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    • Freddie Freeman delivers a World Series title after months of fear
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    Freddie Freeman delivers a World Series title after months of fear

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    NEW YORK − It’s the wee hours of Thursday and Freddie Freeman was in a hurry as he walked through the tunnel at Yankee Stadium.

    The Los Angeles Dodgers had just won the World Series championship earlier in the evening. He was voted Most Valuable Player. He sprayed champagne with his teammates. He hugged his father on the field. He hugged and kissed his wife and son.

    He was just about to return to the raucous clubhouse when he was asked about that harrowing, emotional time in late July that nearly turned his life upside down.

    DODGERS WIN WORLD SERIES: Celebrate with this commemorative coffee table book!

    Freeman’s eyes moistened, his voice trembled slightly and he confided that he was scared, terrified to be honest.

    If the doctors hadn’t come, he might have missed all of this, the biggest triumph of his baseball career.

    It had nothing to do with his severely sprained right ankle, which left him in a walking boot while his father, Fred, treated him for six hours every day in late September.

    “I saw him being pushed and prodded,” Fred Freeman said. “And for a week, that was beyond what any human being should do, and he did it. I don’t know of another person who could have done that.” It.”

    This had nothing to do with his struggles, a sudden loss of power and sitting out three of the Dodgers’ first 11 postseason games, hitting nothing more damaging than singles.

    This had to do with Maximus, his 3-year-old son. Freeman had to leave the team for eight days in July. He seriously considered the possibility of not returning until next spring.

    “There were a lot of things going through my mind at that moment,” the 35-year-old Freeman told USA TODAY Sports in the aftermath of the Dodgers’ 7-6 victory over the New York Yankees, who captured their eighth World Series title. “I knew I had to be. with my family. If things went well with Max, I would end up playing.”

    Freeman paused for a moment, then said softly, “If things never worked out for Max, I probably wouldn’t be here.”

    Freeman’s thoughts turned back to this summer. One day Maximus runs around like any other toddler. The next moment he receives a call from his wife Chelsea, who tells him that their son is fighting for his life.

    Maximus was placed on a ventilator for days, hospitalized in the pediatric intensive care unit for eight days, and had no feeling below his neck. He was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, a condition in which the body’s immune system attacks the nerves.

    “The doctors finally told us that Max would be fine,” said Chelsea Freeman, Freddie’s wife and mother of their three children. ‘But if that hadn’t been the case, I absolutely think Freddie would have quit. It would have been too difficult.”

    Fred Freeman, who raised Freddie and his two brothers alone after his wife Rosemary died of melanoma when Freddie was 10, wasn’t sure if it would have been possible for Freeman to return to the Dodgers this year if something happened, Max .

    “Freddie is very emotional, just like his mother,” Fred Freeman said. “That Friday evening we weren’t sure if he would make it. We prayed so hard that he would be there in the morning. They started I was given the medicine, put him on a breathing tube and was tube fed. He was paralyzed from the mouth to the floor, and after six hours there was a shrug of the shoulders and the doctor said he would be fine.’

    In three months, Max has slowly learned to walk again and be himself. He marveled as much as everyone else when his father put together one of the greatest offensive performances in World Series history and made a permanent mark in Dodger folklore.

    He hit .300 and had a 1.000 OPS with a triple, four home runs and 12 RBI, tying Bobby Richardson of the 1960 Yankees for the most RBI in a World Series despite playing only five games. He joined Babe Ruth as the only players to have at least two home runs and a triple in the first two games of a World Series.

    He was the obvious selection for World Series MVP, becoming the first Dodger first baseman to win the award.

    “It feels like he’s a Dodger now,” Fred Freeman said. “He’s definitely a Dodger. He feels like a Dodger. He looks like a Dodger. And he’s a Dodger.

    “It’s been so hard with everything he’s been through this season, all the turmoil, Max, his ankle, good things were supposed to happen to him and they did.

    “God, I’m so proud of him.”

    No matter what Freeman does for the rest of his career, his performance this postseason will be remembered as nothing short of legendary. He stumbled his way through the first two rounds, had five days off between the NLCS and the World Series, then returned to become the biggest player on the field at the most critical time of the season.

    “He probably shouldn’t have played,” said Fred Freeman, “but Doc (manager Dave Roberts) said, ‘Whatever you can give me, your presence there will at least scare someone.'”

    Ultimately, he punished the Yankees and changed the complexion of the World Series with one swing of the bat when he hit a walk-off grand slam with two outs in the 10e inning of Game 1.

    The Yankees were never the same, just as the heavily favored Oakland A’s weren’t in 1988 when Kirk Gibson staggered to the plate and hit a walk-off homer off Hall of Fame closer Dennis Eckersley.

