How Zack Greinke Became the Weirdest Player in Sports

in 2006 zach grenky suffered a mental breakdown so severe it caused an incident that resulted in him quitting baseball so he could mow lawns since then he has become one of the most dominating pitchers of his era zack ranki tells opposing batters what pitch is coming those 50 mile per hour curveballs openly admits to hate having fans in the stands and when he was asked if he was excited about starting game seven of the world series he said this yeah gonna be a big game zack grenky is weird and today he is loved for it but this has not always been the case there have been times throughout his career where granky has been one of the most misunderstood and disliked players in baseball he's been called a sullen loner an utterly failed starter a coach called him aloof a teammate said he wanted to punch him in the face opponents have called him a socially awkward turd and one even tried to kill him zack ranky is truly one of a kind he once stopped pitching called a mound visit with his catcher just so he could propose a fantasy football trade another time he took yacial puig's suitcase out of the team bus and threw it into traffic when he was called up to the major leagues as a 20 year old he asked his manager if he could go back to single a and become a shortstop even though he was the number one pitching prospect in baseball he's considered quitting baseball to become a tennis player he wants to be a golfer and even told royal's head of player development that he wanted to be a trash man zac drankie went from being viewed as an arrogant immature letdown to one of the most talented light and flat out inspiring players in baseball and he did it in the weirdest way [Music] [Applause] possible this video is brought to you by draftkings i've had an account with draftkings for years not only because you can win money doing it but because it instantly makes every single game a lot more exciting draftkings will be giving away millions of dollars every week this season and to win this money all you have to do is draft 10 players stay under the 50 000 salary cap enter one of the hundreds of contests they offer every day and finish in the green what i love most about draftkings is that it adds an extra level of excitement to every game after you draft your 10 players you will constantly be flipping the channels to see how they perform and even in a blowout when everyone else is already sleeping you won't be because every hit walk strikeout or run your player gets can be the difference of you winning thousands of dollars click the link in the description and use code doesn't exist to start winning today throughout its history baseball has seen its fair share of characters roger moray was put into a straitjacket and hospitalized because he became frozen in a catonic state after a game mark fiderich used to talk to the ball while pitching and every time a fire truck would pass the stadium rude waddell would run off the field and chase it all three of these players accomplished impressive feats as baseball players but their performances were overshadowed by their struggles with mental illness quirkiness and straight up strange behavior and in 2006 zack grenky was at risk of being put into this category greggy had been struggling inside for over a year and was going through the darkest period of his life in one day during royal spring training camp it all boiled over what followed was an incident so dramatic that it led to granky quitting baseball all together he was 22 years old and have been the number one prospect in baseball he was literally called the future of pitching but growing up zack wasn't even really a pitcher first he was a tennis player who competed in international tournaments but he quit because he was so scared to lose he cried before matches he was also a golfer but quit that too because they moved him up too many age groups granki to this day doesn't enjoy golf but the few teammates who have seen him golf says he only does it barefoot or in flip-flops in high school his real love was being a shortstop in his four-year high school career he never hit under 444 and only began pitching as a sophomore where he became one of the best in the country grenkey threw a 95 mile per hour fastball through a wide variety of pitches and altered his delivery throughout the game grenkey was doing things like this methods pitchers like johnny cueto and marcus strowman have made popular over the past several years yeah grenkey was doing that in 2002 when he was 17 years old and he did it so much that local umpires called a private meeting with granky so he would stop doing it because they felt he was showing up his opponents and to be honest he probably was but scouts saw this as a sign of baseball iq above any other high school picture they had ever seen but as you can probably guess the pitching mechanics of zach granky weren't the only thing different about him in a home run derby grenkey was ahead by so much he started batting lefty hit one more home run and then left the field he was one of the top prospects in the country was a lot to be a first round draft pick was dating his future wife who was miss daytona beach and eventually a dallas cowboy cheerleader but he was too anxious to eat lunch in the cafeteria zach grinky was the most impressive and overachieving kid at his high school but he obviously hated the attention that came with it however that did not stop him from going on the morning announcements if you can't make the meeting for a legitimate reason please see coach