Ryan Freel, suicide at 36

[crusse10]

Since hustle caused Ryan Freels death, should we ban hustling? Breathing the air outside causes lung cancer, should we ban breathing? Regular workers face more death risk than any pro athlete everyday. Running over the catcher is just like falling overboard in a crab boat. It's a risk that happens. Why do we have a need to protect people who are making millions? They don't give a crap about any of you. They also take substances that are known to cause these exact problems! You blame baseball for his death, but other things in his life could of caused this.

It's not like I'm some old geezer who's out of touch. I'm just sick of seeing guys get way more pulled muscles than serious injuries, who get pampered for a strain. If you had a broken leg, you wouldnt get paid crap, if Ryan Braun breaks his leg he gets 100% pay. That's what bugs me. I really feel sorry for Ryan Freel and especially his kids. Maybe all he needed was someone who understood him or something.

I disagree. From what I've seen about CTE, there's not much that could have been done. Who he was before CTE was different than who he was after contracting it. This wasn't a "let's put you on drugs" scenario. The old Freel was only alive part of the time he was awake. It's certainly a shame. Knowing what COULD happen, like issues from CTE, should be enough to force the hands of sports leagues toward much heavier protection.

 

[crusse10]

Let's be real...You know a disease is bad when you don't know someone has it until they've died, usually as a result of it

 

[Burger]

Let's be real...You know a disease is bad when you don't know someone has it until they've died, usually as a result of it

I can definitely agree with that. CTE is preventable by smarter decisions by the person. You can't live your life thinking you're going to die. We both could catch west nile and die tomorrow. It doesn't mean we can ban people from living in the swamp though. Everything has risk, but personal choice is still involved. Ryan could of chose to never play.

BTW, I do not endorse pharmaceuticals to treat pain problems or even most problems.

 

[etmVol]

I can definitely agree with that. CTE is preventable by smarter decisions by the person. You can't live your life thinking you're going to die. We both could catch west nile and die tomorrow. It doesn't mean we can ban people from living in the swamp though. Everything has risk, but personal choice is still involved. Ryan could of chose to never play.

BTW, I do not endorse pharmaceuticals to treat pain problems or even most problems.

Since baseball does not involve the repetitive hits to the head like football (foul tips to catchers notwithstanding), educating about and proper treatment of concussions will go a long way towards preventing widespread occurrences of CTE in baseball. There will always be concussions in the game, but knowing the consequences of concealing and playing through them will really help limit the long-term damage. MLB introducing the 7-day DL for concussions is a great start.

It's unfortunate that it usually takes such tragedies to be the catalyst for such reform, but I am hopeful that baseball will make the necessary adjustments and severely limit the game's contributions to the causation of CTE.