Probability of 56
2008, letter illustration
Client: New York Times
1 of 1

To the Editor:
Samual Arbesman and Steven Strogatz think of baseball players’ performance at bat as being like coin tosses.
They suggest that replaying history with baseball statistics and a computer that uses a random number generator
to determine hits or outs gives a fair approximation of the probability of Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak.
And they conclude that “streaks of 56 games or longer are not at all an unusual occurrence.”