bridgens coach bridges the day before the meeting granty would go on to get picked sixth overall in the 2002 draft a draft that was stacked in talent a lot of these players just like grenkey have had amazing mlb careers but almost all of these players unlike cranky are way too old and not good enough to still play baseball for most people getting drafted is one of the highlights of their life but for granky it was the start of a large influx of stress which resulted in a dramatic decline in mental health and eventually led to an event that changed his life forever during his rookie year grantee put up numbers that had one minor league coach say that he was the best minor league pitcher he had ever seen that year grenkey also called his parents on multiple occasions telling them that he was quitting greg he describes a time when he panicked packed all of his belongings and asked the royals if he could go on a few day vacation but he didn't actually plan on having a vacation he planned on escaping the team and never playing baseball again luckily the royal said no and the plan was ruined shortly after that he was called up to the major leagues most players are excited about going to the major leagues zach grenky was not he asked his manager if instead of going to kansas city he could go back to single a and become a shortstop the royals said no when granky arrived in kansas city he was immediately the best pitcher on the team he finished the year with a higher war than any other rookie in the league but somehow only finished fourth and rookie of the year voting putting up these kind of numbers as a 20 year old it's pretty insane but teammates quickly realized that his pitching ability may have been the most normal thing about zack cranky he rarely talked to anyone played in the bullpen dirt during spring training would sleep in his locker before games and even though he had just signed a 2.5 million dollar signing bonus grenkey lived with george brett and his family so he could save a thousand dollars a month on rent frankie says that during this time walking into the clubhouse alone would result in him going into a full state of panic because he just really didn't want to interact with anyone and even today with empty stadiums due to covid in between innings grenkey sits in the stands by himself instead of going to the dugout because it is a lot less stressful for him when no one is bothering him and when someone does bother zach grinky he is not shy to tell them in 2017 pitcher and advent autograph collector pat nishik asked grenky if he could sign a baseball card for him grenkey said yes but according to him only did because he thought nisha was a completely different pitcher named brad ziegler when the card was sent to granky to be signed he turned it down nisha confronted grenky during batting practice and greggy told nishak that he wore him out and wouldn't even sign if his kid asked yeah i've been feeling bad for two years been being mean and just uh i didn't mean it personally nishak responded by going online to baseball card trading forums and calling grenkey a socially awkward turd get a life pat knee shack get a you're a professional baseball player and this is just one of the many beefs cranky has had between him and his opponents throughout his career during his first few years in kansas city grenkey would go to a local high school field and hit off a t for hours grenkey really wanted to become an everyday player because all the downtime in between starts was becoming torture reiki was so serious about this transition he once walked into his manager's office and started listing out reasons why hitting was easy the royals obviously didn't take him seriously because it's pretty ridiculous to have your best pitcher become an everyday player but in arizona that year grenkey was given his only opportunity to hit he got absolutely shelled in this game giving up 11 runs and five innings but his manager kept him in the game just so he could get one more at bat and see if granky knew what he was talking about and he did this later said that he hit this ball with his eyes closed and i'll let you be the judge but it looks like he hit this ball with his eyes closed before the game granki had promised his general manager that he would hit a home run and he did but they still wouldn't let him be an everyday player he was stuck on the mound where he had the worst year of his career he dramatically regressed from his rookie year stats his anxiety was worse than ever he had a feud with his pitching coach about where to stand on the rubber and he refused to follow the royals off season pitching program the following year the royals fired a new pitching coach and the first thing grenkey told him was that he doesn't throw a change up he doesn't throw a two-seamer and he doesn't listen to pitching coaches grinky also skipped going to batting practice and had to be forced into doing team photos after he refused to do so in reality grenkey was suffering through the worst mental state of his life and he soon reached a boiling point during a bullpen session that spring greinke became so overwhelmed and upset he said he wanted to throw the ball over the center field wall but didn't because he was surrounded by dozens of scouts and royals employees this only put more pressure on granky who was throwing fastballs as fast as he could directly at the backstop until he eventually marched off the field into the clubhouse to talk to the royals general manager who later said it was the most intense conversation he's ever had the royals understood