‘He deserved each second of it’

ATLANTA — Freddie Freeman counted them.

“Fourteen Freeman 5 jerseys,” he mentioned, then he buried his face in his towel once more, his cheeks reddening and his eyes welling. Freeman noticed the jerseys as he drove into Truist Park in Atlanta early Friday afternoon. The sight of them marked the second time — of many, many others — that his feelings would overwhelm him.

The primary had come about an hour earlier, round midday, when Freeman took his 5-year-old son, Charlie, to Cupanion’s, the cafe he visited religiously for his pregame “Freddie Omelet” — which he was comfortable to study was nonetheless obtainable.

“There have been about 9 folks in there, and so they all stood up and so they began clapping,” Freeman mentioned, after which he virtually misplaced it once more, urgent the towel up towards his nostril to suppress one other cry.

The remainder of the day was an emotion-packed whirlwind for the previous Atlanta Braves icon and present Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman. Freeman fought again tears throughout a pregame information convention that started with him strolling away to gather himself and will hardly hold it collectively for the ceremony that was staged in his honor moments earlier than Friday’s first pitch. A 3-minute tribute video performed on the large display in heart discipline, triggering a raucous ovation that culminated in a heat hug from Braves supervisor Brian Snitker, who waited close to the pitcher’s mound with the World Sequence ring that Freeman solely wished to obtain in Atlanta.

Snitker repeatedly patted Freeman on the again and implored him to calm down, which at that time appeared unimaginable.

“Snit being Snit,” Freeman mentioned later. “It is the one man that I am very grateful for. We have had numerous talks over the previous few months.”

It was 102 days in the past that Snitker sat in his spring coaching condominium in North Port, Florida, as information circulated concerning the Braves buying a brand new first baseman in Matt Olson. Snitker’s thoughts instantly went to Freeman, who wished nothing greater than to return to the group that drafted him 15 years earlier. He knew he’d be crushed.

“I instructed my spouse, ‘I am gonna wait and name,'” Snitker recalled. “After which it is like, ‘Nah the hell with it, I am gonna name proper now.'”

Freeman has spent these previous three-plus months navigating the shock of the occasions that left him scrambling to hitch a brand new staff 4 months after he lastly gained a World Sequence with the group he grew up with. The feelings have been nonetheless uncooked when the Braves visited L.A. across the center of April, however even then Freeman was considering forward to this weekend — how the ring would look, how the followers would reply and the way he would course of all of it.

And but nothing may actually put together him.

Freeman’s eyes have been swollen and teary by the point he returned, ring in hand, to the third-base facet to deal with a sold-out crowd. When he got here to bat within the high of the primary inning moments later, his legs, he mentioned, went numb. The Truist Park organist welcomed him with “We Are The Champions,” and the followers rose in appreciation as soon as extra. At one level Freeman stood simply outdoors the batter’s field together with his helmet in his palms and stared off into the space, taking a second to soak up all of it.

The ovation lasted greater than a minute.

“He deserved each second of it,” the Braves’ beginning pitcher, Ian Anderson, mentioned.

Braves historical past dates again to the 1870s, and but solely 5 gamers have accrued extra dwelling runs, RBIs and extra-base hits than Freeman. He slashed .294/.380/.505, amassed 226 dwelling runs and averaged 147 video games in his first 10 full seasons from 2011 to 2019, a stretch that spanned two competition home windows and a chronic rebuild. However his best triumphs occurred over the previous two years, when he gained an MVP after the COVID-shortened season in 2020 and when he led the Braves to an inconceivable late-season run to the championship in 2021. Final yr, Freeman batted .332/.407/.520 in the course of the common season’s second half, then .304/.420/.625 in the course of the ensuing playoffs.

In the long run, he joined Hank Aaron, Chipper Jones and Johnny Evers, who performed within the early 1900s, as the one gamers in franchise historical past to win each an MVP and a championship.

