Athletes! Let your feelings out.

"There's not a human being alive that could have reacted quickly enough to avoid contact"

- Cinncinatti Reds annoucer Marty Brenamen

Aroldis Chapman has been credited with the fastest pitch in MLB history at 106 miles per hour (mph.) That's insane, like superhuman insane. Now try to imagine how fast the ball would be going if he were to throw one of these 100+ mph pitches and the batter hit a line drive right up in the middle off the sweet spot of the bat.

It happened. Chapman was hit square in the forehead by a line drive off the bat of Kansas City Royalsbatter Salvador Perez. The video is posted below. I'll warn you right now, it's a bit graphic. 

As you can see in the video, the ball smacked off Chapman's head so hard that it travelled past the third baseline, almost into the Royal's dugout. Can you even imagine the speed that the ball must have been travelling for it to smack off his head and travel that far?

It's hard to watch this video, you can hear the ball make contact with Chapman's head, watching him squirm on the ground in agony, and watching a remorseful Salvador Perez pray for him beside the pitchers mound.

It's been speculated Chapman will be back pitching in four to six weeks. But how long will it take for him to recover mentally?

This brings me to the point of this post. Baseball, and sports in general need to discontinue the notion that it's not alright for players to talk about how their feeling, especially when they're suffering from depression caused by injuries of the sport their playing.

Aroldis Chapman post surgery

Iread a really in depth article the other day about Ryan Freel who was Bipolar. Freel, a former Major League who commited suicide because he had upwards of nine or ten concussions during what was just an eight year baseball career. That's more than a consussion per season, and it didn't help him that he wasn't able to talk about his feelings.

When I was reading this article I couldn't help but feel overwhelmed by sadness. Ryan Freel was a 33-year old former baseball player with two daughters who was never able to talk about his feelings or his illness in his locker room because there's still a stigma out there that only the weak talk about how their feelings. He shot himself in the chest with a shotgun. This notion that only women talk about
their feelings, and if a man or an athlete does, then he's a wimp.

One can't help but think of the NFL players who have committed suicide recently such as Junior Seau and Paul Oliver, or hockey players like Rick Rypien and Derek Boogard. All of these men played high contact sports, all of these men suffered from mental illness, all of these men weren't able to talk about it because they might be branded as wimps, fags or pussies. All of these men commited suicide.

It's time for Major League Baseball to step up to the plate. The NHL and NFL have already begun implementing programs for players with mental illness, creating a more accepting environment for players who have them. The NFL recently settled on paying former players $765M to former players who claimed the league didn't do enough to inform them about brain injuries and the resources they could use if they ever needed to do anything about it. There's currently a group of former NHL players preparing to sue the NHL over the same thing.

Both leagues are now also taking preventative steps to reduce the number of head injuries.

Ensuring that players are safe is something that every league should put the utmost effort into doing. Baseball is not a contact sport, but that doesn't mean head and brain injuries won't happen. The league should be doing everything it can to make sure that players are safe and have the resources available for them to talk about it.

Take the MLB banning home plate collisions, for example. I'm a huge fan of this move. What does a guy running at full speed barreling over a catcher who more often then not hangs on to the ball anyway going to do for the game? Nothing. That play is so reckless and dangerous. I'm shocked it wasn't banned long ago. Thinking of Buck Martinez here.

In this video, Buck Martinez' leg was broken after a collision at home plate. Somehow he was still able to record the second out at home. Amazing pla, right? Amazing moment in sports history, right? Well you're forgetting one important part of it...HE BROKE HIS LEG!

How can you ignore the fact that because someone collided with him at home plate so hard that it literally snapped a bone in his body? How can you be in favour of keeping home plate collisions in the game after that? There's a fine line between toughness and stupidity, and allowing collisions like these to continue is moronic and dangerous.

Aroldis Chapman taking a ball in the head wasn't the MLB's fault. There's no way anyone could predict that was going to happen, but in cases like Ryan Freel's, the culture of Major League Baseball and the culture of sports didn't allow him to talk about his illness.

Athletes are people with emotions, they should be able to talk about their feelings without judgement. The old cliché is a team is like family, but I can't bring myself to agree with that.

Families support each other, families listen to each other's problems, and families don't judge or look down on a family member when they have mental illness. People will mental illnesses are not weak, they're sick, and the "only wimps talk about their feelings" mentality is a load of crap.

This reminds me of a case not long ago with Ritchie Incognito and Jonathan Martin. I still hear people say, "can't a guy who's 350lbs just defend himself?" Physically? Probably. But what these people ignore is the fact that not everyone internalizes bullying the same way, and classical notions of what it means to be a man are changing.

It's time for Major League Baseball to do more to help players who've suffered brain injuries and let players know that it's not only fine, but accepted for players to talk about their feelings, it's time for sports to get rid of the mentality that says only wimps talk about their feelings. It's time for athletes to lend a hand to each other and say "we're here for you, because you're my teammate and your health is important to me."

I'd like to end with a call to action. I want athletes to talk about their feelings. Especially if they have a mental illness. I want other athletes to let everyone know that they will help them and create an accepting environment. I want athletes to dispel the notion that because they have traits that aren't associated with traditional manliness, doesn't mean their less of a man.

I'm Stephen Burns, I play hockey, baseball, and had a brief stint in football. I cried when Dobby died in Harry Potter, I enjoy the odd musical - with the exception of ones that star Zach Effron, I've been single for four years and sometimes it totally sucks. I also have amazing people in my life who support me through all of this. They're my team.

I realize that these are just mere facts about me, and no I do not, nor have ever had a mental illness, but athletes should know that it's good to talk about these things.

Let me know in the comment section below, or tweet me at @srossburns and let me know what your feelings are, it's time for people to let athletes know that they don't have to be afraid to let their
feelings out.