the desperate situation greg he was in and allowed him some time off to get help but in granky's head this was not time off this was retirement at the time grenkey said his goal was to mow lawns but basically he just wanted to do something that didn't require him to interact with anyone because even the simplest social interactions had become way too overwhelming grenkey was told to go to a psychologist who diagnosed him with a social anxiety disorder and depression and prescribed him medication that grinky says changed his life forever after a few months grenkey returned to baseball way faster than he expected he had overcome the biggest mental health battle of his life but he had many battles left to fight these occurred in the form of brawls ejections and even off the field conflicts between granky his opponents and even his own teammates not to mention the constant criticism he was getting from the media the league and even his own team grenkey had bounced back from the scariest period of his life but his reputation was at an all-time low when he returned from retirement he asked the royals if he could pitch out of the bullpen because he didn't like having to wait four days to pitch and the royals agreed grenkey pitched so well that the royals were ready to call him up but greinke again begged the royals to let him stay in the minor leagues instead of going to the majors and this time the royals agreed grenkey seemed to enjoy his time out of the spotlight but that did not last long when returning to the major leagues he was sent to the bullpen in what one reporter called the last desperate act from an organization and player close to calling it quits he also referred to grenkey as a sullen loner and an utterly failed starter but the media were not the only ones insulting granky a royals employee told reporters grenkey's personality was a rain man act and just a game to him his former landlord george brett said he needed to grow up one teammate said he liked zack but also wanted to punch him in the face and zack even had to apologize to his entire team after a spring training outing where he gave up seven runs basically on purpose saying that he felt so good he wanted to dial it back some and didn't want to waste good pitching however royals manager trey hillman understood that grenkey was just someone with severe anxiety trying to handle one of the most stressful positions a 22 year old can be in he made a promise with zach that he only had to talk to him once every four days and this strategy worked very well because after spending a year mostly out of the bullpen grinky returned to be a starter in 2009 and became the most dominating pitcher in baseball he led the league in era fip whip and home runs per nine he won the cy young easily within three years of quitting baseball all together grenkey had become the best pitcher in the world and he absolutely hated it he openly acknowledged that he wished he hadn't won the award because he found the attention to be a burden so much so that when fans started chanting cy young in kaufman stadium he publicly stated he found it annoying and wished it would stop he gave his award and every other prize that accompanied the cy young to his parents except for one it was a samurai sword mizuno gave him which he says is the only award he's ever kept in his entire life and when asked about if he had been thinking about the significance of his cy young over the offseason he responded by saying quote unquote not really i've been playing this game world of warcraft and i haven't been thinking much about baseball grenkey hates awards and attention so much later on in his career when he lost a no-hitter late in the game he said he wasn't disappointed because it would have been more of a hassle than anything else but as annoying as granky found the sanyung to be it did relieve much of the criticism he endured except there was one problem he was on the kansas city royals and the kansas city royals sucked zach did not want to play there and after one more season with the royals where zack admits he wasn't motivated and didn't really try he went to the royals and requested a trade reports leaked that zach refused to go to spring training if he wasn't traded and once again the media tore him apart bugrenki maintains that the royals needed to trade him and that they weren't gonna do it unless he forced them to granky was traded to milwaukee and honestly he didn't get off to the best start he immediately had to miss the first few weeks of the season because of an injury he suffered during pickup basketball and told the media he didn't listen during team meetings because they wore him out but he did save himself by telling reporters he hadn't met any teammates who he found annoying yet when he started pitching in milwaukee zack's personality began to show more and people began to realize that he's not like any other player in baseball he is a lot weirder and his battle with social anxiety and depression are actually the most normal and relatable thing about cranky grinky's mental health history makes him admirable and inspiring what makes zacharenki weird has nothing to do with mental health it has to do with the actions he makes on and off the field that very few players in baseball would have the balls to do this earned zach a lot of enemies which have resulted in multiple brawls ejections injuries and even off the field word matches grenkey is known for throwing the slowest pitches in baseball to a point where it's comical but when he played with the brewers he literally had a competition with