“He cemented a legacy right here, man, and it is so uncommon when that type of factor occurs,” mentioned Dansby Swanson, Freeman’s good good friend and longtime teammate. “Typically you do not admire gamers and what they’re in a position to accomplish till they’re not there.”

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Probably the most prized possession inside Matt Klug’s basement in north Georgia is a black Marucci bat that after belonged to Freddie Freeman. It was hand-delivered by Freeman himself 4 summers in the past with a message that, in Klug’s phrases, “modified the trajectory of my total life.”

All the time bear in mind the great instances and keep robust.

“That is one thing that I actually won’t ever do away with,” Klug, now 21, mentioned. “If it is the tip of the world, I will carry it with me it doesn’t matter what.”

In November 2016, Klug had misplaced his mom to lung illness. He misplaced his father to most cancers 12 months later, in the course of his senior yr of highschool. However Klug, a diehard Braves fan, discovered power by way of the best way his favourite participant persevered after dropping his mom to melanoma on the age of 10, utilizing Freeman’s journey as motivation to play out his ultimate season of highschool baseball. His story started to realize traction, sufficient for the Chicago White Sox to draft him within the 38th spherical of the 2018 draft as a goodwill gesture. The Braves came upon about Krug’s story and, on June 22, arrange the meet-and-greet that set him on a brand new path.

Later that fall, Klug began a charity known as November Smiles to assist youngsters address the lack of their mother and father by bringing them to Braves video games, taking them back-to-school purchasing, serving to them purchase groceries, offering them with a sounding board. And if not for his transient assembly with Freeman, Klug believes the group — which has helped someplace within the neighborhood of 50 children — would not exist.

“Regardless of the place he performs,” Klug mentioned, “that is my favourite participant.”

For a lot of different Braves followers, it is not fairly so easy.

Grant McAuley, who has lined the Braves for a few decade and at present works for one of many native sports-talk radio stations, 92.9 The Recreation, has heard fan response that covers all the spectrum over these previous few months. There are those that cannot forgive Freeman for becoming a member of their fiercest rival and people comfortable he’ll now play his dwelling video games nearer to the place he grew up. Those that blame the entrance workplace for not providing sufficient, blame the participant for being too grasping and blame the agent for mishandling all of it. Those that suppose the Braves shall be higher off with Matt Olson, and those that worry they will by no means be the identical once more.

By the point the Dodgers got here into city, nevertheless, the stress had noticeably cooled. The Braves’ current 14-game profitable streak, which vaulted them again right into a division race with the New York Mets, helped. So did time.

“I simply suppose there is a uncooked nerve that’s deadened,” mentioned Chris Dimino, a radio host on 680 The Fan, who has labored within the Atlanta marketplace for practically 30 years. “It was uncovered for some time, and it was a very scorching, flashed subject on this city, the place folks have been upset. And it was on either side. Individuals have been simply upset. I feel that is calmed down.”

About an hour earlier than the beginning of Friday’s recreation, Freeman stood in foul territory on the first-base facet for 10 minutes, signing for younger followers who had lined up alongside foul territory. Then he jogged to the opposite facet and did the identical for these on the third-base facet. “I am attempting to do as a lot as I can as a result of they did a lot for me,” he mentioned.

That was proper concerning the time Klug arrived. He discovered his seat in Part 426, behind dwelling plate within the stadium’s higher degree, and was delighted to see so many Freeman jerseys surrounding him. Klug spent the previous few weeks worrying that a mixture of boos would infiltrate Freeman’s reception, however his part — and most of a sold-out crowd of 42,105 — started that acquainted “Fre-ddie!” chant as quickly as Freeman spilled out of the dugout on Friday afternoon.

They remembered how he went from a chubby child with a candy swing to a rising star who outshined Jason Heyward, the group’s brightest prospect. How he was the one one to outlive the hearth sale that happened after the 2014 season and developed as a frontrunner thereafter. How he set the tone for a string of 4 consecutive division titles. How he hit the ball the place it was pitched and ran out each floor ball and hardly took days off. How he hugged and the way he smiled and the way he cried.

