Why can Humans Hit a Baseball?

It may seem pointless to ask why humans can hit a baseball. They’ve been hitting balls successfully for a long time. However, not all humans, including baseball players, are uniformly successful. When Michael Jordan tried to transfer his skills from basketball to baseball he ran up against a limitation. No matter how much he practiced his batting average was .200 or less. Jordan is a superb athlete so what made the difference? The answer lies in the body-brain connection.

That question got Jason Sherwin and Jordan Muraskin interested in developing a technique to look at how a batter processes information in the laboratory. They convinced a minor league team to let them test the players with the equipment they had developed and then used the information to track results in practice. Their neurological data was helping to pick good hitters.

Much of the book revolves around Sherwin and Muraskin and their startup deCervo. In the book, we get to know the two entrepreneurs. The story of their friendship and building the company gives a human element to what could be a rather dry scientific book.

In addition to following the work of deCervo, the author discusses other prominent researchers and their research interests. The book gets rather technical in some of these discussions, but it’s worth it to struggle through to learn new concepts. Studying the brain-body connection is in the front of neurological research today. Looking at the practical application in baseball is fascinating.

If you’re interesting in baseball and the brain-body connection, this is a great book.

I received this book from Dutton for this review.