Whipped Cream Difficulties

Today’s NYT has a nice retrospective article tied to the playoff game between the Miami Dolphins and the Kansas City Chiefs 41 years ago today.

The Dolphins won, 27-24. In double overtime. To this day, that game remains the longest game in NFL history.

“Do you want to talk about my mother’s funeral, too?” [kicker Jan] Stenerud said recently when asked about the defeat. He hung up the phone, ending a brief interview.

Continuing with the “Merry freakin’ Christmas” theme, Ryan Freel has passed away.

Freel, who played second base, third base and all three outfield positions, spent six of his eight big-league seasons with the Cincinnati Reds and finished his career in 2009 with a .268 average and 143 stolen bases.

Freel was apparently a “b—s to the wall” player:

Freel showed no fear as he ran into walls, hurtled into the seats and crashed into other players while trying to make catches. His jarring, diving grabs often made the highlight shows, and he was praised by those he played both with and against for always having a dirt-stained uniform.

And over the course of his career, he suffered an estimated 10 concussions. He missed 30 games in 2007 because of a concussion after he collided with a teammate.

Freel was 36. According to the NYT obit, law enforcement believes he killed himself. I wanted to mention this as a reminder: people have talked a lot about concussions in football, and to a lesser extent in hockey (they’d probably be talking more about hockey if we actually had a hockey season). I think it is worth keeping in mind that those aren’t the only sports worth worrying about.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 25th, 2012 at 9:39 am and is filed under Clippings, Neuroscience, NFL, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.