teammate randy wolf on who could throw the slowest pitch and they went back and forth all year but eventually grenkey won with a curb at 53 miles per hour perhaps the fastest pitch he threw that year was directly at the ground after this close call and for some reason he got ejected for it shortly after this cranky was traded and eventually landed with the dodgers where for some reason he just kept getting into fights i don't remember the last time i wanted to get a fight with someone has never been afraid to throw pitches at batters he even threw a pitch at juan soto even though he knew if he hit him he would load the bases and it was the world series and according to one of his minor league teammates greg admitted to hitting him on purpose to keep his pitch count low even though they were teammates and it was spring training greggy had hit carlos clinton twice before for crowding the plate and the third time he hit quentin he tried to kill him he didn't kill grenky but he did break his collarbone forcing him to miss two months when greggy returned from the dl he threw a pitch at diamondbacks catcher miguel montero after the diamondbacks hit jacia alpwig earlier in the game then the diamondbacks due at zac cranky's head all hell broke loose everyone got involved including hitting coach mark maguire but grenky just walked to first base after the game miguel montero called zach grenky a chicken ironically granky even fought the teammate he was trying to protect that night according to a book written by molly knight huige was holding up the team bus trying to find his luggage in the luggage bay and after ignoring multiple requests to re-enter the bus grinky went outside grabbed wig's luggage threw it onto michigan avenue and the two had to be restrained but grenkey has later said very nice things about puig i would say to be much more of a positive [Music] and perhaps cranky's best moment in los angeles occurred during a team meeting where manager don mattingly was giving an intense speech about the team's poor performance when he finished he asked the team if anyone had anything else they wanted to say grenkey stood up and scolded his teammates on not washing their hands after using the restroom grenkey also is known for being extremely involved in his team scouting department because he just thinks it's fun in kansas city he constantly told the front office what he thought the team should do in arizona he would travel to college games with scouts just to check players out one time his catcher aj ellis asked grenky what he thought the team should do to improve the team granky thought about it for a while went back to ellis and said quote unquote i would trade you he's also told royals employees that he wanted to become a trashman after retirement and even told a reporter that he was thinking about quitting baseball to play professional tennis but it doesn't seem like granky wants to retire anytime soon he has always focused on longevity this is a guy who stopped throwing his slider because he would go to bed with his elbow feeling quote-unquote somewhat different his elbow didn't even hurt it just felt different in 2009 grinky won the cy young throwing his slider 22 percent of the time in 2013 he threw it two percent of the time and still had a 2.63 era without throwing his best pitch the next year i guess his elbow started feeling normal again because the slider came back he was an all-star the next two years and put up an era of 1.66 the lowest era of any starting pitcher since greg maddox in 1995 but apparently it really doesn't matter what pitch greg he throws because in this past season he's literally been telling batters what pitch is coming and somehow batters oh my everybody knows what sign they're going with now still can't hit it except for one somebody did hit it but most of the time they still can't hit his pitches even when they know what's coming probably has a lot to do with the fact that greg has thrown nine different pitches throughout his career and he's thrown them all at different speeds his average velocity of his fastball has consistently declined every year but it really doesn't matter because he's always preferred to throw his fastball slow anyway he those curveballs that go 88 miles per hour and curveballs that go 55 miles per hour and he literally throws a change up and fastball that are pretty much the exact same speed this makes absolutely no sense whatsoever but somehow it works only do hitters not know what's coming grenky doesn't always know what's coming either and honestly when it comes to zack grenky nobody really knows what's coming he's been considered crazy egotistical and even a failure but despite the criticism and pressure grenkey's endured he's overcome it all even while suffering through an intense battle with anxiety to become a future hall of fame pitcher zack cranky is one of the most dominating pitchers in baseball the most inspiring player in baseball and the weirdest player in baseball all at the same time whatever they do is fine with me um well i was gonna say something about it nothing too interesting

Channel: Baseball Doesn't Exist

Views: 1,365,390

Rating: 4.9229474 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: vuTMPm7A0zQ

Length: 20min 39sec (1239 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 31 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/StrosDynasty]

Just watched this last night. Amazing.

[u/in_case_u_didnt_know]

National Treasure.

[u/SpacedAlien]

Legend

[u/m0nk3y42]

i love me some g-man but he does remind me of karl from sling blade