{"id":593,"date":"2014-10-20T16:01:24","date_gmt":"2014-10-20T20:01:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/mckeelab\/?p=593"},"modified":"2015-02-06T11:21:14","modified_gmt":"2015-02-06T16:21:14","slug":"aljazeera-america-before-and-after-ryan-freel-how-mlb-stepped-up-to-concussions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/mckeelab\/2014\/10\/20\/aljazeera-america-before-and-after-ryan-freel-how-mlb-stepped-up-to-concussions\/","title":{"rendered":"Aljazeera America: Before &#038; After Ryan Freel: How MLB stepped up to concussions"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"text section\">\n<p><a href=\"\/mckeelab\/files\/2014\/10\/safe_image.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/mckeelab\/files\/2014\/10\/safe_image.jpg\" alt=\"safe_image\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-599\" height=\"252\" width=\"484\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Watching Ryan Freel play defense on a baseball field has been likened to \u201cwatching crash dummies in a seat belt test\u201d and \u201cbungee-jumping without the bungee.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In Cincinnati, where he spent most of his eight seasons in the big leagues, Freel\u2019s No. 6 jersey became synonymous to fans, teammates and opponents with playing the game the right way. That meant crashing into walls, sliding headfirst, jumping and diving to get to the ball, doing whatever was needed to make the play. The constant headaches, blurry vision and spotty memory were there, too. But that was baseball for Freel.<\/p>\n<p>In January 2013, Freel\u2019s number switched to VABT-13144. He was no longer described as a 5-foot-10, 185-pound utility man. Instead, the VA Medical Center in Bedford, Massachusetts, labeled his specimen type as \u201cfixed brain fragments.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/america.aljazeera.com\/watch\/shows\/america-tonight\/articles\/2014\/10\/1\/ryan-freel-mlb-concussions.html\">Continue reading the main story<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Watching Ryan Freel play defense on a baseball field has been likened to \u201cwatching crash dummies in a seat belt test\u201d and \u201cbungee-jumping without the bungee.\u201d In Cincinnati, where he spent most of his eight seasons in the big leagues, Freel\u2019s No. 6 jersey became synonymous to fans, teammates and opponents with playing the game [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7030,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,2,1],"tags":[7,5,4,6],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/mckeelab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/mckeelab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/mckeelab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/mckeelab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7030"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/mckeelab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/mckeelab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":608,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/mckeelab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593\/revisions\/608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/mckeelab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/mckeelab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/mckeelab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}