Boring? by garett_spencley · · Score: 5, Funny

    I was once at a friend's BBQ and a lot of the other guests were really into sports and talking a lot about their various sporting events etc. I made a comment about how baseball was one of those sports that is fun to play but boring as hell to watch. One of the guys responded with, simply, "I disagree". To which I replied "You're right. It's pretty boring to play too." He wasn't very amused.

    Talk about a great way to make an awkward social event even more awkward :(

  4. Anohter unreported weird fact by mrfantasy · · Score: 5, Funny

    In every simulation, a ground ball went between Bill Buckner's legs in the 1986 World Series.

    --

    -- Of course I'm paranoid. I'm a sysadmin.

  5. Re:If its so likely, they why hasn't it happened? by Kamineko · · Score: 4, Funny

    Like Einstein said: "God does not play baseball!"

    I think.