I realize the 2025 spring training season has already started, but indulge me for one moment as we look back to 2024.
Today’s question is simple: What was your favorite moment of the 2024 postseason?
I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by saying that Freddie Freeman’s grand slam is going to rate very highly here, and why wouldn’t it? The first walk-off grand slam in World Series history should and will be talked about for years. We will all remember where we were when we saw it happen.
However, I’m going to pick a different Freeman moment, exactly two weeks earlier.
In Game 5 of the NLDS against the Padres, who were nearing 72 hours since their last run scored, Freeman was still in the throes with his sprained right ankle, the same ankle that required surgery in December. What we didn’t know at the time was that Freeman was also playing through a cracked rib. He was hobbling out there, and the Dodgers were doing everything they could to rest Freeman when possible, including not playing him at all in Game 4.
In the sixth inning, after Freeman ranged to make a play on his hobbled ankle, catcher Will Smith joined pitcher Evan Phillips for a mound visit, with every other infielder, except Freeman.
“In the old days, when there was no mound-visit limit, you would do that to give the pitcher a break,” third baseman Max Muncy said. “We were all like, ‘Hey let’s take a breather. This is for Freddie, it isn’t for Evan.’”
That was a cool moment, and my favorite from last October.
Please share with us your favorite 2024 postseason memories in the comments below.