By the point Freddie Freeman walked into the interview room at Dodger Stadium on Friday evening, he’d already been mobbed by his teammates at dwelling plate, embraced everybody from reliever Blake Treinen to proprietor Mark Walter, run to the backstop to the share the second together with his father, had a five-gallon water cooler emptied on him in the midst of a nationally televised interview, obtained a bear hug from behind by Mookie Betts, dropped by his locker and walked down a hallway adorned with replicas of trophies and plaques received by the franchise’s best gamers.
Freeman nonetheless was jacked.
“I want to run through this table and tackle all of you guys,” he stated with amusing.
How might he probably have come down after hitting some of the dramatic dwelling runs in baseball historical past?
How might he probably be calm after hitting the primary walk-off grand slam within the World Collection?
How might he probably not have waves of adrenaline coursing by means of his bloodstream after depositing a Nestor Cortes fastball into the right-field pavilion to ship the Dodgers a 10-inning, 6-3 victory over the New York Yankees in Recreation 1?
“It’s going to be hard to sleep tonight,” Freeman stated.
With two outs, two males on and first base open, Yankees supervisor Aaron Boone elected to deliberately stroll the right-handed-hitting Betts, figuring the left-handed Cortes would have a greater probability of registering the ultimate out of the sport in opposition to the left-handed-hitting Freeman.
“When you’re 5 years old with your two brothers, and you’re playing Wiffle ball in the backyard, those are the scenarios you dream about, two outs, bases loaded in a World Series game,” Freeman stated.
Because the ball traversed the October sky, Freeman raised his bat excessive over his head as if it had been a torch. Rounding the bases, Freeman reported, “It felt like nothing, just kind of floating.”
Requested about Kirk Gibson’s pinch-hit, walk-off dwelling run for the Dodgers in Recreation 1 of the 1988 World Collection, Freeman joked, “I played the whole game, though.”
That in itself was an achievement. This was the identical participant who couldn’t play the deciding recreation of the Nationwide League Championship Collection due to a sprained proper ankle.
This was the identical participant who performed with a damaged finger within the ultimate month of the common season because the Dodgers held off the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks to win the NL West.
Freddie Freeman celebrates as he rounds the bases after hitting a walk-off dwelling run within the tenth inning in opposition to the Yankees in Recreation 1 of the World Collection.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Instances)
This was the identical participant who missed eight video games in the midst of the season as a result of his 3-year-old son, Max, was briefly paralyzed by a neurological dysfunction.
“The game honors you,” supervisor Dave Roberts stated. “When you do things the right way, you play the right way, you’re a good teammate, I just believe the game honors you.
“Tonight, Freddie was honored.”
For that to occur, Freeman’s ankle needed to be sufficiently healed. Freeman stated he made it some extent to not run between the NLCS and World Collection.
“He’s doing something that is basically heroic, to put himself in a position to even be available, much less in the starting lineup,” Kiké Hernández stated. “Freddie is Freddie, man. Freddie is a grinder. Not too many superstars grind the way Freddie does.”
Freeman was pressured to check his ankle within the first inning when his liner struck the angled a part of the wall down the left discipline line and bounced previous oncoming Yankees outfielder Alex Verdugo.
“Stop!” Roberts recalled considering.
Freeman didn’t. He reached third base.
There have been no such fears within the tenth inning. However Freeman won’t have even stepped into the batter’s field if Boone hadn’t elected to stroll Betts so Cortes might face Freeman as a substitute.
“We’ve been seeing it all year,” Freeman stated. “They’ve been walking Shohei [Ohtani] to get to Mookie, Mookie to get to me.”
Shortstop Tommy Edman was on second base and making ready to attain on a single. As much as that time, Freeman’s solely extra-base hit of the postseason was his first-inning triple.
“I was definitely trying to get a huge secondary lead,” Edman stated.
Freeman made it pointless by demolishing a 93-mph providing by Cortes.
“Normally, when you see a ball hit like that, your first reaction goes to the batter, and the batter is normally gonna tell you if he got it good or not,” third baseman Max Muncy stated. “With Freddie, you normally don’t do that because Freddie usually just puts the bat down and runs. When you look at home plate and he’s got the bat in the air and he’s standing in the box, hasn’t even taken a step, you went, ‘Oh my gosh, that was pretty cool.’”
Dodgers reliever Blake Treinen hugs Freddie Freeman on the finish of the Dodgers’ win in Recreation 1 of the World Collection on Friday.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Instances)
There was euphoria within the stands, on the Dodgers bench and on the basepaths.
“I wanted to stop and wait for him, but I couldn’t so I just kept running and screaming,” stated Betts, who was on first base.
Freeman did greater than win a recreation or make historical past.
“You dream of those moments even when you’re 35 and been in the league for 15 years,” Freeman stated.
On Friday evening, he lived that dream.
