Culture
Freddie Freeman wallops his way into World Series history with walk-off slam that’ll float forever
LOS ANGELES — Carlton Fisk … Kirby Puckett … Derek Jeter … David Freese.
As he smoothed the dirt in the batter’s box in the 10th inning Friday night, Freddie Freeman never could have envisioned he’d be spending the rest of his life hanging out with those October legends.
But then walk-off magic happened.
Before the next wave of Freeman’s bat, no living human could lean back in an easy chair and describe to you what a walk-off, lead-flipping, extra-inning World Series grand slam looked like. But we can now. It looks exactly like this.
FREDDIE FREEMAN WALK-OFF GRAND SLAM. #WORLDSERIES pic.twitter.com/5MIY5CaX6a
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) October 26, 2024
History is an amazing thing to make — and a breathtaking thing to witness. A stadium rattles until it awakens every Richter Scale in Southern California. A walk-off hero jumps on home plate and disappears into a sea of hugs and laughs and tears of joy.
A scoreboard tries to tell this tale — Dodgers 6, Yankees 3 — but there is so much emotion and so much history that can’t possibly be captured by the final score of Friday’s Game 1 of the 2024 World Series.
So that’s where this column comes in handy. There are certain nights in October that seem to exist so those of us at Weird and Wild World HQ can help you make sense of them. This was one of those nights.
“Freddie just hit a ball that’s going to be in the history reels forever,” Dodgers reliever Michael Kopech told us afterward. “So it’s a special moment — for him and for us.”
When a man hits a walk-off home run in extra innings — in the World Freaking Series — he can’t imagine in that moment that the baseball is never going to come down. But he could ask the guys in the first sentence of this column …
Carlton Fisk … Kirby Puckett … Derek Jeter … David Freese.
They’re in that hallowed Extra-inning World Series Walk-off Club. So Freddie can ask them the next time he sees him. Or even better …
He could walk across his clubhouse and ask Max Muncy.
Six years ago, it was Muncy who stepped to the plate at 12:30 in the morning — California time — and pounded an 18th-inning walk-off home run of his own, to finish off the longest World Series game ever played: Game 3 of the 2018 Series.
It turned out to be the only game the Dodgers won against the Red Sox in that World Series. But if you think that means that home run was forgotten, Muncy is here to set you straight.
“Yeah, Freddie is gonna hear about this one for a long time,” Muncy said Friday night. “Freddie has hit some big home runs, especially in the postseason. But he’s gonna hear about this one.”
So why is that? What is it about home runs like this that cause them to reverberate through history and stick in our memory banks? We can help explain that!
Extra special
Freddie Freeman watches his slam sail into the seats. (Jayne Kamin-Oncea / Imagn Images)
This was the 693rd game in World Series history. So think about how wild (and weird) it is that no hitter, in any of those other 692 games, had written a script to match Freddie Freeman’s script.
How many walk-off slams had ever been hit, in any other World Series game? Yep, that would be none.
In fact, only one walk-off slam had ever ended a game in any other postseason round. That was hit by Nelson Cruz, in Game 2 of the 2011 ALDS. So what were the odds that Cruz would be in the park for this one, as a member of the Spanish-language Univision broadcast team? Baseball!
But moving right along, here comes a distinction even wilder than that. Wouldn’t you think that sometime, in the 119 previous World Series, somebody would have dug into a batter’s box somewhere, with his team trailing, and hit an extra-inning home run that turned a loss into a win?
You would think that, all right. But you would think wrong — because the complete list of men to do that consists of …
Freddie Freeman!
Or wouldn’t you think that somebody would have hit a home run that at least tied a World Series game in extra innings? Nope. No one has ever hit one of those, either.
So what we saw Freeman do Friday, in the 10th inning at Dodger Stadium, was produce an all-time October moment. And who can ever get enough of them!
“When you get told you do something like that, in this game that’s been around a very long time — I love the history of this game,” Freeman said. “To be a part of it, it’s special.”
GO DEEPER
Rosenthal: For Freddie Freeman, his family and Dodgers fans, a grand moment on the biggest stage
She is … gone
As the 10th inning began Friday night, one of my fellow baseball scribes turned to me and asked: What are the chances that Kirk Gibson limps out of the dugout to hit in this inning?
