Roberto Osuna is About to Face His Toughest Save Situation Yet.
On a chilly April night back in 2015, a little-known reliever trotted out to the mound at Yankee Stadium for his Major League debut. As he stepped onto the rubber, he couldn’t have stood in greater contrast to the man in the batter’s box. Donning his Jays fatigues for the first time was 20-year old reliever Roberto Osuna. The man at the plate? None other than Alex Rodriguez. Osuna struck him out looking.
Over the next two seasons, Osuna would go on to electrify the Jays’ fanbase, on his way to breaking record after record as one of the youngest pitchers in Major League history. His combination of poise in high-pressure situations and energy on the mound made him a fan favourite, and arguably, one of the best Closers in the game.
That’s why it was so difficult for Jays fans to hear that Osuna has been suffering from anxiety, and by his own admission, feelings of being ‘lost’.
Osuna showed great strength and awareness by publicly addressing his mental health issues. And on the whole, the reaction from Jays fans has been supportive and encouraging.
But not all the messages have been positive ones. Some (including so-called Jays fans) have demanded that Osuna ‘man up’ and ‘stop being a puss’, while others have wondered if Osuna faces that same ‘anxiety’ when he ‘cashes his substantial pay cheque’, and if this admission means the Jays should trade him, since his he can no longer ‘look his teammates in the eyes’. And while we’ve come to expect this level of vitriol in online message boards, it’s safe to assume that this taunting will follow Osuna to the ballpark.
Don’t forget, it was just three months ago that Adam Jones had racial slurs rain down on him at Fenway. If attacks like that are still possible in today’s game, there’s a very good chance that fans won’t shy away from insulting Osuna for his perceived ‘show of weakness’. You can bet that fan taunts will follow Osuna from ballpark to ballpark, not just now, but likely, for the rest of his promising career. And while we’ve (sadly) come to expect that lack of understanding from self-proclaimed old-school fans of the game, Osuna’s case also highlights how easy it is for more progressive fans to fall into the trap of propping up an old-school mentality when it comes to mental health issues in sports.
Take for example, the NHL and NBA Draft that took place this week. One of the oldest and most damaging critiques a player can receive is being considered ‘soft’ ‘mentally weak’ or ‘seeming like he doesn’t care’. While some of these can be chalked up to effort and attitude, it’s just as possible that scouts and sports organizations lack the necessary tools to identify when these kinds of responses are linked to a greater issue of mental health. And it’s just as easy for fans to reiterate and spread these criticisms when discussing players.
And sure, it’s fun to treat athletes like gladiators, going out to do battle in an arena for our enjoyment and entertainment. And yes, athletes are coached to block out what people are saying about them. But to think that a player can block out all the chatter is naive. Shutting out all that noise that comes from a 24/7 sports news community is probably more of a herculean task for athletes than actually performing on the field is. Just think of how many times you’ve Googled your own name to see what comes up. Now think about how that must feel as an athlete, to know that every few days, there’ll be pages and pages of tweets telling you how terrible you are at your job. Now imagine those same criticisms are wrongly attributed to your level of caring, rather than something deeper and more difficult to fix.
It makes you wonder how many legendary careers have been cut short (or even worse, never got started) because of mental health issues. Yes, it’s getting better, but it’s sad to think of how many magical, awe-inspiring, once-in-a-lifetime moments they’ve (and we’ve) been deprived of because we were slow to identify how the mind impacts performance on the field. Or put another way, how many Roberto Osunas did we miss out on, because we weren’t able to get them help in time?
Whether he fully intended it or not, Osuna has just become a symbol of the mental health issues that pro athletes face. And with that designation comes the added pressure of becoming an icon for thousands — if not millions — of people that suffer through the same thing. And while it’s easy to want to make Osuna out to be a hero and a trailblazer, it needs to be handled carefully. We can’t lose sight of the fact that Osuna is still just a 22-year old dealing with personal challenges, even it is in a very public setting. We can applaud him for his strength, but it would be wrong to overwhelm him with what we might want and need him to stand for.
But that’s not to say that Osuna wouldn’t be able to handle it. Because if we’ve learned anything about Roberto Osuna today, it’s that he’s even tougher than we thought.
