By Christian Cullen, Staff Writer

A long-awaited day came for Dodgers fans last week when they played the Philadelphia Phillies  in the home debut game for Japanese phenom, Roki Sasaki. And it went… poorly. 

Sasaki got shelled, giving up more walks than strikeouts and not making it past the second inning. While his performance has been deservedly talked about, his reaction is what really made waves. Cameras caught Sasaki crying in the dugout, leading to a conversation about emotions in sports –specifically, the embrace of aggressive and negative feelings and the rejection of expectations for male athletes to stay positive and never break. 

Some prominent baseball voices, such as former Milwaukee Brewers catcher Jonathan Lucroy, criticized Sasaki. Hisgeneral point was that a player of Sasaki’s caliber needs the “mental toughness” to reach their potential. 

There has also been a pushback to Lucroy’s standpoint, noting that Sasaki  completely uprooted his life: he moved to a new country, learned a new language and faced sky-high expectations. 

Meanwhile, some of baseball’s most prevalent clips are of players smashing their bats and equipment in the dugout after a strikeout or a series of bad plays. It is not just baseball, either. Tom Brady smashing iPads on the sideline, NBA coaches breaking whiteboards in the locker room or golfers throwing the clubs into the water hazards all have massive view counts on the variety of social media platforms they get posted on. Rage is more popular than tears.

There are greater social norms around men and emotions at play here as well. The mantras of “be a man” and “boys don’t cry,” while less than they used to be, are still deeply engraved into our culture. When moments such as Sasaki breaking down occur, it is a chance for us as a society to reform the culture. 

Sports are a perfect vehicle to do this. Athletes are kids’ role models and their heroes. For young men to see their hero be able to express their emotions in a way that is healthy is incredibly good for society as a whole. But the backlash from individuals such as Lucroy draws us back to an older culture – one that suppresses emotion until it explodes.

Within the sports world – with both players and fans – anger is embraced. It is seen as competitiveness or passion. But one can, and must, have those traits while also being able to do what Sasaki did. They must have space to exist. 

There is further concern about how younger players – of baseball in this case but all sports in general – will interpret this. 

There needs to be a reframing of male emotional expression in general, but especially so in the sports world. The sports world functions as a pathway for this change to occur in the rest of society as well, given its outsized role and influence upon people of all ages. 

While I do not hope that more pitchers get shelled the way Sasaki did, I hope if they break down, they are not berated for it. I think we can all agree that someone crying in a dugout is much more healthy and better than someone taking a bat and destroying everything they see in anger.