When life throws you a split-finger fastball
The average pitch speed in Major League baseball is around 90ish mph. The record for the fastest pitch is 105.1 mph, a fastball thrown by Aroldis Chapman of the Cincinnati Reds in a 2010 game against the San Diego Padres.
Fortunately, Chapman didn’t hit the batter.
The impact of an object hurtling at you from 60'6" away at 90-some mph isn’t for the faint of heart. I suppose that’s why it’s regulation that when a batter does get hit by a pitch, he get to walk to first base, a consolation prize for getting drilled.
Some batters, when they sense they’re in danger of being hit, are able to duck and avoid getting beaned. It’s a split-second decision that isn’t always successful. On Sept. 11, 2014 alone, 14 MLB players were hit (the record for HBPs in one day is 22). In 1920, Ray Chapman (no relation) died after being hit in the head by a baseball.
There’s a saying found on many a refrigerator magnet imploring its viewers to “do one thing every day that terrifies you.”
How one is supposed to pick just one thing, I don’t know. Personally, I’m terrified of a lot of things — the dark, getting E. coli from my salad, flying in an airplane, failure, heights, contracting a terminal illness, my house spontaneously exploding, everyone I’ve ever known suddenly cutting off contact, a burglar crashing through my window while I’m sleeping and shooting me at point-blank range — the list goes on.
Some of these things are considered reasonable: It’s perfectly normal to be a bit anxious and uncomfortable during plane turbulence.
Others aren’t so rational: the chances of me having to, say, make an emergency exit on my plane because holy crap we’re crashing we’re being hijacked someone on the plane has TB someone’s got an AK-47 we’re all going to die? Slim to none.
Psychiatric professionals refer to this as “catastrophization;” while the chances of a situation actually escalating to its Worst Case Scenario, people who catastrophize skip the less apocalyptic outcomes and go right on to the most horrific way a situation could pan out. It’s usually not a conscious thing; catastrophization is often caused by an anxiety disorder of some form.
Here’s how a split-finger fastball, or a “splitter,” works:
The pitcher puts his index and middle finger on opposite sides of the ball towards the top (i.e., “splitting” them across the baseball).
When it’s pitched, it looks like a fastball at first before abruptly moving down by the batter’s knees. The pitcher accomplished this by jolting the arm downward which causes the sudden drop when the ball gets near home plate. Because it initially looks like a fastball until the very last minute, players have to scramble to react to the drop. Often, they end up hitting the top of the ball, which usually leads to a ground ball, which in turn usually leads to a double play. That’s why the splitter’s so effective: not only does it throw off the batter and make him scramble, if he hits into a double play, his opponents get two outs for the price of one.
I’ve never played in the MLB, but I’m pretty sure if I grounded into a double play, I’d spend the rest of the game profusely apologizing to the poor soul who, through no fault of his own, had to make the walk of shame back to the dugout without scoring a run, all because of my ineptitude. I’d probably feel guilty if we lost, and I’d probably agonize about it for days, if not weeks.
Yet professional baseball players seem to possess the ability to shake off the mistakes of one game before playing the next; learn from it, sure, but not dwell on it for the rest of the season. This ability is vital; with 162 games to play, players must have the capacity to let things go. There’s a fine line between remembering past mistakes and learning from them and holding onto those failures as they slowly eat away at you. One is a form of self-improvement; the other, self-destruction.
This is the difference between someone with and someone without anxiety. The un-anxious person is able to shake off embarrassing errors. The anxious person will be kept up at night, reeling from the mistake. Did everyone see that? I’ll never live this down. Everything’s a mess, and it’s all my fault. I lost the game for us, and they’re never going to forgive me. It’s a lost cause. That’s it, I’m retiring. This isn’t my calling. I’m the worst player who’s ever lived. One thought pattern is rational and healthy; the other is deeply damaging.
Someone without anxiety can separate likely consequences (I’ll have to practice extra hard in BP tomorrow, maybe I’ll get moved down in the lineup tomorrow, etc.) from the unlikely (the commissioner himself is going to publicly call for my expulsion from the sport, everyone in the country will hate me, I’ll never be successful at anything, etc). For those with anxiety, however, it’s not so simple; all outcomes seem to have an equal likelihood of occurring. In fact, the worst outcomes are perhaps the most likely. Once this pattern of racing thoughts begins, it’s extremely difficult to stop it. This fear of the worst case scenario coming true can be paralyzing.
Sometimes, a batter is able to predict that a pitch might be out of the strike zone. If he swings at it, it’s a strike; if he doesn’t, it’s a ball. If it’s obvious enough, the batter won’t even try to hit the ball. But in some cases, this realization comes after the batter begins to swing. Quickly, he stops swinging and brings his bat back so it doesn’t hit the ball. This is called a “checked swing.” When the player checks his swing fast enough to avoid crossing the strike zone, it counts as a ball; when not executed in time, it counts as a strike. It’s a last-minute decision that can either bring a batter one step closer to being walked or one step closer to striking about. But players aren’t always keen enough to make this decision, while others aren’t deft enough to execute it properly.