    “We felt pretty good coming in,” Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy said, “but when something special like that happens, wow, it just took off. I thought it was quite fitting for Freddie to do what he did in this World Series.”

    Let’s see, he hit the game-winning home run in the 10e inning in Game 1, the first walk-off grand slam in World Series history.

    He hit his second home run in the third inning of Game 2.

    Hit hit his third homer in the first inning of Game 3, trying to set a World Series record.

    He hit his fourth home run in the first inning of Game 4, setting a World Series record.

    And he nearly hit his fifth home run in the fourth inning of Game 5, but still drove in two runs in the Dodgers’ key fifth inning.

    “Freddie won the MVP on one leg,” said Dodgers All-Star right fielder Mookie Betts. “That lets you know how good he is.

    Freeman came through time and time again while teammate Shohei Ohtani hit .105 with no RBI and Muncy didn’t get a hit. Still, he gave credit to his teammates and Roberts. He wouldn’t have had the RBI production, he said, if his teammates weren’t on base. He wouldn’t hit the home runs without the best doctors and trainers. And of course, he wouldn’t even play baseball without his dad.

    “This is everything you could ask for,” Freeman said. “It seems like we’ve hit every speed bump possible over the course of this year. We have faced every possible setback. We have overcome them all.

    “This means everything.”

    Freeman, after clutching and kissing the World Series championship trophy and hoisting the MVP trophy above his head, left the stage with his teammates after the awards ceremony. They gathered for a team photo in center field. He then walked to his family who were standing nearby. He hugged his father without wanting to let go and told him he loved him, and then his wife and son.

    He then walked across the field, entered the dugout, reached the clubhouse and joined in the celebration, stopping every few minutes to give another interview.

    He was then told by MLB officials to go to a press conference for his MVP award. He was stopped for photos by several fans and officials. Suddenly he saw what time it was and he couldn’t believe how late it was. It was almost 1 a.m. ET and the team plane was scheduled to take off at 2:50 a.m. ET.

    The Dodgers had no intention of leaving without him.

    Freeman had another responsibility. He was sent back onto the field for a live interview with the MLB Network. He agreed, but wanted his entire family to come on set with him. He stepped off the set and walked to the infield for family photos. He walked back to the clubhouse, but not before he was stopped in front of the dugout for a brief interview with “Good Morning America.”

    By the time Freeman walked back inside, the visiting clubhouse attendants were throwing away all the empty beer cans and champagne bottles. He grabbed his clothes and headed to the shower to get ready for the flight home.

    It would be a long night, with the Dodgers not arriving in Los Angeles until around 6:30 in the morning. He wanted to catch up on his sleep, but he has a parade to catch. The Dodgers’ first parade since 1988 is scheduled Friday in downtown Los Angeles on what would become the 64e birthday of the late Fernando Valenzuela.

    “Man, what a night,” Freeman said. “What a season. An incredible season. It seems like we’ve hit every speed bump possible over the course of this year. And to overcome what we’ve done as a group of guys, it’s special.”

    And what Freeman did individually will live forever in Dodger history.

    “All through the postseason,” Muncy said, “we kept going to Freddie and saying, ‘Hey, we got you. We know you’re grinding for us right now, but we got you.”

    “And during this World Series, Freddie said to us, ‘Hey, I’ve got you guys. You covered for me. Now I have you.’ And that’s exactly what happened.”

    The adrenaline rush of the postseason, the euphoria of winning and the prayers for him and his family, Freeman says, made it all happen.

    “I am blessed,” he said, “I am truly blessed.”

    Freeman walked to his locker, took off his uniform for the last time this season, and all that pain in his throbbing ankle was suddenly gone.

    Life can drive you crazy, but oh, can it ever be the ultimate satisfaction.

    “I wish I never had to go through what we went through as a family,” Freeman said, “but at the end of the day, Maximus is doing really well right now. He is a special boy, but it has been a routine for three months. It really has been a lot.

    “Obviously the injuries make it all worth it in the end.

    “I will never compare Maximus to baseball. I won’t do that. They’re just two separate things, but now that he’s doing so well, it means a little extra.”

    Maximus, who had an ear infection, couldn’t make a six-hour flight and attend the games in New York, but everyone will see him on Friday. He will be the little guy sitting at the parade with his family and watching the entire city of Los Angeles and the Dodger organization celebrate his father.

    “Freddie was just incredible,” said Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman. “It’s a great storybook about his year and his October, which was so crazy that I don’t think that script would have been accepted.

    “If he does what he did, and gets there seven hours, eight hours before a game, and prepares himself to play as many times as he can to help us win 11 games, that’s not going to get nearly enough credit for what he has put down. itself.

    “Amazing, absolutely amazing.”

    Follow Nightengale on X: @Bnightengale

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