“I feel No. 5 ought to be hanging up in Atlanta perpetually, no matter how his Braves run ended,” Klug mentioned. “I feel that what he did whereas he was right here greater than outweighs him leaving.”

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Jeff Francoeur spent half of his 12-year main league profession with the Braves. When he performed alongside Freeman in 2016, the 2 constructed a quick friendship. And when Francoeur traveled to L.A. on April 19 as a part of his broadcasting duties for TBS, he made it some extent to verify in on Freeman. He noticed a person nonetheless absorbing the shock of taking part in elsewhere, nonetheless processing the way it all broke down so rapidly, nonetheless looking for a path ahead.

Francoeur mentioned a “good storm” of occasions precipitated Freeman to not return to the Braves. Had the fan-less, COVID-impacted season of 2020 not prompted Braves possession to cut back spending, or had a 99-day lockout not prevented groups and gamers from speaking this previous offseason, Francoeur believes Freeman can be a Courageous immediately. When he first noticed Freeman in Dodger Blue, he chalked it as much as destiny.

“I instructed him, ‘There is a purpose you are right here, man,'” Francoeur recalled.

Freeman remains to be noticeably offended about how the negotiations performed out, although he has opted towards going public with specifics. On March 12, shortly after baseball’s lockout was lifted, Freeman’s agent, Casey Shut, offered Braves common supervisor Alex Anthopoulos with two aggressive affords and gave him an hour to reply, in accordance with reporting from ESPN’s Buster Olney. Anthopoulos interpreted it as a take-it-or-leave-it situation. Two days later, the Braves despatched a package deal of prospects to the Oakland Athletics in alternate for Matt Olson. Three days after that, Freeman signed a six-year, $126 million contract with the Dodgers.

Individuals near Freeman have since questioned why he did not take extra management of the negotiations. He did not wish to depart, and his precise calls for weren’t to date faraway from the Braves’ finest provide, which, as Olney reported, reached $140 million over 5 years — so why did not he simply get on the telephone with Anthopoulos and determine all of it out? Why did not Anthopoulos reduce out the center man and attain out himself?

There’s blame in every single place, it appears, however Freeman is doing his finest to place it behind him.

“If you concentrate on the previous, it is solely going to have an effect on your happiness within the current and sooner or later,” Freeman mentioned after Friday’s recreation. “That is what we now have settled on. You possibly can’t change something that occurred. All you are able to do is study out of your experiences, and I’ve undoubtedly discovered rather a lot. I feel a few of you realize precisely what I am speaking about; I am simply not gonna be one to be in quotes saying something I must say proper now. I am simply attempting to maneuver on.”

It has change into clear over these previous three months that Freeman cares deeply about his legacy in Atlanta and is extraordinarily delicate to what the baseball followers right here consider him. It is why so a lot of these near him have been hoping Friday’s reception can be heat.

“If he will get booed, that is gonna harm him,” a longtime Braves coach mentioned earlier this week. “That is gonna actually harm.”

Because the weekend progressed, it usually appeared as if Braves followers have been processing this a bit simpler than Freeman. Apathy greeted Freeman earlier than each different plate look on Friday and Saturday, besides in Saturday’s seventh inning, when the bases have been loaded with two outs and the Dodgers trailed by a run. At that time, one other sold-out crowd started to boo. And when Freeman struck out, they cheered — treating him no totally different than they might another opposing participant on a fierce rival.

There are many Braves followers who appear to have moved on by now, maybe content material with a brand new first baseman who’s equally proficient and 4 years youthful. Freeman, some imagine, nonetheless appears to wrestle with all of it.

Possibly he simply must get this collection out of the best way.

Or perhaps a bit of him remains to be someplace else. “When all of the mud settles, I nonetheless imagine in all my coronary heart that Freddie will come again right here and end his final yr right here,” Franceour mentioned. “I actually do.”