A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Professional athletes are increasingly speaking out about mental health challenges they face - gymnast Simone Biles, tennis pro Naomi Osaka and basketball all-star Kevin Love. In baseball, the San Francisco Giants have emerged as a leader in setting up mental health resources for their players. From member station KQED, April Dembosky has more. And a warning - this story does discuss suicide.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: I'm good, bro. What's up?
APRIL DEMBOSKY, BYLINE: Down in the underbelly of Oracle Park, there's a tiny, windowless office that team psychologist Shana Alexander calls her Zen Den.
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DEMBOSKY: The lights are low, the wall art conjures lily pads and the leather couch is long enough for a 6-foot-2 pitcher to lie down.
SHANA ALEXANDER: Noticing the rise and fall the breath creates in the body.
DEMBOSKY: But what Alexander offers is no ordinary guided meditation.
ALEXANDER: Picture yourself in the dugout - the slight breeze, the coolness of the air. You smell the smell of pine tar.
DEMBOSKY: She gets players to visualize themselves at the plate.
ALEXANDER: You drop the bat, and you take off running. You round first, and you slide into second.
DEMBOSKY: Alexander says this kind of daily practice builds confidence, and that is critical for combating the distinct stressors that make baseball so mentally taxing.
ALEXANDER: Baseball's kind of a unique sport that - it's, like, slow, and then all of a sudden, it's, like, super intense. And then it's like, OK, now go sit in the dugout and be slow again.
DEMBOSKY: She says basketball moves so fast, players have no time to stew over mistakes.
ALEXANDER: If they miss a shot, they have to hustle back on defense.
DEMBOSKY: But if a batter strikes out?
ALEXANDER: You have to sit with it and wait until the next time you get to step up to the plate.
DEMBOSKY: The career path in baseball is also slow. Players are almost never drafted directly into the major leagues. They train in the minors and can spend years in a kind of baseball purgatory, moving up and down between the minor league tiers and the majors.
MIKE YASTRZEMSKI: It sucked, to be honest with you, to be bouncing back and forth.
DEMBOSKY: Mike Yastrzemski played right field for the Giants for six years until he was traded to the Kansas City Royals in July. For a long time, he says, mental health wasn't taken seriously in baseball.
YASTRZEMSKI: I think it was, if you're not tough enough to handle this, then you shouldn't be in the sport. And I think that was a really poor way to look at it. I think we have really adjusted well to understanding that athletes are humans.
DEMBOSKY: Resources have evolved in step at the Giants, from outside therapy referrals to part-time consultants to now two full-time clinical psychologists. But the real inflection point came in 2020 when one of the players attempted suicide. That player was Drew Robinson. He was getting tossed back and forth between the minors and majors when he got injured - another really vulnerable time for players.
DREW ROBINSON: And so when I was home, watching all my friends and teammates playing on my TV in my living room, I just felt completely isolated, alienated and lonely.
DEMBOSKY: Then he and his fiancee broke up. Then the pandemic hit. But he says the main reason he tried to kill himself was that he was endlessly insecure and fiercely unable to admit it.
ROBINSON: I'm a man. I got to tough this out. I can get through this. I don't need help.
DEMBOSKY: Robinson survived, and Alexander quickly hired him to be a full-time peer mental health advocate for the players.
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DEMBOSKY: His role is outward-facing, too.
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DEMBOSKY: At a home game in May, he spoke on a panel about youth mental health, did an on-field interview on the jumbotron, then crossed the foul line to hug the mother of a 13-year-old little leaguer who died by suicide last year.
JON COYLES: They deserve to be referred to as leaders in this space.
DEMBOSKY: Jon Coyles is the senior VP of drug, health and safety programs at Major League Baseball. Along with the Royals and the Toronto Blue Jays, he says the Giants' mental health program is among the largest and most robust in the league.
COYLES: They serve as a really nice, effective model not just for the other MLB teams, but for all professional sports teams.
DEMBOSKY: What started off as a way to get athletes batting 300 has evolved, from guided meditations in the Zen Den to public-facing campaigns designed to reframe mental health for the next generation.
For NPR News, I'm April Dembosky in San Francisco.
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MARTÍNEZ: If you or someone you know may be considering suicide or is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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