Getting “help” for mental illness is a hot mess, and I mean that in the best/worst way possible.
While plenty of pamphlets and PSAs claim “there are people out there who can help you,” navigating the U.S. mental health care system is a bit of a crapshoot. With a myriad of psychiatric drugs available, finding the right one (or the right combination) for each patient is incredibly arduous.
This process itself can even make symptoms worse; the waiting involved is stressful. The difficulty in pinpointing the problem and its proper treatment can cause extreme anxiety. Some patients may begin to feel as though they’re somehow at fault for the medications not working, or lose hope altogether of recovery.
It doesn’t help that some medications do the opposite of what they’re supposed to—for instance, some antidepressants can increase suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Some medicines work, but not in combination with other medicines. When the appropriate combination is discovered, it’s a lifesaver; when the wrong dosage, or the wrong medication(s) entirely are administered, it can be deadly. Some psychiatrists are able to, be it through experience, better education, or sheer luck, pinpoint the necessary method of treatment faster than others, who may keep firing shots aimlessly into the dark, trying and failing to find a regimen that works.
Fine-tuning a patient’s treatment regimen can take months. This lengthy waiting time can be dangerous: imagine you’re an intensely suicidal patient, or you have crippling anxiety that prevents you from going about your life, or you’re experiencing bouts of psychosis. Waiting for proper treatment can be agonizing, if not lethal. The line between the perfect treatment regimen and the most damaging one is paper-thin. Psychiatrists must act with a brain surgeon’s precision to avoid exacerbating a patient’s diagnosis.
There’s this iconic play from the 2001 ALDS:
The A’s Jeremy Giambi’s on first. Outfielder Terrence Long hits a line drive into right. After Shane Spencer, the Yankees’ right fielder, botches a throw to the infield to cut the runner off, Giambi rounds third. Just as everyone prepares for Oakland to tie the game with two outs in the 7th, Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter runs over to the first base line to catch the ball and flips it to catcher Jorge Posada, who tags Giambi out at home.
This play helped the Yanks win the game, and it’s credited with changing the momentum of the series (New York won it in five, and went on to the World Series).
The play always comes up in lists of the best/most iconic/coolest-as-hell plays in the history of baseball. ESPN ranked it No. 45 in its list of most memorable MLB moments of the last quarter-century. The Flip saved the game in the weirdest, most beautiful way possible.
But The Flip wasn’t just something Jeter ripped from thin air: the team had practiced it all year after the same situation, a failed throw from right, came up in Spring Training. Had the team not rehearsed this meticulously choreographed routine all year, it’s a pretty safe bet that, for all his talent, Jeter probably wouldn’t have been able to make the play, and The A’s would have almost certainly tied the game. Plays like that rarely just “happen;” it takes an incredible amount of practice to pull off something like The Flip.
In cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, there’s a concept called “grounding techniques.” These techniques can take many forms, such as naming all 50 states, eating a snack and paying attention to each flavor present, noting 10 things you can see/smell/hear in a room. The point is to take your mind off an unpleasant situation or feeling and concentrate on something outside the situation. While employing these grounding techniques, your mind has time to calm itself down. If the technique works, you’ll feel more relaxed and stable when you’re done.
But grounding skills can’t be learned and employed for the first time in the moment — they have to be practiced and learned over time. Mental health professionals recommend you practice your technique(s) of choice in times when you’re not in distress so as to make them a habit; this way, you can easily employ them when you are distressed.
For instance, when I’ve got a minute or five and I’m feeling well, I’ll go through and try to name every MLB team, going division by division, starting with the AL and then the NL. When I feel a panic attack coming on, I pull out this technique. Toronto. New York. Boston. Baltimore. Tampa Bay. Eventually, I make it through all 30 teams, and my breathing has usually slowed down to a normal rate. The tightness in my chest has had time to subside, and my mind is focusing on something more positive than whatever triggered the attack. But if I tried to use this technique without practicing it, I’d probably freak out and get even more anxious because wait, I’ve got 28 — who am I missing? I thought I named them all…WHY DOES CALIFORNIA HAVE SO MANY TEAMS? and so on.
One of the most-used cliches in postgame pressers is “it’s a long season,” or something to that effect. Technically, it’s true: an MLB season has 162 games, not including Spring Training and the postseason. It’s a way of saying, “We completely screwed up today, but that’s no indicator of our future performance. We lost today, but that doesn’t preclude us from winning tomorrow.”
As much as I hate cliched responses to reporter’s questions, this has always been one I didn’t mind so much. As a fan, it was comforting to keep in mind that a shutout one day doesn’t guarantee a shutout the next. As someone with multiple mental illnesses, it reminded me that this is just one day. To invoke another cliche, today’s the first day of the rest of my life.
Even if today was horrible, even if I relapsed, even if I couldn’t manage to get out of bed today, I’ll have more opportunities in the future. Just like it’s only one bad game, today is just one bad day. The season will continue, and so will my life.
I’ll leave you with a quote from one of the best baseball players in the history of the game:
“Don’t let the fear of striking out hold you back.”
— Babe Ruth
