Dodgers’ Freddie Freeman on late Braves manager…
If the solar is blocked at some level Sunday by clouds passing over Dodger Stadium, Freddie Freeman received’t transfer his sun shades to the brim of his cap.
He doesn’t need his shades to obscure the Dodgers’ emblem.
Former Braves manager Bobby Cox died Saturday at age 84. AP
“It will be on the back of my hat,” Freeman said. “That’s Bobby. Bobby’s still in me.”
Freeman smiled often Saturday as he told tales of his first MLB manager, Bobby Cox, whose death was announced earlier in the day by the Braves. The Dodgers are in the center of a three-game sequence against the Braves.
Cox, who was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2014, was 84.
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A September call-up in Cox’s closing season as a manager, in 2010, Freeman’s time with the Braves didn’t overlap a lot with Cox’s. However, Freeman said Cox had an outsized affect on him.
“A manager who relentlessly had our backs,” said Freeman, who was in the Braves’ major-league spring training camp in each of Cox’s last two years.
Freeman recalled strolling into the Braves’ clubhouse for the first time on Sept. 1, 2010, and seeing a lineup card on which he was listed as the crew’s No. 6 hitter.
“I almost threw up,” Freeman said.
Freeman was staring into space in entrance of his locker when Cox walked over. The manager dropped an expletive, which was adopted by a query: “What took you so long to get here to the big leagues?”
“All the nerves immediately went away,” Freeman said.
Dodgers star Freddie Freeman shared his favourite Bobby Cox tales on Saturday. IMAGN IMAGES via GWN Connect
Freeman said everybody who was in Cox’s orbit had tales like that.
“A lot of how the game goes is already played out before the game,” Freeman said. “There’s meetings with pitching coaches, who’s available, who’s down, but the managers that can connect with you as a person, that’s what makes a great manager. And that’s what Bobby was.”
Freeman’s favourite reminiscence of Cox wasn’t even from a baseball discipline or clubhouse. In spring training of 2017, Freeman and his spouse had been out to dinner with their then-6-month-old son, Charlie. They ran into Cox and his spouse.
“To see Hall of Famer Bobby Cox, the joy on his face when he saw my 6-month-old son, that’s the stuff I will never forget,” Freeman said.
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