SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. —
Baseball is a numbers game: ERA, OPS, OBP, WHIP, RBIs, 40-man rosters, 25-man rosters ... on and on.
But it's also a game of people — individuals chasing dreams they conjured up in Little League. When those dreams crash, the individual story often ends up in the fine print of the sports pages.
I thought about that Friday when I heard about pitcher Christian Friedrich, the Rockies' first-round pick in 2008.
The Los Angeles Angels claimed Friedrich off waivers from the Rockies two weeks ago. Then the Angels returned Friedrich to the Rockies on Friday because of concerns over an "undisclosed medical issue.