The Psychology of Baseball

Get inside the minds of the stars of the diamond in this phenomenal tour of brain power, psyche, and sheer will, now in paperback. Yogi Berra once said, “Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical.” The Yankee great may have underestimated the feats of gray matter necessary for playing the game at its highest level. In The Psychology of Baseball, cognitive psychologist and researcher Mike Stadler takes you beneath the surface of the game and inside the heads of...
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Get inside the minds of the stars of the diamond in this phenomenal tour of brain power, psyche, and sheer will, now in paperback. Yogi Berra once said, “Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical.” The Yankee great may have underestimated the feats of gray matter necessary for playing the game at its highest level. In The Psychology of Baseball, cognitive psychologist and researcher Mike Stadler takes you beneath the surface of the game and inside the heads of baseball’s greats—from Aaron to A- Rod—to reveal the intense mental game at the heart of baseball. Stadler begins with the mind’s role in the game’s basic skills, explaining the rare and phenomenal brain power that lets a hitter turn on a 98-mph pitch (as well as the anticipatory thinking that can make a hitter see a “rising fastball”), the complex muscular coordination required to paint the corners with a major-league heater, and the intense spatial calculations the brain must perform in a split second in order for a fielder to catch a struck ball. Packed with cutting-edge information about the mental game, The Psychology of Baseballis a revolutionary new look at America’s pastime.