re: More Improbable: DiMaggo's hitting streak v. Brees' TD streak

Someone did a statsitical model of 1930s baseball and found a 56 game hit streak was fairly likely (something like 15 or 20%), but it didn't necessarily have to be DiMaggio. For example, in 1936, the league wide AL batting average was .289. Hitting .300 was just above average. Hitting streaks were far more likely then.

With the way the game is played now with so many strikeouts, it's unlikely to be broken until a major stylistic change. But in the 30s? It wasn't THAT shocking it happened.