Why Dodgers star Freddie Freeman has conflicting feelings about pursuit for 3,000 hits

PITTSBURGH –– With plastic cups full of sparkling wine raised in the air around him, Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts led a toast to Freddie Freeman in the visiting clubhouse at PNC Park on Tuesday night.

First, Roberts congratulated the team’s star first baseman on reaching 2,500 career hits –– the latest distinguished milestone in Freeman’s future Hall of Fame career.

Then, as Freeman later recounted with a laugh during his postgame address with reporters, Roberts turned to the 36-year-old veteran and took a peek down the road.

“You’d better get 500 more,” Roberts joked.

“That’s a challenge, a tall order,” the skipper later added. “But I’m not gonna bet against him.”

Entering this season, that had been Freeman’s plan following a rejuvenating and fully healthy winter: Play three more years. Retire at the age of 40. And, injury- and performance-permitting, join MLB’s exclusive 3,000 career hits club at some point along the way.

He knew it wasn’t a certainty. As he joked this spring, “Father Time is going to catch up.”

What he didn’t expect, however, was for his latest foray into fatherhood to so quickly change his perspective first.

“I would love to get to 3,000 hits. I would love to. I’m not going to deny that,” Freeman said Tuesday night. “But do I know if I’m going to get there? I don’t know.”

Indeed, while 3,000 hits remains a goal for Freeman –– who would be just the 34th player all-time to accomplish the feat –– the journey still required to get there has raised newly conflicting feelings for the nine-time All-Star and former National League MVP.

In April, Freeman and his wife Chelsea welcomed their fourth child and first daughter London Rosemary Joy into the world. In a family of all sons previously, having a baby girl in the house was like stepping into a whole new world for Freeman himself, too.

“We just stare at her all day,” he said upon returning from the paternity list two days after London’s birth. “It’s been special the last couple days. We got to take her home last night. So we had one night with her. And I already miss her.”

Over his 17-year career, of course, Freeman has long become accustomed to the trade-offs of being both a dad and a big-league ballplayer; to all the little moments that get missed, and all the FaceTime calls that only compensate for so much, amid long seasons spent largely at the ballpark or on the road.

Still, this year, the toll of it all has impacted Freeman more than he expected.

“It’s just hard when you’re seeing her growing up on the phone,” he told The California Post later Tuesday night, in a quiet moment of reflection from his locker after the plastic cups had been put away and the bottles of celebratory champagne re-corked. “She’s already moved up to bigger diapers, and I didn’t really get to see it. So that’s the hard part … It weighs on my heart.”

Freeman first noted such emotional complexities in an interview with The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal last month.

Unlike with his three sons, who have become fixtures around Dodger Stadium during the slugger’s five-year tenure with the club, he pointed out then how his daughter won’t be old enough to remember his playing days, even if he hangs on until his 40th birthday.

“I’m missing things for something she’ll never know,” he said. “She’s not going to know I missed these things either.”

With each passing week and each new road trip, he reiterated on Tuesday night, that feeling has gnawed at him even more.

“If you would have asked me three days ago, I’d have said, ‘Oh, I’ve got three more years,’ because I had just been home and taking the kids to school,” he said. “But if you ask me [at the end of this trip] against the White Sox on Sunday, after five days on the road, I’d be like, ‘Next year is good.’”

That doesn’t mean the pull of 3,000 hits has gone away.

On Tuesday, when he eclipsed the 2,500 mark with an RBI single in the Dodgers’ 10-run seventh inning against the Pittsburgh Pirates, he relished the reception he got from teammates and coaches in the clubhouse, and let his mind wander to what another 500 knocks would mean.

“The next one,” he said, “is the big one.”

The closer he gets, though, the more difficult the pursuit will become.

“When you get up there [in career hits], everyone is talking about it,” he said. “And I get it. I get how special it is, I do. But if that’s the only reason I’m still trying to play and leaving my family every other week, to go get a round number, is that really gonna change how people view it?”

Some of this might wind up being out of Freeman’s control.

There’s the threat of a lockout next season, which would likely dash his 3,000-hit dreams if much (or, in a worst-case scenario, all) of the 2027 schedule is wiped out by a work stoppage.

“I’m not gonna be 41 [and still] playing,” he quipped.

There’s also his uncertain long-term contract situation, with the Orange County native –– who has repeatedly stated his desire to retire with his hometown Dodgers –– set to become a free agent at the end of 2027.

“I’m not gonna go play with another team just to chase a round number,” he said.

That’s why, for now, Freeman is simply grateful to still be playing at a high level, to still be competing for World Series titles with a dynasty Dodgers club, and to still be experiencing other milestone moments like Tuesday’s.

“There’s always another goal to get to,” he said. “But to step back and realize how long you have to play, the consistency over that –– to play at a high level over many, many years –– to get there, it does mean a lot.”

As for where it leaves his pursuit of 3,000 hits?

“I’ve been blessed to play a long time, so if it didn’t happen, I would be OK with it,” he said. “I never played for individual numbers to begin with. So if I’m all of a sudden chasing individual numbers, then I’ve lost what baseball means to me. And baseball has meant everything to me. I’ve already accomplished a lot. So if I’m doing it for individual things, then I think I’ve lost what I set out to do this for.”

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