By Rob Rains
It’s been almost exactly five years since Blaze Jordan was lying in a hospital bed in Salem, Va., wishing that he could die.
Jordan was 18, in his first season playing in the minor leagues with the Red Sox, but he was not in a good place. What nobody knew, not even his parents, was that Jordan was struggling with anxiety and depression.
“It was a tough moment,” said Jordan, thinking back to that day while sitting in the dugout last week at Busch Stadium, now enjoying life in the major leagues with the Cardinals.
“I felt so bad. I didn’t feel like myself at all,” Jordan said. “I couldn’t eat. I could hardly get any water down. I didn’t know how I was going to get out of it.”
Jordan told the doctors he wanted to go to sleep “for good.” His mother was in the emergency room. She and Jordan’s father, Chris, had called for an ambulance to take him to the hospital after they saw how badly their son was hurting when they coincidentally arrived in Virginia for a pre-planned visit.
Jordan remembers seeing the tears on her face.
“It was probably the hardest thing I ever had to hear,” said Jordan’s mother, Jennifer. “I didn’t know what to do. To hear him say something like that, I was like, ‘wow.’”
She had realized in telephone conversations before their trip that Jordan “seemed a little off” but didn’t know exactly what was wrong, or that his health was as bad as it was.
As the next several days unfolded, she found out.
“It was a blessing we had made the decision to go there,” Jennifer Jordan said.
“I couldn’t eat anything”
Jordan had been promoted from the Red Sox’ team in the rookie Florida Complex League in early August in 2021 to their Class A team in Salem, but because there were still Covid restrictions in place, Jordan found himself isolated in a hotel room for more than a week. He never tested positive, but when the results continued to be inconclusive instead of negative, he was not allowed around his new teammates.
“When they brought him his equipment to do some light work in his room, they dropped it off at the door,” Jennifer Jordan said. “He had no human interaction.”
Jordan believes that was when he reached the breaking point.
“I couldn’t go out in public,” he said. “I couldn’t do anything. It was kind of what kicked it off. The isolation was a big part of it. I was throwing up. When I tried to eat I couldn’t get anything down. I lost 20 pounds.”
The Salem RidgeYaks were playing in Fredericksburg, Va., three hours away, when Jordan finally was told he could join the team. He thought getting back on the field would help him feel better, as it had always done in the past.
“Not being able to be with my teammates was a big part of it,” Jordan said. “I was able to keep my mind off it when I was playing, not thinking about it. At that time I wasn’t sleeping and when I did sleep, I was oversleeping because I didn’t have anything else to do.”
The team arranged for him to take an Uber to Fredericksburg but Jordan was just minutes into the trip when he told the driver to turn around and take him back to Salem.
“I felt sick to my stomach,” he said. “I felt nervous. I felt I had something in my throat the whole time. I couldn’t catch my breath. It was a weird moment.”
Jordan called his parents, who were on their way to meet him in Fredericksburg, and told them to turn around as well, he was going back to Salem.
“He had told us not to come because of the Covid restrictions. He said he wasn’t going to be able to be around us, so ‘there’s really no reason for you to come,’” Jennifer Jordan remembers.
“We had put off the trip (from their home in Mississippi) a couple of times when he was quarantined and finally my husband was like, ‘We are just going to go. Hopefully we will get to catch a game or two if he gets to play.’”
As soon as they saw Jordan, his parents noticed how much weight he had lost. What they first thought was primarily a case of Jordan being homesick – during his first extended stay away from his family – was instead something worse.
The next morning, when they saw their son was so weak he could barely walk and was dry-heaving, they called 911 to request an ambulance.
Doctors started a series of tests to see if Jordan was dealing with any medical issues with his stomach or if something else was causing the problem.
“They were finally able to determine it was more anxiety and panic attacks and maybe some depression,” Jennifer Jordan said.
Jordan said he “kind of” knew what was causing the issues, but he was glad to have the medical diagnosis and finally be able to get the help that he needed. Jordan knew he could no longer try to hide it anymore, trying to deal with it on his own.
Jordan said he had first experienced the anxiety and depression when he was in high school.
“I always told myself one day it will be better and I will forget about all of it, but I realized it didn’t,” Jordan said. “I reached that point in the hospital.”
While he was lying in that bed, Jordan and his mother talked about everything he had been dealing with. It was a tough time for Chris Jordan too, knowing how much his son was hurting, but because of the Covid restrictions, only one person could be in the hospital room with his son.
“He (Blaze) told me it probably was going on in high school but he just didn’t know what it was or how to communicate it to us so he tried to handle it on his own,” Jennifer Jordan said. “There are some things you can’t just handle on your own.”
Jordan also knew it was a time in his life when he had to rely on his faith in God.
“It helped me tremendously,” he said. “I reached out to my preacher back home and his wife. It made me realize there is more to life than this game on the field. There’s more to life than what people think about you.
“It kind of put it into perspective for me. It’s why I try to treat everyone well and be the nicest guy I can be. You never know what somebody is going through.
“Nobody had any idea what I was going through because I was just trying to take it and just be the happy guy, trying to make people around me happy.”
Jordan met with therapists and started medication, which he still takes – on a reduced basis. After he left the hospital, a few days later Jordan joined his new team and finished out the season.
The Red Sox had told him he could end his season early and go home if he wanted, but Jordan wanted to be where he always felt the most comfortable – on the field, hitting and playing baseball.
