AC

Ryan Freel, a former Major League Baseball player who committed suicide last year, was suffering from the degenerative brain disease CTE, his family said Sunday, according to The Florida Times-Union.  The brain of Freel, who retired in 2010 after having reportedly sustained nine or 10 concussions during his career, was studied after his death by the Boston University Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy and Sports Legacy Institute. The Institute issued its findings Wednesday to Freel's family at baseball's winter meetings in Florida, the report said. "Oh yes [it's helpful], especially for the girls," Freel's mother, Norma Vargas, said of his three children, speaking of the study to the Times-Union. "We adults can understand a little better. It's a closure for the girls who loved their dad so much, and they knew how much their dad loved them. It could help them understand why he did what he did. Maybe not now, but one day they will." Freel's stepfather said the...