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.

Ryan Freel committed suicide via gun shot last week at age 36 and now his family is hoping that science can provide some answers about a possible link to his numerous concussions as an athlete.

Patrick Freel knows mortality all too well. Life, as he learned the hard way, can be gone in an instant. It was three days before Christmas in 2012, when his son Ryan took his own life. As we approach ...

Former Major League Baseball player Ryan Freel committed suicide last December and a study of his brain has found that he was suffering from Stage II chronic traumatic encephalopathy at the time. From ...

When he took his life last year, former major league baseball player Ryan Freel was suffering from CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), the Florida Times-Union reported Sunday. A report from Boston ...

Ryan Freel died last December from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after an eight-year major league playing career during which he claimed to have suffered 10 concussions. Believing there to be a link ...

Ryan Freel, pictured above in 2007, is dead at the age of 36. (Getty Images) Ryan Freel, who last appeared in the major leagues in 2009, has died at age 36 of what a representative from the ...