We laughed at the thought. But in retrospect …
In the history of the World Series, just two men have ever stood in a batter’s box with their team one out from defeat … and then hit a walk-off home run that changed everything:
Kirk Gibson, Game 1, 1988
Freddie Freeman, Game 1, 2024
(Hat tip: Paul Casella, MLB.com)
Geez. Holy Chavez Ravine. Gibson, of course, flipped that 1988 script in the ninth inning, not the 10th. Nevertheless, is that goosebumpy enough for you — even if Freeman hadn’t been limping around all week, much like Gibson did back in the day?
But when a few of us tried to recast The Kirk Gibson Story afterward, with Freeman as the new lead in this production, Freeman’s teammates were not all in on that. Especially not after Freeman had tripled in his first at-bat of the Series. After all, Gibson could barely make it to third base after his home run back in ’88. So are we sure this was the same thing?
C’mon, Muncy said, “Freddie’s been hobbling too fast. He’s moving good. He had a triple tonight. So I don’t know if you can compare that. From everything I heard, Gibson had half a leg.”
Feels like a good time to show Kirk Gibson’s walk-off home run in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series pic.twitter.com/PC2PuhRwAf
— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) October 26, 2024
In a year that has been so improbable …
Freeman’s euphoric teammates wait to greet him at the plate after he ended Game 1. (Jayne Kamin-Oncea / Imagn Images)
When Freeman wriggled into the box with two outs in the 10th, the Dodgers’ chances of winning this game were only 26.7 percent, according to Baseball Reference. That changed swiftly, obviously. One moonshot into the right-field pavilion later, those chances were more like 100 percent.
So if you’re adding along at home, you know what that means: Freeman’s homer had just jumped their Win Probability by a staggering 73.3 percent, with one swing of the bat. Does that seem good? We’ll do you a favor, by stepping outside those decimal points to tell you just how good.
This was officially one of the biggest, most game-changing swings in the history of the World Series!
So there. Does that help make sense of it? And how cool is it that we can measure that with Baseball Reference’s handy dandy Pivotal Play Finder, which can rank every World Series hit by its Win Probability Added. So we did that.
Most pivotal extra-inning homers
| HITTER | GAME/YEAR | WIN PROBABILITY ADDED |
|---|---|---|
|
Freddie Freeman |
Game 1, 2024 |
73.3% |
|
Derek Jeter |
Game 4, 2001 |
46.1% |
Most pivotal extra-inning hits
| HITTER | GAME/YEAR | WIN PROBABILITY ADDED |
|---|---|---|
|
Freddie Freeman |
Game 1, 2024 |
73.3% |
|
Tris Speaker* |
Game 8, 1912 |
50.5% |
(*game-tying single in 10th)
Most pivotal bases-loaded hits
| HITTER | GAME/YEAR | WIN PROBABILITY ADDED |
|---|---|---|
|
Freddie Freeman |
Game 1, 2024 |
73.3% |
|
Terry Pendleton* |
Game 2, 1985 |
68.9% |
(*lead-flipping double with two outs in ninth)
And finally, here it comes, the leaderboard you’ve been waiting for but might not have known you were. It’s the …
Most pivotal World Series walk-off hits ever
| HITTER | GAME/YEAR | WIN PROBABILITY ADDED |
|---|---|---|
|
Kirk Gibson |
Game 1, 1988 |
87% |
|
Freddie Freeman |
Game 1, 2024 |
73.3% |
|
Joe Carter |
Game 6, 1993 |
65.6% |
(Source: Baseball Reference)
GO DEEPER
How Freddie Freeman delivered an iconic swing on a bad ankle: ‘You dream about those moments’
Their intentions were good
After the intentional walk, Freeman dropped the mic. (Jayne Kamin-Oncea / Imagn Images)
But wait. There’s more. This grand slam would not have been possible if the Yankees hadn’t filled up the bases by intentionally walking Mookie Betts to pitch to Freeman. So how rare is a postseason grand slam following an intentional walk?
Whoa, we hadn’t had one of those since … 12 days ago, when these same Dodgers intentionally walked Francisco Lindor to fill the bases for Mark Vientos … in this same stadium. The baseball gods work in mysterious ways, don’t they?
