DO BASEBALL PLAYERS HAVE HOT STREAKS?

DO BASEBALL PLAYERS HAVE HOT STREAKS? I had always refused to pay attention to the junk statistics on TV sports shows about players’ performances in the previous short run of games. “Small samples,” I sniffed. But last summer two bits of new information made me wonder. First, I was told that Tom Seaver always wanted to know before a game which opposing hitters were on hot streaks. Second, a major league hitter was quoted as envying one of the great hitters because he was able to keep the same swing all year long rather than “finding it and losing it all year like the rest of us.” Seaver evidently believed that hitters have hot streaks and the hitter suggested a reason for this: a swing results from a complicated series of muscular movements and sometimes hitters get it right and get their muscle memory to repeat that swing. I am more open-minded now about whether hot streaks for hitters exist. I just don’t see how you can test whether they do.