Book in the News: Your Brain on Cubs
Your Brain on Cubs: Inside the Heads of Players and Fans continues to receive great coverage with a newly published article on the Cubs's official MLB.com website. Writer Jon Greenberg discusses both the March 10th launch party and the book itself, noting
The avuncular [Aryeh] Routtenberg, a neurobiology/psychology professor at Northwestern and self-avowed former Cubs fan (He declared any serious interest kaput after a particularly painful LaTroy Hawkins appearance in 2004), was one of the panelists earlier this month at a book release party at the Cubby Bear for "Your Brain on Cubs: Inside the Heads of Players and Fans," a look into the minds of sports fans and athletes by doctors, psychologists and medical experts who sometimes moonlight as baseball fans.Routtenberg was a hit among the 80 or so in attendance at the Wrigleyville bar for the panel discussion on the book sponsored by the Illinois Science Council. At one point he livened up a fairly boring discussion by theorizing that a "toxic chemical" resides in the blades of grass at Wrigley Field and releases "negative karma" at crucial moments, like, say, in Game 6 of the 2003 National League Championship Series.
But half-baked theories like that aren't in the popular science book, which has seven chapters, written by 11 contributors, that link science and sports, from the mental reasoning behind superstitions to the neuroscience of hitting.
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