By Josh Finkelstein

On Friday night, Zack Greinke spoke to the press about his ALCS Game 1 start set to take place on Saturday. However, the press conference ended up going viral and not for good reason.

The right-hander was criticized left and right for his inability to give long, detailed answers while in front of the press. Many on social media decided to poke fun at his expense for his responses in that presser. Those can simply be seen by typing in “Zack Greinke” on Twitter.

Yes, they were admittedly short and certainly were not the best soundbites in the world, but the problem lies with the circumstances surrounding it.

Zack Greinke has been battling social anxiety since 2006, a season in which he only was able to appear in three games due to that. He talks about that in an interview with Bill Plaschke of the LA Times.

Now, I don’t think that the people on Twitter were looking to harm him and I’m sure it wasn’t with malicious intent.

That being said, a situation like what happened on Friday night needs to be a learning moment and a realization that making fun of someone who is well-known to be dealing with social anxiety is simply unacceptable.

Many of the commenters made these people hear it hard for their unnecessary comments about Greinke, knowing that the people who made these tweets were hoping for likes and retweets.

That was probably the most encouraging thing that occurred on Friday night as there was a point in my life where not many people would have responded too negatively to that.

As someone who deals with anxiety myself, seeing people poking fun at Greinke for his short responses meant to be seen by thousands of others made me very uncomfortable.

The thing that a lot of people are unable to understand is why that would even bother someone and especially a professional athlete. Greinke is a human being still, though, and seeing people criticizing you is still hurtful for anyone. It’s no different than if it was your kid, friend, or partner on that stage.

Add in social anxiety, and one criticism from a person can feel like the walls caving in on your view to the entire public.

Do I know exactly how he specifically thinks? No, absolutely not. But, I also am not going to act like it’s all in good fun either.

None of us truthfully will know how he feels about stuff like this besides him, but from experience with my own anxiety, I understand that it’s very plausible that reactions like those on Friday can have that type of impact.

Yes, he’s an athlete and with that comes criticism. But, also keep in mind that when you criticize someone that they have a background and a story just like you and me.

We all have things that we struggle with and adversity we have to overcome. For someone like Greinke, public speaking might be one of them.

Getting up in front of those reporters at the podium on Friday night was an accomplishment in its own right for him, though. A player who once pondered retirement due to what was once crippling anxiety spoke in front of a multitude of national media outlets in preparation for a Game 1 start for the Houston Astros in the ALCS.

Whether Greinke should have been forced to speak in front of those outlets is another issue altogether. Given how people responded, though, why should he feel any reason to want to besides that MLB currently mandates it?

Social media has gotten many of us to sometimes think that whatever we say or comment on has no repercussions and has a limited effect on anyone else besides themselves.

The fact is that there is always a person on the other end of the screen that you could be making a difference for, whether that be good or bad.

Instead of trying to poke fun at someone for your own gain, make the conscious effort to make a difference in someone’s life in a good way.

Talking about mental health is something that we all need to do as more and more people each year deal with mental health issues.

But, instead of criticizing someone like Zack Greinke who openly has explained his journey of dealing with mental illness in the past, we should embrace the fact that many people that deal with their own mental health issues probably look up to him as someone who has overcome that adversity even if he’s not perfect.

All of our words matter. Use them for the better.