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Phoenix — We just had our first interview session with new Brewers right-hander Zack Greinke, and suffice it to say he is a fascinating, fascinating individual.

The reason we didn’t get to talk to Greinke until today is because he really isn’t that comfortable talking to reporters and doesn’t want to “waste time” talking to them because he thinks it takes away from his preparation for baseball. His social anxiety issues from the past in Kansas City all play into that situation and that background is necessary to understand how Greinke functions as a major league pitcher.

Greinke doesn’t spend a lot of time interacting with teammates, either, for the same reason, and admitted that fans can be “annoying” for their constant desire to get autographs and ask for a player’s time. But he's not malicious in any way about those things. It's merely how he deals with things. And the 2009 AL Cy Young winner said he has enjoyed his early days in the Brewers’ camp.

“It has been fun so far, just a real relaxed camp,” said Greinke. “I like the coaching staff a lot, too, so far. It’s been easy to fit in so far. It’s just more relaxed here.”

Later, Greinke added, "I like a lot of the guys. I haven't seen anyone yet that's annoying to me. They've all been good."

Greinke said the atmosphere in Brewers’ camp is better than with KC because there are more established players ready to play then all of the youth the Royals are building around at present.

Greinke said he was surprised at the reaction to his comments about the Brewers’ being “all in” to win in 2011. He said he expects the winning to last longer than that.

“I don’t understand the big deal that was made about that comment,” said Greinke. “Prince (Fielder) is the only guy not under contract for a couple of years. I know he’s a big part of the team but it’s not like it’s a “must win now” season and then everything is completely gone.”

As for his expectations for the Brewers, Greinke did say, “It’s more fun to win. We’re not guaranteed to win every game we play. But there will be a better chance and we’ll more than likely win more games than any of my seasons prior. So it should be a fun season.”

Greinke said he “sort of” asked to be traded by the Royals about four times last year, starting with before the trade deadline “because we were trading all of our players.”

Greinke said the Royals have so many prospects that he doesn’t blame them for building around them, but he wanted to win now after years of losing.

“Kansas City is a different situation,” he said. “They’re probably No. 1 in prospects in all of baseball. When your prospects are that good, it’s hard to ignore it. It had to almost change the path of the organization.”

Greinke didn’t pitch as well in 2010 as he did in his ’09 Cy Young year and said the losing affected his in-between-starts focus.

“When the games started, I pitched 100% every time,” he said. “I feel I do a lot more between starts. But in the second half, I just did what was asked.

“Close to the trade deadline and I was doing all this stuff, the organization wasn’t really doing the same effort. They were doing the same effort the long run but not for that season or the next season. It’s not easy to play 162 games and be focused the whole time. It takes a lot out of you.”

Greinke, who is on medication for his anxiety disorder, talked about certain things “taking a lot out of you.” That includes spending time dealing with people, on and off the field, extraneous to his pitching. You have to admire his honesty in talking about his situation, and really, his honesty in general, even if his comments aren't always politically correct.

As for picking his spots to talk to reporters, he said, “Probably 99% of the time I do it like this is because every day I come to the park and want to get focused on my start, and then random people come and waste my time talking every day. It takes eight minutes to get a real question out because they’re like buttering me up. Then they get to the question and it’s a stupid question. So it’s a waste of 10 minutes, and in that 10-minute time I don’t get to do what I needed to do.

“The main reason is it gets rid of all the ‘eyewash’ comments from reporters and I actually get to focus on what needs to be focused on instead of wasting energy on other stuff.”

Greinke said that also goes for shooting the bull with teammates when he’s not in the mood.

“To talk to people, I have to spend energy talking to them,” he said. “If I expend my energy on talking to people and making friends, it takes away from the energy I could focus on getting ready to pitch. I try to avoid nonsense talk.

“It wears me out to do stuff like our meetings every day. If I actually listen to the person talking, it’ll wear me out. So I kind of go into a little daze. Then I’m still refreshed from it.”

Greinke said he can still have relationships with teammates, though.

“You don’t have to talk with them an hour every day to get to know people,” he said. “Everyone is different. I don’t like to go to dinner too much because sometimes that wears me out.”

I asked Greinke if many teammates have told him how excited they are to have him on the club and he said, "It's kind of what happened to Texas forever. The offense is amazing but you can't really do much without pitching. That's kind of what it was like in Milwaukee.

"We brought in two really good pitchers and there's already two really good pitchers here. We have four legit rotation guys and the offense should be as good as it always is. If we stay healthy and pitch the way we're capable of pitching, it should be a very good season. And I know there's another starter, too, but there's four that I've been around for awhile and you know what can happen. I know (Narveson) finished strong (in 2010), too."

Greinke said he experimented twice with upping his medication during a season but it didn’t work for him. He said he tried it once in the minors and again last year and “it didn’t work that well.”

So, as you can see, the profession Greinke has chosen often is at odds with his personality and the way he likes to go through a day. To me, that makes it all the more amazing how well he has done as a major league pitcher. It's just not as easy for him as it is for others who don't have to deal with social anxiety. I'm guessing it takes a lot of courage and determination to do what he does for a living and deal with those issues.

Talking about the extraneous things that can come at a player, he said, "I don't waste my time doing all that other stuff. I don't really enjoy all the stuff that comes with it. It gives me less motivation to want to do all of that stuff.

"I like coming to the park more now than I used to. Earlier in my career, I didn't know what to do with all that time at the park. It used to drive me crazy."

Greinke did admit that he thought he was done with baseball in 2006 when he left the Royals during spring training during the height of his social anxiety problems.

“I was done playing (in his mind),” he said. “I was surprised I came back. They had me see a psychologist. We found out what was going on and why I didn’t like going on a baseball field. I thought it was a 10% chance of coming back.”

Obviously, the Brewers are happy he did.