Brian Walton
September 6, 2004
Ankiel Revisited - Interview with Dr. Richard Crowley
By Brian Walton
A month ago, when I first interviewed sports psychologist Dr. Richard Crowley to get a professional’s view about the factors behind a case like Rick Ankiel’s, I asked to follow up with him around now, when Ankiel returned to the bigs. Little did I know that initial interview would lead to Crowley’s appearance on ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” Sunday, but it surely gave us more to talk about.
As it turned out, ESPN originally asked Dr. Harvey Dorfman, Ankiel’s Scott Boras-contracted psychologist to appear. But, citing his doctor-client relationship, Dorfman declined. Looking for another expert, the ESPN producer apparently did a simple Google search on his computer for “Rick Ankiel” and “psychologist” and up popped my interview with Crowley. It included his website address, www.sportsmaker.com, so the match was made.
Former catcher Mackey Sasser was also scheduled to appear, but had to be replaced at the last minute. Who better to add to the show than the man for whom the malady is named, former Pirates player and current broadcaster Steve Blass?
I spoke with Dr. Crowley after his ESPN appearance Sunday morning.
Congratulations, Richard, on being on “Outside the Lines”.
Thank you very much.
How do you think it went?
Very well. On the show, he (Bob Ley) asked me a kind of convoluted question that was kind of a statement about whether or not Ankiel should talk about that past. I didn’t quite get what he meant.
I think what he was driving at was whether or not Ankiel should just come out and talk about the past and try to put it to bed once and for all.
He couldn’t put the past into words. By doing it, he would relive it and reanchor himself to the last place he wants to be. If it had been another show, I would have said this. “If you go to the bathroom and you flush the toilet, you don’t want to bring it back up again.” The purpose is to flush it. Why would you pull it back in again?
That seemed to be pretty much what Ankiel meant in his comments shown on ESPN, though he didn’t use such a graphic analogy.
The kid (Ankiel) is right on the money. Stay in the present and don’t drop back to the past. It’s the best advice ever.
But, until Ankiel has a period of continued success, it’s going to remain in the back of people’s minds, isn’t it?
Oh, yeah. In a book, another sports psychologist from a big team says “Once they get out of it, they never get out of it. It’s always going to be there.” That is negative crap. They have their belief that once it’s over, but it’s still there. You can’t say “I’ve licked that problem.” Why wouldn’t you say, “I’ve licked the problem”? “I licked the problem; I couldn’t drive the car. Now I can drive the car.” Why would you think, “Maybe I’ll lose my ability to drive the car again”?
But, don’t those negative feelings remain?
It’s like Love Canal, you know where they buried all that stuff and 20 years later, all those people got cancer because all the fumes came up through because it was put on a nuclear waste dump or something? All the stuff in you and me can get buried for a long, long time. It took twenty years for all that gaseous stuff to seep up and start killing people. That’s like your psyche and my psyche. Certain stuff we have, we think we’re over. But, twenty years later, or thirty years later, it comes through again. It comes through again because something outside triggers it off. Some parallel metaphor. Someone who looks like your Dad or your Mom or the ex-wife. Somehow, it wakes it up again. I call it the sleeping giant. And, it’s awake and you say, “What? How did it get here? I was fine.” That is the phenomena. Something shifts.
I know you’re not treating Ankiel, but knowing the postseason was the time and place where he had the greatest and highest profile difficulty, if you were the Cardinals, would you let Ankiel pitch in the playoffs or send him home in October and take it up next spring?
Probably the smartest thing would be, since he has just come off the operating table and he’s healing right now, would be to wait. You’ve stayed with him all that time - for four years - why not stay until next year? If they put him in right now and he gets quirky, they’re going to take him back to zero.
I wrote an article to that extent several weeks ago where I expressed the view that while Ankiel’s made good measured progress, he doesn’t yet belong in the postseason.
I think it is like starting fresh; brand new. Like going to the new school next year. Like you said, spring training. If they (the Cardinals) were up against the wall, which they obviously they aren’t after destroying the Dodgers again, it would be different. But, they don’t need him. They have more than enough people to win the pennant; just who they are – without bringing him in there. If they were the Dodgers, with their pitching staff, floundering, then they might have to look at him. “We’ve got to, because we have nothing else we can do.”
What about the impact on the rest of the team by having Ankiel around? It’s going to be a circus with the media at every stop the Cardinals make. And wouldn’t that be magnified in the playoffs, with hundreds more people asking the same old questions over and over?
I think you’re right. When you get near, it’s like when you return to the scene of the accident. If he still has a stray memory in his psyche, that hasn’t been resolved or healed, or pulled out, that would be the potential, if anything bad would happen. When he is in the same set of circumstances, he is in that same place again. If the demon is still in there, it could erupt.
What about the other 24 players on the team? How will they view all this?
You mean, all the negative energy going on him, rather than on them? I would think they would put a period to the end of that in terms of reporters wanting to get any information. He said it over and over. “I am not going back to the past. I am not going to talk about ‘What if?’ or ‘Whatever’. I am playing ball right now.” So, there’s no news. They can’t get any news out of him.
On the road or in the playoffs, they’ll be a whole new crew of reporters asking the same questions over and over…
I think he’ll say “No comment”. I think Dorfman or La Russa or Jocketty or someone has told him to answer just like a good attorney. “No comment.” And, he’ll say it over and over again as the party line. So, no matter what they ask him, they’re not going to get anything. They’re not going to get toothpaste out of that tube anymore. They’ll kind of get bored and leave and find some other news. We’ll see how this all goes. It will be fun to follow this into the next month and see where it takes us.
Precisely. Great to talk with you again.
Same here.
