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The Psychology of Baseball: Inside the Mental Game of the Major League Player
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 Baseball is a revolutionary new look at America’s pastime.
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 Baseball is a revolutionary new look at America’s pastime.
288 pages, Paperback
First published April 5, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
November 13, 2018
The late, great philosopher Yogi Berra is credited with many utterings that on the surface appear nonsensical, but after some thought are found to contain significant truth. One of the most famous is “Baseball is 90% mental and the other half is physical.” Clearly, the numbers do not add up, yet this saying does point out how significant the mental components are.
In this book Stadler makes a great effort to demonstrate and quantify how much one’s mental state determines how well you play. Baseball is full of sayings and tactics taken as true, yet some probably are not accurate. Some of the examples examined are hitting in the clutch, what causes slumps and hot streaks, and when a player must think and when it is best not to.
The best example of when not thinking is preferable refers to infielder Chuck Knoblauch. Like some other infielders, he suddenly began committing a series of throwing errors. Oddly, most of the errors were on routine ground balls where he had plenty of time to set his feet and throw. By having the opportunity to think a bit before throwing to first, Knoblauch reaches a mental state where his fear was in making a throwing error, which turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Some of the more interesting passages refer to Ted Williams and his approach to hitting. He truly was dedicated to the science of hitting, some of the best advice you can ever get on how to perform at the plate is to read William’s work on the subject. Some of the thought processes that Williams claimed as steps in his success are covered in this book. Of course, it is always difficult to transcribe and apply the approach of the incredibly talented to others that cannot measure up.
This is a good book about the subtle and sometimes apparently insignificant differences in mental state that make the difference between someone being a star or spending no or insignificant time in the major leagues.
In this book Stadler makes a great effort to demonstrate and quantify how much one’s mental state determines how well you play. Baseball is full of sayings and tactics taken as true, yet some probably are not accurate. Some of the examples examined are hitting in the clutch, what causes slumps and hot streaks, and when a player must think and when it is best not to.
The best example of when not thinking is preferable refers to infielder Chuck Knoblauch. Like some other infielders, he suddenly began committing a series of throwing errors. Oddly, most of the errors were on routine ground balls where he had plenty of time to set his feet and throw. By having the opportunity to think a bit before throwing to first, Knoblauch reaches a mental state where his fear was in making a throwing error, which turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Some of the more interesting passages refer to Ted Williams and his approach to hitting. He truly was dedicated to the science of hitting, some of the best advice you can ever get on how to perform at the plate is to read William’s work on the subject. Some of the thought processes that Williams claimed as steps in his success are covered in this book. Of course, it is always difficult to transcribe and apply the approach of the incredibly talented to others that cannot measure up.
This is a good book about the subtle and sometimes apparently insignificant differences in mental state that make the difference between someone being a star or spending no or insignificant time in the major leagues.
April 26, 2016
Topics like the following taken from this book provide the reader with a great deal of food for thought. Historically, the home team in baseball has won about 54% of their games and scores about half a run more per game at home than away. That seems reasonable. What interests me is the breakdown of factors attributing to the home field advantage (in percentages) by a statistician and a pitching coach in the Texas Rangers organization in their 1989 study. Here's the breakdown:
40% - umpire bias towards the home team
30% - "home cooking" (sleeping in one's own bed, following a normal routine free from the demands of travel)
10% - fitting the player to the ballpark (management building a ball club of left-handed power hitters to take advantage of a short right field fence)
10% - a player's own familiarity with the ball park (knowing the outline of the OF fence or limits of foul territory) that they play their home games in.
5% - encouragement of the home crowd
5% - the strategic edge that comes with batting last.
While a bit dated, (for instance; I imagine the inclusion of instant replay has more recently limited umpire bias) I got this data from a book I just finished reading called The Psychology of Baseball by Mike Stadler. In this book, Stadler covers topics like timing the swing to hit a baseball, the different phases and theories behind catching fly balls, pitch location strategies and the Athletic Motivation Inventory (which I'd like to learn more about). One thing I didn't necessarily like or agree with as a baseball fan was the author's assertion (backed by science) that there is no such thing as "clutch" in the big leagues and streaks and slumps in baseball are nothing more than a random event.
40% - umpire bias towards the home team
30% - "home cooking" (sleeping in one's own bed, following a normal routine free from the demands of travel)
10% - fitting the player to the ballpark (management building a ball club of left-handed power hitters to take advantage of a short right field fence)
10% - a player's own familiarity with the ball park (knowing the outline of the OF fence or limits of foul territory) that they play their home games in.
5% - encouragement of the home crowd
5% - the strategic edge that comes with batting last.
While a bit dated, (for instance; I imagine the inclusion of instant replay has more recently limited umpire bias) I got this data from a book I just finished reading called The Psychology of Baseball by Mike Stadler. In this book, Stadler covers topics like timing the swing to hit a baseball, the different phases and theories behind catching fly balls, pitch location strategies and the Athletic Motivation Inventory (which I'd like to learn more about). One thing I didn't necessarily like or agree with as a baseball fan was the author's assertion (backed by science) that there is no such thing as "clutch" in the big leagues and streaks and slumps in baseball are nothing more than a random event.
