What Lou Gehrig and Ryan Freel May Have Had in Common?

What Lou Gehrig and Ryan Freel May Have Had in Common?

Al Figone, Ph.D. & Judy Karren, MLS-Factfinderrseacher.com

I wish we could look at Lou Gehrig’s brain and spinal cord.

                             I wish we could look after other athletes who’ve died and had

                             ALS in the past. There’s a lot we need to know. He did have three                      

                             or four concussions that landed him in the hospital

stated Dr. Ann McKee, Associate Professor of Neurology and Pathology at Boston University (BU) School of Medicine. She and her colleagues discovered an abnormal amount of the proteins Tau and TDP-43 in the brain and spinal cord of two former NFL football players and one boxer who were diagnosed with ALS (i.e. Ametrial Lateral Sclerosis), commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

McKee and other Neuropathologists are quick to note that there were distinctions between what she uncovered and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathology (CTE). The types of TDP-43 and Tau proteins had not been previously observed in brains of ALS patients, cognitive deterioration was similar to CTE, whereas in ALS, cognitive function remains intact, and the onset of ALS was later than previously reported in other patients. ALS is characterized by the breakdown of the myelin sheath that lines the motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord leading to a complete loss of muscle function before death. The myelin sheath is similar to the lining of an electricity wire and is essential for conduction. McKee named this new brain disease:   Chronic Traumatic Encephalomyelopathology (CTEM). The study may have unlocked a hint about the Iron Horse’s disease 71 years after he had delivered a chilling speech on July 4, 1939:

                                  “Fans, for the past two weeks have been reading about a

                                  bad break I got,” said Gehrig, who during his career played

                                  2130 consecutive games and still today holds the record for

                                  the most grand slams. “Yet today I consider myself the luckiest

                                  man on the face of this earth.”

The study involving the two football players and boxer has spiked a debate between Neuropathologists on one side that point out their efforts in connecting brain trauma to ALS-like symptoms, are similar to a battle connecting smoking to lung disease. Opponents contend the evidence does not support that analogy.

Both groups agree that repeated blows to the head, such as those sustained during an athlete’s career can result in brain damage.

Ryan Freel was not the first major leaguer to take his own life. But, the circumstances surrounding the former Tallahassee Junior College standout’s suicide were. Freel 36, was found in his Jacksonville, (FL) residence on December 22, 2012:

          

                          “I don’t know how many times he would talk about sliding

                          into second or third base and blacking out or seeing stars.”

                          stated Freel’s former wife Christie Moore Freel. “I know  

                          a lot of people say they weren’t shocked by it, but I really

                          was. I really thought at some point, the answer to all of

                          this would come along for him. It just never did. I’m

                          very hopeful. We certainly believe there is some

                          sort of connection (i.e. to concussions).

Freel’s step-father Clark Vargas believed his step-son sustained at least 10 concussions in baseball and his ex-wife shared the story of a Venezuelan winter league game in which Freel had to be hospitalized for a concussion after running through a fence. After one of his last concussions in MLB, Freel reported he stayed in bed for five days, was unable to read very much, and driving made him sick and dizzy. The family has donated his brain to the BU Center for the study of CTE.

An undersized player by MLB standards, Freel was a player who played the game with a hell-bent for leather attitude----a super utility player with an above average walk rate,  who stole 143 bases, and hit .269 in eight MLB seasons. “I don’t have the size and the power, but have the heart. Anybody can have that,” he’d tell youngsters who aspired to become MLB players.

Brain Roberts knew something was wrong after sliding head first into first base against the Red Sox in May 2011. There was no collision with a knee or other body part of the defensive player covering first. The two-time All-Star got up and his head began pounding and his vision was blurred. Roberts looked across the diamond and did not recognize any signs from the third base coach. “I think that was the scariest part,” Roberts said,” I knew something was wrong.” He’d suffered a concussion from the whiplash effect of the slide. The second in about seven months. Two days later he was placed on the disabled list (DL).  He did not return to the Orioles until June 13, 2012, more than year after the injury. He had also concussed himself in September 2010, just five games before the end of the season. He slammed his bat against his helmet with a blow that didn’t appear excessive in force after a strikeout.  During the off-season, he experienced several months of headaches and dizziness that eventually went away.

The brain’s anatomy explains how a blow to the head may cause a concussion resulting in many outcomes, several of them serious. The brain floats in cerebral spinal fluid that is commonly called the blood brain barrier. When the head stops abruptly, the brain continues and reverberates back. The skull stops, but the brain continues forward for one centimeter, then back. Any outside padding on the head will not change the acceleration/deceleration processes, or g-forces. (i.e., pilots will pass out at five or six g-s over time, but in sports, a player may receive 60-90 g-s in a millisecond). Many of the head injuries are rotational such as when a head contacts the knee of an infielder covering a base or from the whiplash action of the head. Fibers inside the brain are sheared. (e.g. fibers in the brain are needed for communication between cells, transport of blood carrying nutrients, and for many other functions).

Roberts’s rehabilitation was crafted and supervised by sport- related concussion expert, Dr. Mickey Collins at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.  His message to Roberts was simple: “You will get better and you will play again, as long as things are managed properly.” Collins’ mentor Brian Lovell, created the ImPACT test, the gold standard for concussion testing in 2013.  After almost 20 years of researching sports-related concussions, Collins and his colleagues have found that it takes longer for young athletes to recover from concussions, and become prone to more concussions if not managed properly. Roberts had returned to play before his first concussion healed.

Collins’s work has involved identifying the parts of the brain affected by a concussion.  Roberts’s type indicated he’d suffered damage in the vestibular system, that part of the brain located in the brain stem that processes sensory cues, turning them into eye movements, balance, and motion. According to Collins, a former baseball player at the University of Southern Maine, “A vestibular concussion involves a high-functioning system most of us take for granted, the part of the brain that allows a person to move his or her eyes, take in visual information, and channel it into appropriate bodily movement.”

Concussions experienced by Roberts, trigger release of materials from brain cells, including potassium and causing the absorption of calcium. The changes constrict blood vessels and interfere with transmission between cells and explain the reasons Roberts could not drive or walk through a store with a shopping cart without experiencing extreme confusion, dizziness, and disorientation.  

Over the next few months, Roberts’s rehabilitation began with following a pen back and forth with his eyes to moving his head side to side focusing on a distant object. By June 2011, he was engaged in simple baseball drills designed to re-establish the neural pathways that control vestibular functioning while gradually reducing symptoms like dizziness or blurred vision. After he was diagnosed concussion-free, the hard-working Oriole had passed his final test by appearing in MLB again in June 2012.  

Also known is that some MLB organizations disallow their minor league players to slide head first. Yet, when they these same players enter the major leagues, they are allowed to slide as they choose. The problem with this practice is that millions of youngsters emulate the play of their “heroes,” many of whom don’t slide correctly and safely.      

Iron Man Lou Gehrig’s last words were: “So I close in saying that I might have had a tough break, but I have an awful lot to live for.” Hopefully any baseball player, who unsafely projects his head like a missile into an object or opponent, will not echo the words of the Iron Man.