Dylan Hernández: Freddie Freeman will forever be the name and face of the Dodgers' 2024 championship

Dylan Hernández, Los Angeles Times on Nov 1, 2024

Published in Baseball

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LOS ANGELES — Freddie Freeman was welcomed on Friday to the rest of his life.

From the second level of the double-decker bus he rode with teammates, Freeman looked out at a world that wasn't the same as it was before.

Before the Dodgers won the World Series. Before he hit that home run.

Dodger Stadium was rocking when players walked onto the field for a post-parade celebration. The decibel level increased by several orders of magnitude when the video scoreboards displayed the image of Freeman with his son in his arms.

Fre-ddie! Fre-ddie!

Freeman later addressed the crowd, and he couldn't finish his remarks without being interrupted.

Fre-ddie! Fre-ddie!

For Angelenos who aren't old enough to have watched Kirk Gibson or Orel Hershiser, to whom the pandemic championship four years earlier felt as if it might as well have been won on another planet, Freeman is their first postseason hero.

Whenever they hear the name Freddie, they won't think of Freddie Mercury or Freddy Krueger, even on Halloween.

Now, there's only one Freddie in Los Angeles.

"I did everything I could to get on this field for you guys," Freeman told the Dodger Stadium audience. "I'm glad I did because we got a championship now."

The legend of Freeman's World Series MVP performance figures to grow with time. In the wake of a championship-clinching Game 5 victory over the New York Yankees, Freeman revealed to ESPN that he played in the postseason with more than a sprained right ankle.

The day before Dodgers' playoff opener, Freeman dropped to the ground while taking batting practice. Tests later revealed he broke the costal cartilage of his six rib.

Recovering from the injury typically takes months.

Freeman looked compromised in the NL Division Series against the San Diego Padres, as well as the NL Championship Series against the New York Mets.

"He wasn't nearly close to 100 percent when he was standing in the box," manager Dave Roberts said.

The World Series was a different story, with Freeman delivering a performance for the ages. He drove in 12 runs in the five games against the New York Yankees. The total matched a World Series record first set in 1960 by Bobby Richardson.

"I thought it was pretty fitting to see what Freddie did in this World Series," third baseman Max Muncy said. "The whole postseason we kept going up to Freddie and saying, 'Hey, we got you, we know you're grinding, we got you.' In this World Series, Freddie told us, 'Hey, I got you guys. You covered me, and now I got you.'

"And that's exactly what happened."

In time, details of this World Series will gradually fade from the city's collective memory. But people remember how they feel, and they will always remember how they felt when Freeman crushed the walk-off grand slam in Game 1 that sent the Dodgers from a certain defeat to a momentum-stealing victory — just as the previous generation did with Gibson's homer in the 1988 Series against the Oakland Athletics.

"People," manager Roberts said, "remember moments."

Roberts knows from firsthand experience, as he remains revered in Boston to this day for a stolen base that started a historic comeback for the Red Sox in the 2004 American League Championship Series.

The day after the grand slam, Freeman was offered a glimpse of his future. The Dodger Stadium crowd has frequently chanted his name in his three years with the team, sometimes as he's stepping into the batter's box, sometimes after he's come up with an important hit. In Game 2, they chanted his name after every pitch in every one of his at-bats.

Freeman said after that game, "Walking up to the plate, my first-at bat today, hard not to have a smile on the inside."

As a former MVP and eight-time All-Star, Freeman was already a popular player before this. And to think the Orange County native wouldn't have ever signed with the Dodgers if he had been offered a six-year contract by his former team, the Atlanta Braves.

"It does feel like he's a Dodger now," said his father, Fred. "He feels like he's a Dodger, he looks like a Dodger and he is a Dodger."

At the Dodger Stadium rally, Freeman once again thanked the fans for how they supported him while his three-year-old son, Max, was temporarily paralyzed with a rare neurological condition.

The fans thanked him back with with a roaring ovation, and they will continue to thank him by chanting his name, by naming their children after him and by paying for his meals in these parts for as long as he lives.