Judges’ comments:
Pablo Torre’s inside glimpse into the ways Major League Baseball is changing its approach – and culture – in responding to athletes with mental health issues is a compelling fly-on-the-wall report on a topic rarely discussed inside or outside the locker room
Solid reporting. Insightful commentary. Inspiring human stories. They’re all here in Torre’s tale of the difficult struggles faced — and overcome — by the pro athletes at the center of the issue.
What distinguishes the piece is Torre’s ability to provide a rare glimpse into one of the most exclusive Boys Club cultures in America: the MLB. He shines a light on a topic that, for decades, was kept hidden in the dark corners of pro ball. He chronicles how the few athletes who’ve been open about their struggles have coped, if not conquered, their demons. He also shows how league officials have accepted and addressed mental health issues.
“A Light in the Darkness” offers a candid account of the moving stories of human tragedy and triumph. In so doing, Torre paints a portrait of the new face of the American Sports Hero. Nice work.
1. Provide the title of your story or series and the names of the journalists involved.
“A Light in the Darkness” by Pablo S. Torre.
2. List date(s) this work was published or aired.
June 21, 2010.
3. Provide a brief synopsis of the story or stories, including any significant findings.
“A Light in the Darkness” is a months-long investigation into the changing culture around mental health in Major League Baseball (and thus professional sports at large). In 2009 an unprecedented number of baseball players quietly went on MLB’s disabled list for a publicly disclosed mental illness. This 5,100-word story, conceived in response, not only asked why so many “injuries” occurred but for the first time provided an in-depth, firsthand look at the sport’s unique relationship with psychiatry and psychology from the men — doctors, players, coaches, executives, researchers — directly impacted and involved. One active player, Ian Snell, described to SI his struggle with mental illness and thoughts of suicide (never before discussed) in full; another, the retired Bill Pulsipher, opened up about the maltreatment by his former employer, the Mets; and the sport’s leading authority on psychology, Harvey Dorfman, meanwhile admitted to not having any actual academic or professional training in the field. What emerged was a never-before-seen portrait of one of America’s fortresses of masculinity — indeed, its national pastime — at last coming to terms with this health care issue.
4. Explain types of documents, data or Internet resources used. Were FOI or public records act requests required? How did this affect the work?
No FOI/public records requests were necessary. Confidential documents (e.g. memos from MLB on the subject of mental illness) were obtained through human sources. Disabled List information (on players’ specific medical issues) became available through sports databases and newspaper archives; it was then combined and interpreted in spreadsheet form to provide statistical context, which had not been done before by a media outlet.
5. Explain types of human sources used.
Almost 50 interviews were completed, on and off the record, with MLB players (active and retired); coaches; executives; team doctors; and strength and conditioning staffers. Included among that number, also, are non-sports sources — primarily professors of psychology and psychiatry — who verified and supplemented the story’s descriptions of mental illness research and the fields of psychology and psychiatry as they stand today.
6. Results (if any).
The impact of the piece was felt throughout sports, well beyond baseball. The United States Olympic Committee wrote to SI to say that the piece was distributed internally and sent to the coaches of the U.S. Olympic teams, for example. And within MLB waves were made at the annual Employee Assistance Program meeting in New York, as well as in everyday clubhouses. As one team psychiatrist wrote to SI, the piece “led to players contacting [mental health professionals] to address serious personal issues they faced. These players cited the article specifically as to why they came forward. They felt that if the players you talked about in your story could come forward, so could they.”
7. Follow-up (if any). Have you run a correction or clarification on the report or has anyone come forward to challenge its accuracy? If so, please explain.
The story went unchallenged, and corrections were not needed.
8. Advice to other journalists planning a similar story or project.
Gaining the trust of someone on the “front lines” — particularly an active player, in-season — was the hardest part of reporting this story about mental health, and the most invaluable. I had heard about Ian Snell’s personal struggles through another Mariners player whom I had stayed in touch with, and it did take a while for us to gain the mutual understanding and respect necessary to do a story like this. I would advise another journalist to set out about achieving this step first. And beyond that: gaining a solid footing in the complexities of the subject matter was crucial. I spent countless hours on the phone testing the genuine generosity of professors at the psychology departments of Harvard, Columbia and Boston University, often on questions that would be used only to further for my background knowledge on mental illness.