In the moments after crossing home plate, after his 409-foot homer had crossed the right-field fence and a packed Dodger Stadium crowd erupted in the 10th inning Friday night, Freddie Freeman sprinted over to the seats behind the batter’s box and celebrated with his father through the netting.
“I [was] just screaming in his face,” Freeman joked during a postgame interview on the field with Fox. “Sorry dad.”
Game 1 win. Screengrab via X/@MLB
But in the middle of a trying season and trying postseason, Freeman dedicated his walk-off grand slam in the World Series opener — which gave the Dodgers a 6-3 win and will serve as one of the defining swings of his career — to his father, Fred, saying “this isn’t my moment, that’s my dad’s moment.”
“My swing is because of him,” Freeman told reporters. “My approach is because of him. I am who I am because of him. It was kind of spur of the moment. … I just wanted to share that with him because he’s been there. He’s been through a lot in his life too, and just to have a moment like that, I just wanted to be a part of that with him in that moment.”
Freeman missed eight games at the end of July and into early August after his 3-year-old son, Maximus, developed a “severe case of Guillain-Barré syndrome,” Freddie’s wife, Chelsea, wrote in an Instagram post at the time.
Maximus, at one point, “rapidly declined and went into full body paralysis” due to the rare neurological condition and was hospitalized, Chelsea wrote, and when Freeman returned for the Dodgers’ Aug. 5 game, a standing ovation greeted the star first baseman.
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Then, near the end of the regular season, Freeman sustained an ankle injury that forced him to hobble his way through the postseason games he could manage to play.
He missed Game 4 of the NLDS with the Dodgers’ season on the line.
Game 1 win on Oct. 25. Screengrab via X/@MLB
He missed Games 4 and 6 of the NLCS, too, while slumping at the plate in the games he did play.
But Freeman said his foot felt better Friday night, evident when he turned a ball off the wall in foul territory into a triple when Yankees left fielder Alex Verdugo misplayed it.
Then, later in the night, with the Dodgers down one in extras and a chance to snag an early World Series advantage slipping away, Freeman made the Yankees pay for intentionally Mookie Betts and having Nestor Cortes face the former MVP.
“As soon as he swung, I knew it was a good swing,” Fred told The Athletic. “But you never know. [I thought] is it far enough? Is it far enough? And then I saw him do the mic drop with the bat. And I knew it was gone.”