Produced by the I Lab at W-B-U-R Boston.

This is Kind World from W-B-U-R.

This week we've got a story from NPR and W-B-U-R's only a game. Here's Matthew Stock.

Growing up, Matthew Christian loved collecting baseball cards.

I was one of those kids that just, you know, nagging, nagging, nagging, nagging,

tell my mom or somebody would buy me those baseball card packs.

I probably have around, I'd say 50,000 baseball cards.

Matthew's 40 now but his love for baseball cards hasn't faded.

This year he started his own business, a network for card collectors. People message

him and he tracks down the cards they're looking for. A few months ago, Matthew is at his house in

Montana going through his inbox when he saw a message from a man

named Patrick Freel in Jacksonville, Florida.

Hey I'm looking for my son's cards and I didn't recognize the name quite at first and I said well, you know where did they go? I'm thinking okay who took his son's cards and where did they go? You know what do you mean?

Before long Matthew realized that Patrick wasn't looking for his son's missing collection.

He was looking for cards of his son, Ryan Freel, a former Major League Baseball player,

with a reputation for leaving it all on the field.

He tries to punt, pops it up, Frio gives chase,

dies in front of the camera well, and hangs on.

He want to get out there and kick butt reckless abandon. He'd go bounce off the walls if he could catch the ball.

That's Patrick, Ryan's father. He says fans would chant frill for real every time his son sacrificed his body to make a spectacular play.

But this all-out hustle came with consequences.

Ryan was diagnosed with at least 10 concussions during his baseball career, and with head injury after head injury,

...