Freddie Freeman channels Kirk Gibson with a decisive grand slam in Game 1 of the World Series – Telemundo 52

An improbable year.

An impossible situation.

A player injured in a leg.

An immortal home run that left the World Series.

It all seems surreal, like deja vu on the largest scale.

Did Freddie Freeman really channel Kirk Gibson, rekindling the spirit of a moment that was forever etched in the hearts of Dodger fans going back 36 years?

Did the Los Angeles Dodgers really just steal victory in Game 1 of the World Series from the jaws of defeat to the New York Yankees with one out to spare?

Yes. Yes, they did.

As Freeman limped into the batter’s house on a crisp, brisk Friday night, facing Yankees left-hander Néstor Cortés, the tension inside Dodger Stadium was electric, like a swarm of bees locked inside a jewelry box.

Like Gibby before him, Freddie was crippled by a sprained ankle, enduring weeks of usage that kept him in and out of the lineup throughout the postseason.

The reality was that with the injury, Freeman was a shadow of himself at the plate. Batting .219 with no home runs, no extra bases and only one RBI in the playoffs until the most important moment of his life.

Surely this weak, weak, one-legged former MVP can’t do the impossible, right?

52,394 fans collectively held their breath; the Yankees could feel victory just inches from their powerful reach.

And then the ball exploded off Freeman’s bat like an exploding firecracker on the Fourth of July. CRACK! The sound echoed through Chavez Ravine and traveled all the way to the Bronx.

As the ball flew halfway across the right field pavilion, Dodger Stadium shook with the sheer force of the crowd realizing that they had just witnessed something fascinating and magical. It’s something they will talk about for the rest of their lives, something they will one day ask others: Do you remember where you were when Freddie Freeman stepped up to the plate in the bottom of the 10th inning in Game 1 of the 2024 World Cup? Series?

“That was unbelievable,” said Max Muncy, the last Dodgers player to hit a World Series-winning home run at Dodger Stadium. “Feeling the ground shake from the crowd. Seeing the reactions of all our teammates was an incredible moment.”

As Freeman watched the first grand slam in World Series history take off, he looked toward his father sitting behind home plate and pointed his bat toward the sky, as if to say to Fernando Valenzuela, “We got you. ”

As he casually dropped his bat and rounded the bases, all the emotion of the last three months of his life spilled onto the field.

Freeman played with a broken finger earlier this year and missed two weeks in late July after his three-year-old son Max was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare neurological disease in which the immune system of the body attacks its nerves. causing weakness, numbness, and, in Max’s case, paralysis.

Freeman returned to the team, but suffered a sprained ankle during the regular season finale at Dodger Stadium. A 7-2 victory that clinched the Dodgers’ 11th NL West pennant in the last 12 seasons.

“Knowing what Freddie has been through, it’s super special for him to have this moment,” said teammate Mookie Bets, who was intentionally walked so Freeman could get his chance at the plate. “I’m glad he was the one who did it.”

“These last few months have been many. It’s been hard work,” Freeman said, reflecting on his tumultuous journey to this moment in time. “I love the history of this game, so to be a part of it is special.”

FOX announcer Joe Davis, in a nod to legendary Dodger voice Vin Scully, qualified the moment with the same words that etched Gibson’s historic home run into baseball lore: “She’s gone!”

And like Scully before him, it felt perfect and timeless. Instead of Scully’s classic call: “In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened.” Davis ushered in a new chapter when he said, “Gibby, meet Freddie,” and in that instant it was not just a home run, but a cinematic score unfolding before our eyes.

As Freeman limped around the bases, he flexed toward the bullpen, whooped and hollered in glee, while his teammates stormed the plate, waiting for their hero in an ecstatic frenzy.

“Everything was the same outside of the punches,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts joked about how Freeman’s home run compared to Gibson’s. “(Gibson’s) was iconic. “I think if we win three more games, Freddie will be up to par.”

The parallels between the two magical moments are striking.

Both Gibson and Freeman were underdogs at the time, physically compromised, with their backs against the wall and their teams down to the final out.

Each saw a play that grew out of a walk, and eventually each threw a pitch deep into the same part of the Dodger Stadium pavilion.

“Freddie is going to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Every time he’s at the plate, one foot or not, you feel really good about what he can do,” said Dodgers second baseman Gavin Lux, who started the comeback with his one-out walk. “You felt like I was going to have great success there. You could see the look in his eyes. “You can’t make up for it.”

For history’s sake, there have been 62 forfeits in the 120-year history of the World Series.

The Dodgers have had five forfeits in the World Series.

There have only been three home runs by teams behind: Joe Carter for the Blue Jays in 1993, Gibson in 1988 and now Freeman in 2024. What do they all have in common besides the weight of history on their shoulders? ? They all made history with a perfect swing.

I was a kid myself when Gibson made his perfect swing. For the next 36 years I listened to the generation older than me discuss where they were and what they were doing when Gibby changed the course of history.

For me and Dodger fans around the world, Friday night felt like 1988 all over again. Just a moment recorded in time for our generation. As fans hugged and high-fived each other, pointing their camera phones at the field and then at themselves, echoes of history hung in the air.

“That might be the greatest baseball moment I’ve ever witnessed,” Roberts said, his eyes shining with the kind of reverence Gibson had inspired in Dodger fans for decades. “And I have witnessed great moments. “It was pure euphoria.”

Minutes after his explosion, Freeman sat at the podium to address the media, still high on adrenaline. “I want to walk through this table and face all of you (laughs),” he joked about how he felt. “This is great. “It’s going to be hard to sleep tonight.”

Perhaps in his dreams, Freeman relives the night in its entirety.

The game began with a solemn tribute to the recently deceased Fernando Valenzuela (the number 34 emblazoned on the mound and a moment of silence as the Valenzuela family gathered in tears on the third base line) and then, as if the Ravine filled of strength. From Valenzuela himself they began to chant “Fer-nand-do…Fer-nan-do…”

Three hours later, those chants changed and eventually grew louder and louder as their hero came to the plate with the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the tenth. “Fred-die… Fred-die…”

“Those are the scenarios you dream about when you’re five,” Freeman said, smiling like the five-year-old version of himself, looking up, lost in the moment. “Two outs, bases loaded in a World Series game. To make it really happen and get a walk-off grand slam. That’s the best thing right there.”

“That’s the kind of thing, when you’re 5 years old with your two older brothers and you’re playing wiffle ball in the backyard, those are the scenarios you dream about, two outs, bases loaded in a World Series game.

The first game of the World Series on Friday night will reverberate in our hearts and minds for a lifetime. Kirk Gibson, wherever he was watching the game, had to be smiling and pumping his fists.

What about Dodger fans?

Well, they are believing in the magic of October again.