FIGURE 36.4 Temperature and retaliation Richard Larrick and his colleagues (2011) looked for occurrences of batters hit by pitches during 4,566,468 pitcher-batter matchups across 57,293 Major League Baseball games since 1952. The probability of a hit batter increased if one or more of the pitcher’s teammates had been hit, and also with temperature.

Brita Meng Outzen/AP Photo