“I told them I wanted to be there for my guys,” Jordan said. “I wanted to be in the clubhouse. That’s my family too.”
“Too nervous to ask for help”
Two years later, at the end of the 2023 season, Jordan thought he was finally ready to talk about what he had gone through and why it had been a mistake to try to fight that battle alone, especially keeping it from his older brother and parents.
Jordan posted a long message on Twitter, discussing what had happened to him.
“I think I saw some other people go online about their mental struggles, and the stigma that goes with it,” he said. “I wanted to do what I could to help out and let people know they are not alone. I was kind of ready to open up about it. I was in a better place to be able to talk about it.”
Jordan said he was surprised by the reaction his post received, with teammates, friends and even people who he didn’t know who reaching out to him.
“I didn’t expect it to reach as many people as it did,” he said.
Said Jennifer Jordan, “Part of why he came out with his story was he wanted other players to know that this is OK, and every team has help there. You just have to ask for it.
“It opened his eyes to know that those people were there all along. He was just too nervous to ask for help. If we had known, we would have gotten him some help.”
Going public with his story also allowed Jordan to move on from the pressure he said he first experienced in high school, before he reclassified for the 2020 draft and graduated a year early from high school. He was just 17 when he was selected by the Red Sox in the third round of that draft.
Jordan had been on the radar of teams and baseball fans from a young age, when he launched long home runs at showcase events even before he became a teenager.
“He was blessed with so much talent and he had so much success in high school and travel ball, but there was a lot of pressure too,” Jennifer Jordan said. “It wasn’t all glorious. He will be the first to tell you that God gave him that talent. His dad was a football player and I played softball, but this was all God. Jordan put the work in, but God definitely blessed him with the talent.
“He knew the scouts were watching him and he was always so afraid that somebody might take a photo or assume he was doing something he shouldn’t be doing, so there were a lot of things he didn’t go to. He always felt he couldn’t make any mistakes. He’s always been a really good kid. He would never have done anything.”
By the end of that 2023 season, Jordan was in Double A at the age of 20, establishing himself as one of the Red Sox’ top prospects. After playing in Portland, Maine, again in 2024, Jordan reached Triple A last season.
That was when he got to make a phone call to tell his parents he had been traded to the Cardinals, whose Triple A affiliate, Memphis, was just miles from his childhood home.
“We loved the Red Sox; we were grateful for everything the Red Sox did … but when he was traded to the Cardinals … I don’t know how to say it except to say it (St. Louis) seemed like a good place for him to be. It was such a good fit for him, Jennifer Jordan said.”
Jordan finished last year and started this season with Memphis, before he was told that his childhood dreams were coming true – he was on his way to the major leagues.
“I was that kid, going to major league games,” Jordan said. “Now I try not to take it for granted. I just want to go out and do my best everyday and to always have a positive attitude. It can be tough at times.
“I still have my days, especially in this sport, which is a sport of failure most of the time. It’s pretty tough and not everybody is going to like you at the same time. That’s just the way it is. But at the end of the day you just have to keep your support system around you, the people who do support you and love you. That’s kind of the biggest thing for me, to keep my parents and brother and those people around me when I do need help.
“I have a couple of nieces now, and I am very close to my family. I will Facetime with them and that puts things in perspective for me. If I go 0-for-4 I know there are a lot of kids out there who would love to go 0-for-4 in a major-league baseball game.
“I just try not to take things too seriously. I take my job seriously but at the end of the day it’s a game. I control what I can control and try not to put too much pressure on myself and realize there is more to life than this.”
“To be here is pretty special”
Does Jordan ever think back to when he was lying in that bed in a hospital in Salem? Does it seem like it was five years ago?
“It’s gone by slow and quick at the same time,” he said. “Looking back on it, it was a weird time. Being here, it’s pretty special to make it here. You see where I was. I always thought I could do this, but to be here is pretty special.”
It’s special for his parents as well.
“It seems like it was just yesterday in some ways but in some ways it seems like it’s been a while,” Jennifer Jordan said. “I think back to it sometimes, especially when he has a bad series or maybe hasn’t gotten a hit in a few games. But for the most part I’m pretty comfortable where he is.
“I pray that he will call me if he ever starts feeling that way again; that’s all I can do. He’s assured me that he’s in a pretty good place. I try not to go there (back to the hospital) too often because it’s so tough to think that he was as bad as he was.”
Instead, she relies on the “pinkie promise” she and her now 23-year-old son made.
“I told him I wasn’t going to try to ask too many questions but he had to give me his promise that if he ever felt like he was starting to head in that direction again that he would tell me and be honest with me and not hide if from me again,” Jennifer Jordan said.
“We share little Bible studies with each other and remind each other that we just have to trust God and stop worrying.”
Shortly before he was promoted to the Cardinals in June, Jordan was visiting with his parents at the family’s home.
His mother had a message for him.
“You need to just go play and have fun; have faith,” she said. “ He nodded.
“And now, he’s healthy and happy.”
Follow Rob Rains on X @RobRains
Photos by The Associated Press and courtesy of Jennifer Jordan. Pictured in the family photos are Chris and Jennifer Jordan, nieces Florence and Scarlett, brother Parker and sister-in-law Natalie.
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If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available by texting 741741,– a free, 24/7, confidential service in the United States that connects people experiencing any kind of mental health crisis or emotional distress with a live, trained crisis counselor.
