Is baseball the toughest sport mentally?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Strictly from a mental standpoint, golf is probably number one. There is no floor. If you're a pitcher pitching poorly, someone will take you out. One hitter striking out three times in a game is commonplace and doesn't necessarily affect the outcome. In tennis, the best players in the world are still not winning much more than half of the points, games, or sets. A football player can miss a coverage or lose yards and offset that entirely on another play. One error is unlikely to lose a game. Conversely, one bad break even on a good swing over 72 holes of golf can lose you an entire tournament. The margins of error are much, much smaller than in really any other sport. You can't take a single shot off. Even when you are executing at the best of your ability success and victory are so far from guaranteed.

Sorry, misread the OP. For team sports, I don't disagree with baseball.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tennis and other racquet sports like squash are brutally stressful too. DS plays both sports recreationally but I’ve been amazed to see many of the more competitive junior players have individual mental coaches that help them out. These are 11/12 year old kids!!

This is a different kind of stress. This is tiger parent stress.

[Anonymous]

Fencing is called physical chess and is very mentally challenging in addition to the physical pain/brusing of getting stabbed by a blunt tipped sword.

[Anonymous]

Goalkeepers. Period. Any sport.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Goalkeepers. Period. Any sport.

Is it really true that goalkeeping is worse than pitching? Pitchers are involved in every play. Every single one.

[Anonymous]

squash is most stressful

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tennis and other racquet sports like squash are brutally stressful too. DS plays both sports recreationally but I’ve been amazed to see many of the more competitive junior players have individual mental coaches that help them out. These are 11/12 year old kids!!

This is a different kind of stress. This is tiger parent stress.

Not all tennis stress is caused by tiger parents. Also I think you are interpreting some junior players having mental coaches as a sign of tiger parenting (omg you hired a "mental coach" for your junior tennis player) but many players would tell you that it is an act of kindness and support. When Iga Swiatek won Wimbledon, her therapist attended the winners ball with her afterward and Iga credited her as an important part of her success. The loser in that match, Amanda Anisimova, recently took 18 months off tennis at a key point in her career entirely for mental health reasons. Naomi Osaka has been openly berating herself in press conferences this year after tough losses, because she's so unhappy with where she is at as she continues to try and get to the level she was playing at before maternity leave. And several male players have spoken out this year about the mental challenges of the sport, both on the court and within the expectations of the tour, where constant travel, the responsibility for your team of coaches and trainers, and the increasing expectations of the fans and the press in terms of accessibility has created a sort of mental health crisis in the sport.

In that context, if I had a child who was a highly competitive junior player, I'd absolutely make sure they had some kind of mental health support, because I'd be worried about the mental wear and tear building up and becoming a bigger problem, the same way you worry about a young athlete playing through pain or injuries or ignoring a technique issue that could create physical problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Goalkeepers. Period. Any sport.

Is it really true that goalkeeping is worse than pitching? Pitchers are involved in every play. Every single one.

I think goalkeeping is rougher.

Ultimately, with every goal the opposing team scores, it got past the goalkeeper and the goalkeeper is the last line of defense.

Pitchers have fielders behind them. Most hits aren't home runs and most runs aren't scored on home runs, so in many cases, the fielder was the last line of defense.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I've been watching my kid and others play baseball for about a decade now and geez it's just brutal. The individual moments of being up to bat in high pressure situations, umps with unpredicatable strike zones, fielding errors, injuries . . .
All sports are challenging, but I wonder if baseball is the hardest to master the mental aspect. Which team sport do you think is the most challenging in terms of the mental aspect?

Baseball and softball both require a tremendous amount of game IQ but I can’t really say for sure whether it’s more or less than other sports, merely different.

Compared to fast-moving and more complex games like basketball, soccer, and hockey, the amount of game IQ required in baseball is nil.

Basketball, soccer and hockey are not particularly complex.

Basketball is incredibly complex. I can see you've never played.

Maybe for the coach but for the individual… you have 1 job, okay 2 offense and defense.

It's incredibly complex, and the best players play the full game and are doing it dead tired late in the 4th quarter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've been watching my kid and others play baseball for about a decade now and geez it's just brutal. The individual moments of being up to bat in high pressure situations, umps with unpredicatable strike zones, fielding errors, injuries . . .
All sports are challenging, but I wonder if baseball is the hardest to master the mental aspect. Which team sport do you think is the most challenging in terms of the mental aspect?

This is part of why Shohei Ohtani is insane. The fact that he can master the mental aspects of being a top tier starting pitcher and can simultaneously be one of the best hitters ever (And an elite baserunner) is bananas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Goalkeepers. Period. Any sport.

Is it really true that goalkeeping is worse than pitching? Pitchers are involved in every play. Every single one.

Pitchers don’t get screened or bumped into when they’re doing their job. They get a pretty little mound to stand on, far away from everyone. If it rains they get to sit inside. They also get to rest every 10-15 minutes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Goalkeepers. Period. Any sport.

Is it really true that goalkeeping is worse than pitching? Pitchers are involved in every play. Every single one.

Every play for the few half innings they actually work.

Keepers are in goal for the entire game, every minute.

[Anonymous]

I think long distance running is the toughest mentally. All team sports like bball, soccer, football, have those pressure filled moments.

[Anonymous]

Equestrian hunter/jumpers or eventing. Try being on a thousand pound animal jumping several feet into the air over a fence, log or through the water trying not to fall off and maintain perfect balance while being judged while paying thousands upon thousands of dollars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Equestrian hunter/jumpers or eventing. Try being on a thousand pound animal jumping several feet into the air over a fence, log or through the water trying not to fall off and maintain perfect balance while being judged while paying thousands upon thousands of dollars.

Imagine being born rich and having nothing to do but ask daddy to buy a horse to do all the work in your sport for you.