<\/p>\n
On a cool Tuesday night in Columbia, South Carolina, a fan of the Columbia Fireflies minor league baseball team plays this song to an opposing batter named Marcos Torres. <\/p>\n
\u201cMarco!\u201d one fan calls. <\/p>\n
“Polo!” six fans responded, imitating a pool game.<\/p>\n
The batter swings and whiffs. The cacophony begins again. <\/p>\n
“Marco!”<\/p>\n
“Polo!” <\/p>\n
Baseball fans are known for their clever yelling to piss off players. But there’s a dark side to heckling, and as a sports, media and mental health researcher, I’m concerned when fans cross the line from playful teasing to verbal abuse. <\/p>\n
The recently publicized incident occurred on April 14, 2026, during a game between the Boston Red Sox and the Minnesota Twins. A fan in the stands at Target Field in Minneapolis reportedly told Red Sox outfielder Jalen Duran to kill himself. Duran responded by holding out his finger. <\/p>\n
It’s at least the second time fans have used Duran’s mental health as ammunition, the first being the 2025 Netflix documentary “The Clubhouse: A Year with the Red Sox,” in which Duran described his suicide attempt. <\/p>\n
After the game, Duran told reporters: “Honestly, it’s my fault for talking about my mental health, because it was like inviting in the bad guys.” <\/p>\n
American society highly values \u200b\u200belite athletes. They are specially trusted and admired. That’s why they emerge as the voice for everything from car insurance to foot powder. That’s why so many kids look up to athletes as role models.<\/p>\n
So when someone like Duran is harassed after disclosing their mental illness and subsequently expresses regret for opening up, sensitive bystanders may decide that talking about their mental health struggles isn’t worth the risk. <\/p>\n
Elite sports can be a cauldron of stress. Apart from the pressure to perform, there are also demands such as travel, training, and managing relationships. In this harsh environment, your successor is often waiting for you to stumble. It’s no wonder, then, that athletes have long felt the need to hide any signs of weakness or weakness, including their mental health.<\/p>\n
But norms in sports are changing, perhaps due in part to changing public attitudes towards mental illness. Social media has allowed athletes to connect directly with their fans, giving them deeper insight into the people behind their heroes. <\/p>\n
Duran is part of a group of athletes who have recently shared their experiences with mental illness to raise awareness and combat stigma. Since its launch in 2014, The Players Tribune has published more than 20 athlete essays on mental health, including testimonials from NBA player John Wall and WNBA star A’ja Wilson. <\/p>\n My colleagues and I have been studying these disclosures, the public’s reaction to them, and their social impact. We used research, experiments, and interviews with athletes who have become mental health advocates, such as 23-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps. <\/p>\n The increase in the number of athlete testimonies coincides with changes in the way professional sports leagues and teams approach mental health. The organization employs mental health professionals to work on behalf of mental health-related causes in the community. A recent analysis found that NFL, MLB, and NBA teams made 258 social media posts between 2021 and 2025 advocating for mental health funding, education, and policy. The number of posts has been increasing year by year.<\/p>\n When combined with other research published in 2020, our research suggests that sports fans value athlete testimonials and team-driven conversations. Their response was overwhelmingly positive. Athletes appear to be inspiring fans to open up to their families, seek treatment, and take other steps to stay healthy. <\/p>\n But Duran’s recent experience shows how a small number of fans and sports commentators can threaten this progress. <\/p>\n After the recent incident in Minneapolis, sports and opinion outlet Outkick described Duran’s actions as a “flimsy” and “act.” The backlash reminded me of the criticism NBA star Ben Simmons received a few years ago. In 2021, Simmons sat out the season with the Philadelphia 76ers due to mental health issues. A year later, he returned to play for the Brooklyn Nets. Cynics accused him of “weaponizing his mental health” to avoid playing for the 76ers.<\/p>\n Fans are targeting other athletes’ mental health issues.<\/p>\n During the 2019 MLB playoffs, a New York Yankees fan was caught on camera mocking Houston Astros pitcher Zack Greinke for taking social anxiety medication during warm-ups. Simone Biles, one of the greatest gymnasts of all time, stepped away from competition during the Tokyo Olympics after experiencing a “kink” that the Cleveland Clinic describes as a “dangerous disconnect between mind and body” caused by stress and other factors. Some critics showed little sympathy and described her as a quitter. <\/p>\n Athletes who talk about their mental health may not only be subject to abuse and abuse, but also be expected to take on responsibilities they didn’t necessarily sign up for. <\/p>\n Exposing mental health issues can change an athlete’s reputation from athlete to advocate. For example, social media users debated whether Duran was obligated to share his progress toward recovery with his fans. Doing so, the sides said, would lend legitimacy to Mr. Duran’s experience and provide guidance to others. That doesn’t concern us, the other person replied. <\/p>\n Mental illness labels can also influence people’s judgments of an athlete’s performance. Was throwing his helmet after a strikeout a reflection of his mental illness or a moment of frustration? Does this slump mean he’s going through another period of depression? <\/p>\n Athletes also worry about being judged by teammates and coaches. In 2023, the NCAA surveyed more than 2,000 college athletes and found that only half were comfortable seeking help for mental health issues through campus resources. Additionally, only about half believed their fellow athletes took their teammates’ mental health seriously, and about half felt comfortable talking about mental health with their coaches.<\/p>\n For athletes and others interested in disclosing mental health issues, a good game plan can help emphasize positive reactions and reduce negative ones.<\/p>\n The National Alliance on Mental Illness recommends considering the audience, timing, and amount of information you’re comfortable sharing, whether famous or anonymous. Meanwhile, fans, coaches, and teammates can do their part by publicly supporting athletes who disclose information.<\/p>\n When Duran first spoke about his experience in 2025, his manager at the time, Alex Cora, immediately expressed his support.<\/p>\n \u201cIt takes someone with courage and transparency and integrity to do that,\u201d Cora said. “I hope that’s what we think. He’s going to impact others and save lives.”<\/p>\n When there is stigma, the battle between silence and dialogue can become a back-and-forth battle, similar to a long rally in tennis or a tense overtime game in basketball. But sometimes all it takes is one defining moment to change the game, like when Marcos Torres busted a line drive to silence the hecklers that cold night in Columbia, South Carolina.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n #athletes #talk #openly #depression #anxiety #suicide #small #number #fans #weaponizing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On a cool Tuesday night in Columbia, South Carolina, a fan of the Columbia Fireflies minor league baseball team plays this song to an opposing batter named Marcos Torres. \u201cMarco!\u201d one fan calls. “Polo!” six fans responded, imitating a pool game. The batter swings and whiffs. The cacophony begins again. “Marco!” “Polo!” Baseball fans are … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":858,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[585,1226,588,1164,2121,733,386,1287,2120,2122],"class_list":["post-857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-anxiety","tag-athletes","tag-depression","tag-fans","tag-number","tag-openly","tag-small","tag-suicide","tag-talk","tag-weaponizing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drouki.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n Joe Bagwitz\/Getty Images<\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\nVulnerabilities come with risks<\/h2>\n
Preparation for after-effects<\/h2>\n