By Dylan Callaghan

Imagine doing something for your entire life, spending countless hours refining a specific skill, just to suddenly lose that ability with seemingly no explanation. While this may seem like some unimaginable nightmare to some, it is a reality for some athletes. 

I can remember showing up to baseball tryouts my Sophomore year, riddled with nerves and dreading having to go play catch, something that seems so simple to some. But instead of focusing on just having fun with the whole thing, all I could think about was not messing up. My first throw missed badly. So what, right? It’s just one throw. However, to me at the time, one bad throw led to continuous overthinking, and it quickly turned into two. It was this snowball effect that led to me struggling to play catch in any capacity for about a month, and I had to struggle to get out of that cycle. But what had really caused this? Had I been put under some kind of mystical curse? Why had I completely lost the ability to play catch seemingly out of nowhere? 

The “yips,” an affliction typically caused by some kind of performance anxiety, have been around for quite some time in sports. While many famous examples come from the baseball world, the yips have also affected athletes in golf and football. But in terms of baseball, the yips are most commonly seen in pitchers. To those who don’t know baseball, pitching might seem relatively simple. However, it is an incredibly difficult task that involves heavy precision and focus, and any kind of performance anxiety can affect one’s abilities. While some may think the yips only affect lower-level athletes, it has famously affected many professional athletes, too.

Ankiel pitching in Game 2 of the 2000 NLCS. Photo courtesy of The History of the Atlanta Braves.

Rick Ankiel, a young pitching sensation for the St. Louis Cardinals 25 years ago, had a pretty dominant first full year in the major leagues, holding on to a 3.50 ERA throughout the 2000 season. However, during his start in Game 1 of the NLDS that year, Ankiel threw five wild pitches and walked four before being taken out of the game. Again, like in many cases of the yips, the same question comes up. What’s the big deal? Some might think there’s no way this will truly affect Ankiel, since he’s a star pitcher in the big leagues. But it did affect him. In his next start, during Game 2 of the NLCS, Ankiel was pulled from the game before he could even finish his first inning after throwing five wild pitches. The very next season, Ankiel was sent down to the minors and never pitched in the big leagues again.

There have been many other famous cases of the yips in pitchers, like when Jon Lester, a star pitcher in the 2010s, lost the ability to throw the ball to first base while pitching for the Oakland Athletics in 2014. Lester began having to bounce the ball to first base just to get it there somewhat accurately. 

Another famous example of a pitcher with the yips is Steve Blass, who completely lost the ability to throw accurately in the middle of his 1973 season with the Pittsburgh Pirates. His case is so famous in the baseball world that the yips are sometimes referred to as Steve Blass Disease, which is defined as the sudden and inexplicable loss of the ability to throw accurately.

So does this terrible “disease” only affect baseball players? Absolutely not. The yips are also quite common in golf, typically showing up when a golfer is putting or chipping, since that is a seemingly simple task that also requires intense focus. 

Two legendary professional golfers, Ben Hogan and Sam Snead, both struggled with the yips while putting. However, both Hogan and Snead were able to coexist with the yips, winning a combined total of 26 championships throughout their careers.

Most cases of the yips stem from some kind of performance anxiety, and these are known as Type 2 yips. Type 1 yips are thought to be some kind of focal dystonia, an involuntary spasm and locking of certain muscles. Players with this have reported feeling a locking of the wrist. The symptoms experienced with Type 1 yips are usually worsened by anxiety. 

It can seem like there is no way out of the yips, especially to those being affected, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. Even Ankiel, whose pitching career ended pretty poorly, bounced back and returned to professional baseball as an outfielder. Lester still went on to win the 2016 World Series with the Cubs, in the midst of being affected by the yips. For many being affected, the way out was a certain mentality.

Sometimes referred to as the “**** it” mentality, it simply involves not being bothered when a mistake is made. Learning to not care who is watching or what happens is by far the most important step out of the yips. After all, while the competitive aspects and countless hours of work are very important and do matter, baseball is just a game. It’s no life-or-death matter. In my experience, and in the experience of many others, the cure to the yips is to start having fun with the game again.