It was the worst game of catch of Hayden Hurst’s life.



A 17th-round pick by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the Major League Baseball draft in 2012, Hurst had been working his way through the organization as a power pitcher when his life-long plan derailed in chaotic and unexpected fashion. He was playing catch on the foul line with a teammate from the minor leagues when Hurst began airmailing his throws, and he couldn’t figure out how to stop it, or what was going on, or why it was happening. Or anything.



“He started throwing his glove up in the air and was like, ‘What the hell, man? What are you doing?’ After that, I don’t know,” Hurst told The Athletic. “The ball just started feeling uncomfortable in my hand. I pitched in a game in spring training and hit a kid in the head and knocked him unconscious. After that, it just exacerbated it, and it got extremely, extremely bad. I could never rebound from it. The fear of...