Anxiety Becoming a Prominent Issue Among Major League Ballplayers

Photo courtesy of MLB.com

It’s highly unlikely that social anxiety disorder, a condition characterized by irrational nervousness toward big social situations and physical symptoms like muscle tension and increased heart rate, only started manifesting itself in professional baseball players within the last 25 years. We don’t know too much about the condition nowadays, let alone earlier in the 20th century when it might as well have not even existed.

In recent years, however, we’ve seen an alarming number of established major league talents falter to almost career-threatening levels. Today’s MLB.com article by Doug Miller makes light of the situation.

Royals ace Zack Greinke almost let social anxiety ruin his career. He failed as a Major Leaguer after carrying the pressure of becoming a top-shelf pitcher and letting the anxiety crumble around him. But he made it back in 2008 and showed he still had the potential to deliver as a frontline starter.

This season, after learning to cope with his anxiety and be more comfortable around groups of people, Greinke has established himself as one of the elite starters in the game with a 9-3 record, 1.90 ERA and 111 strikeouts, making him the odds-on favorite to start for the American League in the All-Star Game.

There are, however, cases of anxiety popping up in baseball this season that has made baseball take further notice of the condition. Cardinals shortstop Khalil Greene has been hitting around .200 since the 2008 season, and he has let it eat away at him to the point where the Cardinals had to place him on the disabled list because of anxiety.

Dontrelle Willis of the Tigers is another example. A former Cy Young candidate, Willis has shown no imminent sign of the form he had in 2005, when he won 22 games for the Florida Marlins. The Tigers also placed him on the DL with anxiety issues earlier this season.

Joey Votto of the Cincinnati Reds returned from the disabled list, also as a result of anxiety, Wednesday night. He had been suffering through bouts of anxiety and depression since losing his father at 52 over the summer.

It seems pretty obvious now that this is an issue baseball executives will have to monitor more closely. Players earning derisive reputations as “head cases”- Gavin Floyd, Milton Bradley and Rickie Weeks come to mind- could be underachieving at the major league level because of this condition or something like it. It’s great to see that mental disorders like anxiety are finally starting to be combated, because it’s likely something that has always plagued professional athletes.

Despite whatever fans may say, playing a sport in front of tens of thousands of people can have a profound effect on a player’s nervous system, especially if the fear of failure has already manifested itself inside him. The more we take notice of anxiety disorders, the better off MLB and its players will be this season and for years to come.

Zack Greinke First in Majors To Six Wins After Complete Game Shutout

Kansas City Royals ace Zack Greinke is mowing major leaguers down like no other right now, and the sports world is slowly catching on to this young superstar. Greinke struck out ten Chicago White Sox in a complete game shutout- his second of the season- in the Royals’ 3-0 victory Monday night.

Still only 25, Greinke is finally looking like the Cy Young contender he was thought to be way back when his career started. While other top-tier starters, such as Brandon Webb, Cole Hamels and C.C. Sabathia have either struggled or suffered injuries, Greinke has flourished, taking the title of “Best Pitcher in Baseball” away from them…At least for now.

Greinke allowed six hits and walked none in the shutout, all while throwing only 104 pitches, a remarkable feat for a complete game with double-digit strikeouts.

“It doesn’t surprise me what he’s doing right now at all,” White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said, “because he’s that good. He’s been good for a long time. Now he believes in himself.

“To me, he’s the best in the league right now.”

Not many would argue that right now. Greinke is now 6-0 on the season, and his 54 strikeouts and 0.40 ERA are the best in the major leagues. Perhaps we should have taken more notice last season, when he put together a 13-10 record for a last-place team with a 3.47 ERA and 183 strikeouts in 202 innings. This season is already putting that one to shame.

It feels like Greinke has been around forever, and he’s had to go through a lot of issues to get where he is now. Through the problems with social anxiety that he has overcome, Greinke is experiencing a triumph of major proportions. But ask him, and he will tell you he’s not the best pitcher in baseball- yet.

“No, you’ve got to do it for at least three years,” Greinke told Dick Kaegel of MLB.com. “That’s my thing — three years and you can put your name on stuff like that.”

Whether or not he’d agree with it, the way Greinke is pitching right now, he may have already reached his goal in year one.

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