ATLANTA — Freddie Freeman arrived in Atlanta as a pudgy 17-year-old.
It was 2007, and the highly touted first baseman had just been drafted 78th overall by the Braves out of a high school in Orange County, California. He was, at the time, just a gangly kid with a nice swing and big dreams, completely unfamiliar with the Peach State and its ballclub.
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By the time he left Georgia 14 accomplished years later, he’d played in two stadiums and five All-Star Games. He’d also acquired 1,704 hits, an NL MVP, a World Series championship and a new set of teeth. When Freeman signed a free-agent deal with the Dodgers in March 2022, he left Atlanta as a beloved star, a franchise hero who got away. At the time, it seemed like Freeman’s time in L.A. might be just a footnote, an epilogue to his storied Braves career.
But after his heroics in Dodger Blue last October, Freeman holds a unique place in the sport’s history: an unimpeachable legend in two different cities. His accomplishments, during monotonous summers and pressure-cooker autumns, have ensured icon status with two fan bases. Both Atlantans and Angelenos have tattoos honoring his exploits. One day, there could be statues of him in both Cobb County and Chavez Ravine. There’s a world in which no Brave or Dodger ever wears his No. 5 jersey again.
It’s a supremely rare space for a ballplayer to occupy.
Before Freeman, only one Hall of Famer in the post-integration era was a cornerstone, superstar member of World Series clubs for two different franchises. To put it statistically, only one Hall of Famer had ever recorded a 4-bWAR season with two different World Series teams. That was Reggie Jackson, Mr. October himself, who shepherded both the Athletics and the Yankees to postseason glory. Freeman, with the 2021 Braves and 2024 Dodgers, ascended to that level.
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The 35-year-old’s return to Atlanta for the upcoming All-Star Game — he’s starting at first base for the NL for the fifth time — will resurface this dynamic once again. He’s sure to get a huge crowd pop during pregame introductions and a rousing ovation before his first at-bat. It will be emotional, gratifying, wholly celebratory.
But when I asked Freeman back in May about returning to Atlanta for the Midsummer Classic, he said the impending moment hadn’t crossed his mind.
“I haven’t really thought about it, because during the season, you’re just in it, you know?”
Freddie Freeman is the rare baseball player who has achieved icon status with two fan bases. (David Heringer/Yahoo Sports)
(David Heringer/Yahoo Sports)
‘To be honest, I was blindsided’
The first time Freeman returned to Atlanta as a Dodger, in late June 2022, the emotion of his departure was still raw. Only three months had passed since the sudden, shocking culmination to his first foray into free agency. Entering that offseason, the industry expected the all-world slugger to rejoin the only franchise he’d ever known. It was odd that extension talks between Freeman’s agents and Braves GM Alex Anthopoulos hadn’t borne fruit during the previous year, but a reunion still made the most sense. Besides, Freeman had made it abundantly clear that was his preference.
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But when the owner-enforced lockout began on Dec. 1, 2021, Freeman remained unsigned. The resumption of business on March 10 kicked off a frenzied period of transactional activity. Anthopoulos and Freeman’s rep, Casey Close, spoke a few days later. According to ESPN’s Buster Olney, Close presented two offers to the Braves: six years for $175 million and five years for $165 million. Anthopoulos declined both.
The following evening, news broke of an astonishing trade. The Braves were acquiring Athletics first baseman and Atlanta native Matt Olson in exchange for a quartet of prospects. One day later, Olson agreed to an eight-year, $168 million extension with his new club. Freeman’s impactful tenure in Atlanta was officially, abruptly over.
“To be honest,” Freeman said a week later, “I was blindsided.”
In the immediate aftermath, the Dodgers pounced. For Freeman, a return to his native Southern California was a silver-medal outcome. A six-year, $162 million contract was negotiated. By March 19, Freeman was at the Dodgers’ Arizona spring training facility, looking uneasy yet cautiously excited about the unfamiliar surroundings.
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To this day, Freeman doesn’t like talking about the series of events in the winter of 2021-22 that upended his life and redirected the course of his career. Even with all the success he has experienced in three-and-a-half seasons in Los Angeles, there’s still a scar from how and why he left Atlanta. He’s represented by a different agency now. For a while, he held an icy posture toward Anthopoulos.
“The regret question is a whole different side of the story that I’m not here to talk about because I think, one-on-one, the people I’ve talked to know that’s a different side of it,” he told reporters his first time back in Atlanta. “‘Cause if I got into that, oh, we’d be here a long time. And that emotion might change — big-time.”
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When the Dodgers made their annual trip to Atlanta in June 2022, the sentimental Freeman was an emotional wreck. He wept through a news conference. He spent time in the Braves clubhouse with his former teammates. Before the first game, Freeman was honored with a video montage of his myriad accomplishments as a Brave. In the dugout, he seemed to be holding it together, but as he jogged onto the field to accept his 2021 World Series ring, Freeman broke down again, burying his face in his former manager’s arms.
Each tear glimmered with an unavoidable sense of regret. Even though the new Dodgers first baseman continued to play phenomenally well through the upheaval, he didn’t seem happy or comfortable in his new life. And his new teammates noticed.
“He’s obviously been a big contributor for our team,” Dodgers starter Clayton Kershaw told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that weekend. “And I hope we’re not second fiddle. It’s a pretty special team over here, too. I think whenever he gets comfortable over here, he’ll really enjoy it.”
‘And then you just move on’
Three years later, Freeman couldn’t be more comfortable in Dodger blue.
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Although he’s entering the All-Star break mired in a prolonged slump, his place in franchise history is beyond secure. His walk-off grand slam in Game 1 of last year’s Fall Classic has already gone down as an all-time baseball highlight. And the context of those heroics — Freeman stepped away in July to care for his ailing son, then battled through a busted ankle and broken rib to win World Series MVP — further endeared him to fans and teammates.
It’s now Freeman’s fourth season in Los Angeles, and he has already become a cultural symbol, a Southern California sports icon. There are murals, tattoos and babies named Freddie.
As Freeman explains it, that tear-jerking weekend in Atlanta was a turning point. An opportunity for him to seek closure.
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“Once we went to Colorado after that trip, I was like, OK,” he told me back in May. “I didn’t know I needed it, but I needed it. And then you just move on.
“I’m gonna give everything I have every day, no matter what is on my chest,” he said of his thinking at the time. “And the Dodgers wanted me. They believed in me. And so I was like, I gotta do exactly what I did with the Braves. I gotta do it here. And I think once I left Atlanta, I was still playing really well, but once I left Atlanta after getting my World Series ring, that’s when I started feeling like, ‘OK, this is time.’”
Freeman has returned to Truist Field three times since then. He doesn’t cry anymore. It’s no longer an emotional roller coaster. It’s still an opportunity to see old friends, hug former teammates and bask in the adoration from Braves Country. But Freeman has moved on, matured, grown up, grown past.
And yet, an undeniable connection remains.
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Freeman and his wife, Chelsea, still have a home in Georgia. They have family there, too. Their son Max’s middle name is Turner, a nod to the old Atlanta ballpark where Freddie made his debut. When Freeman is announced during the All-Star Game on Tuesday, Truist Park will almost certainly respond with rousing applause.
Because while Freeman has become a Dodgers legend, he is, forever, a Brave.