But if we just confine this discussion to intentional walks that set up a slam in the World Series, we have only four of those in history:
| YEAR | GAME | INT BB | HIT SLAM | INNING |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1951 |
WS Game 5 |
Johnny Mize |
Gil McDougald |
3rd |
|
1956 |
WS Game 7 |
Yogi Berra |
Bill Skowron |
7th |
|
1992 |
WS Gm 6 |
David Justice |
Lonnie Smith |
5th |
|
2024 |
WS Gm 1 |
Mookie Betts |
Freddie Freeman |
10th |
(Source: STATS Perform)
But you’ll notice this was the first extra-inning intentional walk to set up a grand slam in World Series history — and only the second in postseason history. The other was issued by … Dave Roberts, who intentionally walked a guy named Juan Soto to get to Howie Kendrick in the 10th inning of Game 5 of the 2019 NLDS. That didn’t go quite as well for the Dodgers manager as this!
No wonder Roberts would later describe this game as maybe “the greatest baseball moment I’ve ever witnessed.”
But he was not alone. We’ve measured the cool factor of this home run with lots of numbers. Yet maybe the truest measure was the euphoria this epic blast infused in Freeman’s teammates. An hour later, that feeling hadn’t subsided — not even a little.
“I can’t imagine how Freddie is feeling right now,” said Michael Kopech, “because I feel like I’m floating.”
There’s another baseball game to play Saturday. So the Dodgers will show up and play all nine innings of it (assuming that’s enough). But we should let them in on a secret. If they go on to win this thing, when they all close their eyes — in five years, 10 years, 20 years — and think back on this World Series, they’ll still be floating …
Just like Freeman’s walk-off slam for the ages.
Party of Three
Freeman celebrates after tripling in the first inning. (Jason Parkhurst / Imagn Images)
OK, hang with us for just another minute. There are three more things you need to know about this game!
EMPTY NESTOR — Somebody has to give up these momentous home runs. In this case, that somebody was Nestor Cortes. So what’s his claim to fame? As Eric Orns, one of our favorite readers/baseball stat gurus, reports, Cortes became the first pitcher in postseason history — at least in the pitch-count era (1988-present) — to give up two runs on two pitches.
First pitch — spectacular catch by Alex Verdugo on Shohei Ohtani’s foul looper down the left-field line.
Next pitch (after an intentional walk that now requires zero pitches) — walk-off slam.
Hey, at least the Dodgers didn’t run up his pitch count.
GO DEEPER
Nestor Cortes wanted the ball. And all that came with it
GRAND SLAM FEVER — Does it feel like there’s a grand slam every week in this postseason? It should — because this was the fifth of the postseason. And we’re not through playing yet. So as Orns reminds us, it would take only one more slam to break the record for most in a single postseason.
The two years with five of them: 2021 and 1998. Stay tuned!
TRIPLE THREAT — Finally, have we mentioned that Freeman had a triple in his first at-bat of this game and a walk-off extra-inning homer in his last at-bat? We had a hunch he was the first player in history to do that in a World Series. Boy, were we wrong. But it was worth checking … because what a list of guys who have hit a triple and an extra-inning walk-off in the same World Series game.
|
Freddie Freeman |
Game 1, 2024 |
|
David Freese |
Game 6, 2011 |
|
Derek Jeter |
Game 4, 2001 |
|
Kirby Puckett |
Game 6, 1991 |
(Source: Baseball Reference / Stathead)
Just looking at that list, it reminded us that we remember those games as The David Freese Game … The Derek Jeter “Mr. November” Game … and The Kirby Puckett “We’ll See You Tomorrow Night” Game. So little does Freeman know it, but what we saw Friday will go down in the annals as (what else) The Freddie Freeman Game. Which tells you all you need to know about a classic October evening of …
Baseball!
GO DEEPER
Freeman’s grand statement lifts Dodgers over Yankees in Game 1: Takeaways
GO DEEPER
Yankees’ Boone explains ill-fated decision to use Cortes against Dodger lefties
GO DEEPER
Juan Soto owns defensive shortcomings in Game 1, as sloppy play stifles Yankees
(Top photo: Keith Birmingham / MediaNews Group / Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images)
new video loaded: 250 Years of Jane Austen, in Objects
By Jennifer Harlan, Sadie Stein, Claire Hogan, Laura Salaberry and Edward Vega
December 18, 2025
“Window seat with garden view / A perfect nook to read a book / I’m lost in my Jane Austen…” sings Kristin Chenoweth in “The Girl in 14G” — what could be more ideal? Well, perhaps showing off your literary knowledge and getting a perfect score on this week’s super-size Book Review Quiz Bowl honoring the life, work and global influence of Jane Austen, who turns 250 today. In the 12 questions below, tap or click your answers to the questions. And no matter how you do, scroll on to the end, where you’ll find links to free e-book versions of her novels — and more.
