Then, after Freddie ran to his dad. Which obviously was in the stands, behind home plate.
And, later, he would say what all of us in baseball know and have done.
“When you’re five years old and playing on the playground, that’s what you think about: World Series, ninth inning, bases loaded, two outs…”
In reality it happened to him in the 10th, but it’s almost a detail. However, it is not the case that the other team was ahead.
It was triumph or die.
“World Series, ninth inning, bases loaded, two outs,” happens in all the backyards and gardens civilized by our Game. Never in the World Series.
Really: there had already been walk-off homers, obviously (Yogi Berra, Bill Mazeroski…), there had also already been two walk-off homers by a hitter on the trailing team. One by Joe Carter for the Toronto Blue Jays in 1993 against the Philadelphia Phillies. The other, the one everyone mentions, because like yesterday it happened at Dodger Stadium, planted by someone who wore the same uniform: Kirk Gibson, in 1988 against the Oakland A’s.
It was 8.38pm (8.38pm say the Americans) on October 15, 1988, it was 8.39pm, last night in Los Angeles.
So there had already been walk-off homers. Never a walk-off Grand Slam. Never in the 696 games in 120 years of the World Series.
Freddie Freeman shot it at the end of a wonderful match. And then he went to his dad “who was there from the beginning, and every day he started me in batting practice,” he said. “So this is his moment.”
She thought about him
And probably not his bad ankle, which caused him to still run a little crooked yesterday. Yet before the home run he had hit a triple, lucky, but a triple.
He thought about his dad. And certainly to her little Max. Who is three years old. A few months ago he was diagnosed with a rare disease, Guillain-Barre syndrome. In the summer he was hospitalized for a long time, in serious danger. Then, fortunately, he got better. Freeman missed games to be around him.
Roberto Vecchioni sings – in Le Lettere d’amore, (Chevalier de Pas) – “In that tobacco shop there was more life than there was in all his poetry”. He is referring to Fernando Pessoa.
You catch certain baseball games. And the poet you prefer.
