Visits: 4
BOSTON — Carlton Fisk never played in another World Series after his famous home run. Neither did Kirk Gibson or Joe Carter. Bobby Thomson and Aaron Boone homered to send their teams to the World Series. They never got back, either.
David Freese is here again. He was the starting first baseman for the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 1 of the World Series against the Boston Red Sox on Tuesday, his second encore on the stage he once owned as a St. Louis Cardinal.
“Man, I’m so jacked up,” Freese said at Fenway Park on Monday. “You always wonder what it’s like to be a Dodger. To get to put on that uniform, the white uniform in L.A., and be around this group — it’s just surreal. I’m not planning to try to top any moments, but definitely trying to do my part.”
How could Freese possibly top himself? In Game 6 of the 2011 World Series, with his hometown Cardinals facing elimination against the Texas Rangers, Freese had a night for the ages. Down to his last strike with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, he tied the game with a triple. Two innings later, he won it with a home run. Freese’s delirious teammates tore the jersey off his body in the celebration; half of it is on display at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., along with his bat.
Freese was named the most valuable player of the World Series after the Cardinals won Game 7. He helped them rally to win a division series in Washington the next fall, and was back at third base in the World Series in 2013, when the Cardinals fell in six games to the Red Sox. Early in the clincher, Boston’s Shane Victorino cleared the bases with a double and exulted next to Freese on the field.
“I can still hear Victorino pumping his chest — I was standing right there,” said Freese, who batted .158 in that series and lingered after the final out. “I stayed in that dugout probably longer than I ever had.”
It was Freese’s last game for the Cardinals, who soon traded him to the Los Angeles Angels. Naturally, he homered in his first playoff game for the Angels the next October. When he returned to the postseason as a Dodger this month, he drove in the tying and go-ahead runs of the division series clincher in Atlanta.
“He gets the hit in Atlanta to go ahead, and we were like, ‘This guy owns the postseason!’” Dodgers second baseman Brian Dozier said. “That’s kind of been the joke. But that’s ultimately what you play for, and everyone has that in the back of their mind: He’s a guy that comes to life even more when the lights are the brightest.”
Freese was in Atlanta with the Pittsburgh Pirates on Aug. 31, the last day for teams to acquire a player who could still be eligible for the postseason roster. Freese thought he might be traded to the Braves — one of their players had whispered the possibility to him — but was thrilled to land with the Dodgers, even at a relatively new position.
Before the trade, Freese had made only 48 of his 923 career starts at first base. But that is where the Dodgers needed him, to be used against left-handed pitchers. Freese, a .305 career hitter against lefties, thrived after the deal, hitting .385 without complaint.
“If you look back at how he’s been used since he’s been here, it’s been a little unorthodox,” Manager Dave Roberts said. “But when a player tells you, ‘You never have to explain why you do what you do, I’m here to support you any way I possibly can,’ that’s just who David Freese is, and it makes my job a lot easier.”
Freese is among the older Dodgers, at 35, enduring despite off-field trials. He has spoken candidly about his struggles with depression and alcohol abuse, but he married in 2016 and became a father last year. He is a popular presence with his new team.
“Guys gravitate towards him because he likes to have fun, but he’s here to play a baseball game,” said Chase Utley, the veteran infielder who was left off the postseason roster. “It’s been fun to watch guys kind of hang around him, because he puts off some positive energy.”
That positivity — or, at least, an ability to stay calm and be the best version of himself — has helped Freese in October. He marvels at the absurdity of his most recent feat, a first-inning home run in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series in Milwaukee last week. Freese did the same thing seven years ago, off Shaun Marcum.
“It’s stupid,” he said, shaking his head. “My buddy sent me the Marcum homer earlier that day and he was like, ‘Get ready!’ And I was like, ‘C’mon, man, that’s not going to happen’ — and I popped one. To do that in the first inning, same stadium, seven years later, same game? Just wild.”
To Freese, the wildest moment of all was not his famous World Series homer, but the triple that made it possible. The Cardinals trailed, 7-5, with two outs, two on and a 1-2 count, when Freese rifled his game-tying hit to right off the hard-throwing rookie Neftali Feliz, whose fastballs helped him focus.
“My mind was on: I’ve never faced Feliz before,” he said, punctuating the thought with an expletive. “How are we going to go about this? Not necessarily what happens if I get out. I think he started off with maybe some off-speed, but on 3-1, he went 98 or 99 low and away and he spun me. I waved right through it.
“My thought process was still, Out, over, hard, stay back if he hangs a slider.’ I just remember: ‘Don’t be late on his heater.’ He threw it in the exact same spot, and that probably helped a little.”
Freese felt such a surge of adrenaline after sliding into third that, looking back, he joked that he probably could have beaten up Yasiel Puig, his brawny Dodgers teammate.
The winning home run — after another tying rally in the 10th inning, on Lance Berkman’s two-out, two-strike single — was almost lucky by comparison.
“The homer was cool because Gary Cederstrom was back there, and the 3-1 was up and he called it a strike,” Freese said, referring to the plate umpire. “I was furious, because I was leading off the inning and you just want to get on base. That call kept me in the box, and I hit the next one out.”
The World Series does not always make sense, and does not always offer second chances. The modern Mr. October is on his third.