On Dec. 16, 1775, a girl was born in Steventon, England — the seventh of eight children — to a clergyman and his wife. She was an avid reader, never married and died in 1817, at the age of 41. But in just those few decades, Jane Austen changed the world.
Her novels have had an outsize influence in the centuries since her death. Not only are the books themselves beloved — as sharply observed portraits of British society, revolutionary narrative projects and deliciously satisfying romances — but the stories she created have so permeated culture that people around the world care deeply about Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, even if they’ve never actually read “Pride and Prejudice.”
With her 250th birthday this year, the Austen Industrial Complex has kicked into high gear with festivals, parades, museum exhibits, concerts and all manner of merch, ranging from the classily apt to the flamboyantly absurd. The words “Jane mania” have been used; so has “exh-Aust-ion.”
How to capture this brief life, and the blazing impact that has spread across the globe in her wake? Without further ado: a mere sampling of the wealth, wonder and weirdness Austen has brought to our lives. After all, your semiquincentennial doesn’t come around every day.
By ‘A Lady’
Austen published just four novels in her lifetime: “Sense and Sensibility” (1811), “Pride and Prejudice” (1813), “Mansfield Park” (1814) and “Emma” (1815). All of them were published anonymously, with the author credited simply as “A Lady.” (If you’re in New York, you can see this first edition for yourself at the Grolier Club through Feb. 14.)
Where the Magic Happened
Placed near a window for light, this diminutive walnut table was, according to family lore, where the author did much of her writing. It is now in the possession of the Jane Austen Society.
An Iconic Accessory
Few of Austen’s personal artifacts remain, contributing to the author’s mystique. One of them is this turquoise ring, which passed to her sister-in-law and then her niece after her death. In 2012, the ring was put up for auction and bought by the “American Idol” champion Kelly Clarkson. This caused quite a stir in England; British officials were loath to let such an important cultural artifact leave the country’s borders. Jane Austen’s House, the museum now based in the writer’s Hampshire home, launched a crowdfunding campaign to Bring the Ring Home and bought the piece from Clarkson. The real ring now lives at the museum; the singer has a replica.
Austen Onscreen
Since 1940, when Austen had a bit of a moment and Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier starred in MGM’s rather liberally reinterpreted “Pride and Prejudice,” there have been more than 20 international adaptations of Austen’s work made for film and TV (to say nothing of radio). From the sublime (Emma Thompson’s Oscar-winning “Sense and Sensibility”) to the ridiculous (the wholly gratuitous 2022 remake of “Persuasion”), the high waists, flickering firelight and double weddings continue to provide an endless stream of debate fodder — and work for a queen’s regiment of British stars.
Jane Goes X-Rated
The rumors are true: XXX Austen is a thing. “Jane Austen Kama Sutra,” “Pride and Promiscuity: The Lost Sex Scenes of Jane Austen” and enough slash fic and amateur porn to fill Bath’s Assembly Rooms are just the start. Purists may never recover.
A Lady Unmasked
Austen’s final two completed novels, “Northanger Abbey” and “Persuasion,” were published after her death. Her brother Henry, who oversaw their publication, took the opportunity to give his sister the recognition he felt she deserved, revealing the true identity of the “Lady” behind “Pride and Prejudice,” “Emma,” etc. in a biographical note. “The following pages are the production of a pen which has already contributed in no small degree to the entertainment of the public,” he wrote, extolling his sister’s imagination, good humor and love of dancing. Still, “no accumulation of fame would have induced her, had she lived, to affix her name to any productions of her pen.”
Wearable Tributes
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Jane Austen fan wants to find other Jane Austen fans, and what better way to advertise your membership in that all-inclusive club than with a bit of merch — from the subtle and classy to the gloriously obscene.
The Austen Literary Universe
On the page, there is no end to the adventures Austen and her characters have been on. There are Jane Austen mysteries, Jane Austen vampire series, Jane Austen fantasy adventures, Jane Austen Y.A. novels and, of course, Jane Austen romances, which transpose her plots to a remote Maine inn, a Greenwich Village penthouse and the Bay Area Indian American community, to name just a few. You can read about Austen-inspired zombie hunters, time-traveling hockey players, Long Island matchmakers and reality TV stars, or imagine further adventures for some of your favorite characters. (Even the obsequious Mr. Collins gets his day in the sun.)
A Botanical Homage
Created in 2017 to mark the 200th anniversary of Austen’s death, the “Jane Austen” rose is characterized by its intense orange color and light, sweet perfume. It is bushy, healthy and easy to grow.
