Don't be fooled: new book brains Cubs fans
Cubs fans are natural born suckers.
We all know that. They've been rooting for the same losers for 100 years.
So of course they're also natural born targets for sales pitches stamping just about anything with a Cubs logo, right up to and including a Harry Caray mimic performing a spiel for cable TV.
Yet I have to say the latest and the lamest in a long line of such ploys is the new book "Your Brain on Cubs," edited by Dan Gordon and selling for $20 from Dana Press.
I know, I know, it sounds pretty good, doesn't it? And there's no denying the title is the best thing about it. The book would seem to be a study in addiction and delusion, subjects close to any Cubs fan's heart.
Yet, what is actually contained between the covers is a fairly pedestrian book on physiological brain activity using the Cubs tie-ins as window dressing to disguise how bland the material is otherwise.
You'd have to be ga-ga over the Cubs to read and enjoy "Your Brain on Cubs," which is not going to be mistaken anytime soon for the latest Antonio Damasio opus.
I'm going to start right up with "Curses!," a chapter written by my old colleague Tom Valeo along with Lindsay Beyerstein. Although it opens with an abbreviated account of the Billy Goat curse (anything that leaves out William Sianis' telegram "Who stinks now?" is all too abbreviated), it then goes on to a standard account of curses, superstitions, even religion, tracing the brain's tendency to find causality where there is none.
Like much of the book from the title on down, it takes an interesting topic and bogs down in minutiae. Valeo is capable of much better.
Bennett Foddy's "Risks and Asterisks," which takes a tolerant attitude toward performance-enhancing drugs, is pure sophistry, while Scott Grafton's "Developing Talent" has almost nothing to do with the Cubs. (But you knew that from the essay title, didn't you, Aware One?)
The book isn't a complete waste of time. Kenneth Heilman's argument that left-handed hitters tend to be better than right-handers not because of the percentages of the baseball book, as they face more right-handed pitching, but because lefties tend to be more ambidextrous (benefiting the two-handed swing) and the dominant right side of their brains tend to be better at spatial relations (ergo pitch recognition) is convincing.
So is the passage by John Milton, Ana Solodkin and Steven Small suggesting that, because of "mirroring," hitters whose brains are wired to be more empathetic, or who have experience as pitchers, are better at processing the minuscule body-language tips suggesting what kind of pitch is coming and where it's going to go. (Thus explaining in part the success of Babe Ruth and now Rick Ankiel.)
Yet, even projected over a relatively slight 133 pages of actual text (the rest is all references and ads for other Dana books), that makes for a low batting average of insight to arcana.
But if, in spite of all this advice, you simply must have a copy of "Your Brain on Cubs," be sure to put it in the bathroom book bin. It should match perfectly with your Cubs toilet seat.
In the air
Remotely interesting: Talk about curses, Sports Illustrated is picking the Cubs to win the NL pennant in its 2008 baseball preview, although there are no Cubs on the actual cover. … WGN Channel 9 celebrates its 60th anniversary covering the Cubs with Opening Day at Wrigley Field at 1 p.m. Monday. Channel 9 and Comcast SportsNet Chicago will both carry all Cubs and White Sox games, home and away, in high definition. CSNC will have an hour pregame show before the Sox' opener in Cleveland starting at 1 p.m. Monday and will replay the game in prime time at 7 p.m.
WPWR Channel 50 airs the Chicago Fire's opener at Salt Lake at 5 p.m. Saturday. … Bill James is interviewed on CBS' "60 Minutes" at 6 p.m. Sunday on WBBM Channel 2. Jose Canseco discusses his new book, "Vindicated," on CBS' "Late Show With David Letterman" at 10:35 p.m. Monday on Channel 2. … ESPNews starts running in high definition on Sunday.
End of the dial: Of course you know that Ron Santo and Pat Hughes have the call of the Cubs' opener on WGN 720-AM, while Steve Stone makes his formal regular-season debut doing Sox games alongside Ed Farmer on WSCR 670-AM. … The Score's Mike North has added Sam Smith as a regular weekly basketball analyst starting at 7:20 a.m. today.
Former Cub Doug Glanville joins George Castle's syndicated "Diamond Gems" as a regular panelist and commentator beginning with the season premiere this weekend. It airs Saturday at 1 p.m. on DeKalb's WLBK 1360-AM and at 3 p.m. on WIMS 1420-AM out of Michigan City, Ind., then Sunday at 5 p.m. on Joliet's WJOL 1340-AM.