Christie Moore Freel lost count of the nights her husband, Ryan, arrived home from the ballpark with a tale that added to her growing concern over his health.

“I don’t know how many times he would talk about sliding into second or third base and blacking out or seeing stars,” she said Saturday in a telephone interview from her home in Jacksonville, Fla.

While his peers and fans praised Freel’s headfirst approach throughout an eight-year career in the major leagues, which he deemed necessary to compensate for being undersize and less talented, the person closest to him became tormented by it.

“I cringed that that’s who he was — all-out, full throttle,” she said. “It was very hard to watch.”

An accumulation of concussions, as well as mood swings and troubling incidents, left relatives — and Freel himself — apprehensive about his well-being.