Aunt Jane
Hoping to cement his beloved aunt’s legacy, Austen’s nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh published this biography — a rather rosy portrait based on interviews with family members — five decades after her death. The book is notable not only as the source (biased though it may be) of many of the scant facts we know about her life, but also for the watercolor portrait by James Andrews that serves as its frontispiece. Based on a sketch by Cassandra, this depiction of Jane is softer and far more winsome than the original: Whether that is due to a lack of skill on her sister’s part or overly enthusiastic artistic license on Andrews’s, this is the version of Austen most familiar to people today.
Cultural Currency
In 2017, the Bank of England released a new 10-pound note featuring Andrews’s portrait of Austen, as well as a line from “Pride and Prejudice”: “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!” Austen is the third woman — other than the queen — to be featured on British currency, and the only one currently in circulation.
In the Trenches
During World War I and World War II, British soldiers were given copies of Austen’s works. In his 1924 story “The Janeites,” Rudyard Kipling invoked the grotesque contrasts — and the strange comfort — to be found in escaping to Austen’s well-ordered world amid the horrors of trench warfare. As one character observes, “There’s no one to touch Jane when you’re in a tight place.”
Baby Janes
You’re never too young to learn to love Austen — or that one’s good opinion, once lost, may be lost forever.
The Austen Industrial Complex
Maybe you’ve not so much as seen a Jane Austen meme, let alone read one of her novels. No matter! Need a Jane Austen finger puppet? Lego? Magnetic poetry set? Lingerie? Nameplate necklace? Plush book pillow? License plate frame? Bath bomb? Socks? Dog sweater? Whiskey glass? Tarot deck? Of course you do! And you’re in luck: What a time to be alive.
Around the Globe
Austen’s novels have been translated into more than 40 languages, including Polish, Finnish, Chinese and Farsi. There are active chapters of the Jane Austen Society, her 21st-century fan club, throughout the world.
Playable Persuasions
In Austen’s era, no afternoon tea was complete without a rousing round of whist, a trick-taking card game played in two teams of two. But should you not be up on your Regency amusements, you can find plenty of contemporary puzzles and games with which to fill a few pleasant hours, whether you’re piecing together her most beloved characters or using your cunning and wiles to land your very own Mr. Darcy.
#SoJaneAusten
The wild power of the internet means that many Austen moments have taken on lives of their own, from Colin Firth’s sopping wet shirt and Matthew Macfadyen’s flexing hand to Mr. Collins’s ode to superlative spuds and Mr. Knightley’s dramatic floor flop. The memes are fun, yes, but they also speak to the universality of Austen’s writing: More than two centuries after her books were published, the characters and stories she created are as relatable as ever.
Bonnets Fit for a Bennett
For this summer’s Grand Regency Costumed Promenade in Bath, England — as well as the myriad picnics, balls, house parties, dinners, luncheons, teas and fetes that marked the anniversary — seamstresses, milliners, mantua makers and costume warehouses did a brisk business, attiring the faithful in authentic Regency finery. And that’s a commitment: A bespoke, historically accurate bonnet can easily run to hundreds of dollars.
Most Ardently, Jane
Austen was prolific correspondent, believed to have written thousands of letters in her lifetime, many to her sister, Cassandra. But in an act that has frustrated biographers for centuries, upon Jane’s death, Cassandra protected her sister’s privacy — and reputation? — by burning almost all of them, leaving only about 160 intact, many heavily redacted. But what survives is filled with pithy one-liners. To wit: “I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”
Stage and Sensibility
Austen’s works have been adapted numerous times for the stage. Some plays (and musicals) hew closely to the original text, while others — such as Emily Breeze’s comedic riff on “Pride and Prejudice,” “Are the Bennet Girls OK?”, which is running at New York City’s West End Theater through Dec. 21 — use creative license to explore ideas of gender, romance and rage through a contemporary lens.
Austen 101
Austen remains a reliable fount of academic scholarship; recent conference papers have focused on the author’s enduring global reach, the work’s relationship to modern intersectionality, digital humanities and “Jane Austen on the Cheap.” And as one professor told our colleague Sarah Lyall of the Austen amateur scholarship hive, “Woe betide the academic who doesn’t take them seriously.”
W.W.J.D.
When facing problems — of etiquette, romance, domestic or professional turmoil — sometimes the only thing to do is ask: What would Jane do?
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