Customer Reviews

Why Michael Couldn't Hit, and Other Tales of the Neurology of Sports: And Other Tales of the Neurology of Sports

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This is the fifth book I've read by the late Harold Klawans, a practicing neurologist and writer of both fiction (mysteries, which I have not read) and non-fiction (clinical neurology written for the lay reader). Dr. Klawans owes success in this second venue to his lucid and amiable style, much like his better-known colleague, Oliver Sacks. In "Why Michael Couldn't Hit," Dr. Klawans uses a series of contemporary and historic sports figures to teach on a variety of neurologic concepts. Not surprisingly, these are stories about motor disorders, Dr. Klawans' specific area of expertise.

The titular story is the one that is most likely to attract the curiosity of the potential reader, as Dr. Klawans uses Michael Jordan's disappointing performance in Major League Baseball to discuss the important concept of motor learning in the human brain. Of the interesting stories in this book, however, I found this one the most disappointing, inasmuch as Dr. Klawans uses it to elaborate on his ideas about the nature of Parkinsonism (ideas he also outlined in an essay from "Strange Behavior"). It's not that these are clearly wrong so much as that they are unsubstantiated and yet delivered with an air of certainty and authority that might be mistaken for proof. This highlights another of this book's weaknesses: although he has provided a list for people interested in further reading, this list is not a bibliography (in the scientific writing sense); repeatedly during my reading, I was left with a sense that I wanted questionable statements footnoted so that I could verify their confident assertion. As Mark Twain once noted about science: "One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture on such a trifling investment of fact."

"Why Michael Couldn't Hit" has much to offer the reader, so long as (s)he maintains a healthy level of scepticism where Dr. Klawans strays too far into speculation. For the reader new to Dr. Klawans, I actually recommend two out-of-print books: Toscanini's Fumble and Newton's Madness.