Players, teams learning to treat anxiety: Clubs turning to sports psychologists as athletes open up. Mel Didier is as old-school baseball as they come. The 83-year-old has been around the game for 58 years as a Minor League player, big league scout and executive and has seen and learned a lot. It was Didier, for example, who told Kirk Gibson that Dennis Eckersley would throw a back-door slider with a full count and first base open and then watched one of the most famous home runs in World Series history leave Dodger Stadium.

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With shoulders slumped and lips pursed between mutton-chop sideburns, David Ortiz is a hulking picture of frustration after recent strikeouts. The familiar picture hints at the psychological toll his slump has taken. And Ortiz may need more than an eye doctor to cure what ails him at the plate.

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[Colin] Burns overcame a serious injury that might have killed him and dealt with the suicide of his only sibling before his European adventure...

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Alan Goldberg counseled her during 12 hourlong telephone conversations across 5 months... To Donna Benjamin (her mother), the timing was right. She recently watched Heather in a competition and marveled at the transformation. "It's a drastic change and something that years of coaching and parenting did not accomplish," Mrs. Benjamin said. "You watch the joy she has again, and I'm just so happy for her."...

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