January 2, 2025
One reason I was a poor baseball player (aside from an obvious lack of talent and nonexistent athletic ability), was my inability to cope with failure. Though I was a decent hitter in high school (which was a small school in a small school athletic conference), I could not tolerate striking out. In fact, I absolutely hated it. I used to go berserk. I could not understand how, after countless hours of practice, would miss three times during a single at-bat. Luckily by my senior season, I found some Zen. I no longer screamed my lungs out after striking out. My teammates (and equipment) no longer had to fear my explosions.
The Psychology of Baseball by Mike Stadler is a book about baseball written by a psychologist. When I picked this book up I was hoping to learn more about the players handle or mishandle the game of baseball.
Though there are some interesting bits here and there, this book was a swing and miss for me. The first chapter is about the audacity of hitting a baseball. Hitting a baseball is very hard, almost impossible. You can fail seven times out of ten and be considered a hall of fame hitter. In this first chapter, you learn a lot about the physics of pitching and hitting and the biology of a hitter’s reaction, however, you get very little psychology.
In fact, it seemed like the book didn’t dive into deep psychology until the middle of the book. Furthermore, baseball and psychology were disconnected at times. Baseball is simply used as a vehicle to discuss psychology. There would be multiple pages describing a Yankees/Red Sox game with useless statistics and unnecessary anecdotes.
This book was fine, it’s just a swing and a miss for me.
The Psychology of Baseball by Mike Stadler is a book about baseball written by a psychologist. When I picked this book up I was hoping to learn more about the players handle or mishandle the game of baseball.
Though there are some interesting bits here and there, this book was a swing and miss for me. The first chapter is about the audacity of hitting a baseball. Hitting a baseball is very hard, almost impossible. You can fail seven times out of ten and be considered a hall of fame hitter. In this first chapter, you learn a lot about the physics of pitching and hitting and the biology of a hitter’s reaction, however, you get very little psychology.
In fact, it seemed like the book didn’t dive into deep psychology until the middle of the book. Furthermore, baseball and psychology were disconnected at times. Baseball is simply used as a vehicle to discuss psychology. There would be multiple pages describing a Yankees/Red Sox game with useless statistics and unnecessary anecdotes.
This book was fine, it’s just a swing and a miss for me.
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September 8, 2009If you are a die-hard baseball fan or even a competitive player yourself, then this book will bring a whole new vision on the game to you. After reading this book, I learned about a lot of terms that I didn't even know about, let alone know that they were scientific terms that describe certain aspects of baseball. This book introduces the physics part of our national pastime sport, referring to such terms as ballistics and trigonometry. Author Mike Stadler uses major league examples of how the psychology of the baseball fan works, using trends in data as proof of how we think. I liked this book because it deepened my thinking about the game of baseball. It was average length and extremely readable. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the parts of the game that go unseen.
July 12, 2013
What I liked and hated about this book was the repeated demystification of several steadfast baseball concepts, such as the rising fastball and clutch hitters. A potent mix of psychology backed by much statistical data and apparent fandom, this tome occasionally veers a little too deep into the data for my taste. Although the author tried to temper his psych presentation, as explained in the afterword, I did sometimes find myself furiously re-reading sections to try and grasp them. This may be a user problem. However it made it no less compelling a read, and-as beloved as many myths are-I do love to see myths get busted from time to time. Check it out.
May 11, 2013
Somehow it seem s wrong to complain that a book about psychology has too much psychology in it ... but ....
I was expecting stories of mind games: catchers calling games to cross up hitters, pitcher/batter duels, managers analyzing the opposition, coaches solving wild pitchers by getting inside their heads, etc., etc.
This is much more hard science: Reaction times, brain processes, etc. Undoubtedly informative ... just not fun to read.
I was expecting stories of mind games: catchers calling games to cross up hitters, pitcher/batter duels, managers analyzing the opposition, coaches solving wild pitchers by getting inside their heads, etc., etc.
This is much more hard science: Reaction times, brain processes, etc. Undoubtedly informative ... just not fun to read.
February 13, 2016
For the most part, I enjoyed The Psychology of Baseball. It was short, so I could persevere through the dry parts to get to the more engaging material; however, there were a few times where I had to shake my head, "It doesn't take someone with a degree in Psychology to know why someone cheers for a certain team!" Overall, I appreciated the work done by Stadler, but I feel I may enjoy some of the books he referenced more than this one.
That being said...
4/5 Stars
That being said...
4/5 Stars
December 9, 2012
interesting but not what i was hoping for. Wanted more on the mind game between batter and pitcher. Or is it more like batter and catcher?
April 5, 2015
I liked this book. It was about the real psychological studies related to baseball. It was not just about opinions. I especially liked the discussion of psychological toughness.
August 24, 2015
Very sciencey view of baseball. A lot of "this study says this, but this study says that".
September 29, 2015
Sections on how a fly ball is caught and how a ball is it were way too dry for my tastes, but sections on fans made up for them.
February 5, 2008
a 2 on a scale of 1-10. Could/should have been much more interesting
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews