There Is Crying in Baseball!

The most memorable line from the classic sports movie "A League of Their Own" comes when the manager, played by Tom Hanks, finds one of the players of his all-girls team crying and exclaims, "There's no crying in baseball!" But in the Bronx last week, veteran pitcher Mariano Rivera showed us that there definitely is crying in baseball. Rivera, arguably the greatest closer in baseball history, was pitching for the last time of his storied 19-year career. In a surprise move, his friends and long-time teammates Derek Jeter and Andy Pettitte came to the mound in the ninth inning to take him out of the game. As the two approached Rivera, the future Hall of Famer first smiled and then broke down into tears as he hugged Pettitte and Jeter. It was an iconic moment, and one that touched everyone watching.

Unfortunately, in our culture crying is still considered a sign of weakness for men and a challenge to their masculinity. However, this could not be further from the truth. Crying is not a sign of weakness, rather it is a sign of strength that you have allowed yourself to care that much about something. This is why you often see both the winners and losers of an important game crying: because they care that much about the game and about winning. The thrill of victory and agony of defeat are only made possible when you actually care about the outcome. And as humans, when we care enough about something, it is natural and healthy for us to cry. Challenging the notion that crying is a sign of weakness in men, a recent study on college football players found that shedding tears about the outcome of a game was actually associated with higher self-esteem. One of the authors of the study concluded that players who are "emotionally expressive are more likely to have a mental edge on and off the field."

What all this tells us is that we need to change the way we think about a man when he cries. Crying is not a sign of weakness, and, in fact, it appears that the opposite is true: it is actually strong men who cry. And on a special night at Yankees Stadium last week, Mariano Rivera showed us exactly that.