Sports
Marta already has an illustrious legacy, but this year with the Pride was one of her best ever
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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Last week, Marta was mad.
Usually, when she’s on the field with her nose toward goal, the three-time Olympic silver medalist visualizes repeating what she’s done many times over her lengthy career. She allows the joy to flow through her, down to her left foot and into the ball.
But she got a little heated with the opposition during last weekend’s NWSL semifinal between her Orlando Pride and the Kansas City Current.
“I tried to be nice most of the time during the game,” Marta said Thursday, to a rapt audience of reporters around her table at the NWSL championship media day.
There was a player on the Current who she exchanged words nicely with, according to the Brazilian. But the player, Marta declined to name names, was being “a little bit diva”.
“And I said, ‘Wow, all right. You made me mad. I’m going to go one-on-one against you’,” Marta said.
Marta picked up the ball in the center circle after forward Barbra Banda poked it away from Current defender Kayla Sharples. Marta faked out both Sharples and center back Alana Cook as they tried to challenge her, juked past goalkeeper Almuth Schult and got the shot off before outside back Hailie Mace could do anything, scoring the Pride’s crucial third goal in the 82nd minute of an eventual 3-2 win.
It was another reminder, as if it was needed, that Marta is truly one of the greatest to ever play.
She celebrated with mixed emotion, anger and joy battling for dominance. But for Marta, it felt the same as so many other goal celebrations before. At media day, she nearly reached for her phone to pull up a photo of her celebrating a goal with Brazil to compare with what proved to be the game-winning goal that sent her to her first NWSL final.
“Honestly, what I see is maybe we should try and make her mad. She turns on a whole other level,” Pride teammate Morgan Gautrat said with a laugh.
Other Pride players talked about watching the goal on repeat, from different angles, but no one expressed surprise. They see it regularly.
“Nothing’s changed,” Marta said. “I have passion for this game, and that’s why I still play.”
Much like the potential of finally earning an Olympic gold medal back in the summer with Brazil at age 38, Marta doesn’t need an NWSL championship trophy to cement her legacy as a force in American women’s professional soccer. She has already won a title and a shield here in 2010 with FC Gold Pride during the previous professional league era of the WPS. And the Pride already captured a trophy this year, winning the NWSL Shield for most regular season points.
She reiterated Thursday that she’s planning to play for another two years, though she’s a free agent heading into the NWSL offseason. But when she does finally hang up her boots, Marta has one of the best chances of an international player making it into the National Soccer Hall of Fame based on a club career.
Marta warms up during training ahead of the NWSL championship. (Jamie Squire / Getty Images)
This season is special, though. Marta said it’s the best she’s ever had at the club level, even compared to her days in Sweden with one of the strongest sides in Europe at that time, Umeå IK.
“If I achieve this big goal with this amazing team, good,” Marta said. “If not, this season was so special from the beginning to now, like not even close to the best dream I can imagine.”
When asked during the last press conference before the final where this NWSL championship ranks amid her illustrious career, Marta emphatically held up a finger: number one.
“I think because of the way we did during the season from the beginning to now, it is something very special that I have never had before in any other club that I’ve played for,” she said. “It’s hard to win the games in the first place (in NWSL), like almost all the games.”
Marta joined the Pride in 2017, a year after their inaugural season as an expansion team. The team had some big-name talent, from Alex Morgan to Ali Krieger. They had good results in Marta’s debut year and made the playoffs. However, the Pride never finished higher than seventh for the following five seasons (not including 2020, when no regular season was played due to the pandemic). In 2023, they achieved seventh place again, missing the playoffs by a two-goal difference in the standings on the last day.
“(Marta) remembers the hard times. She remembers when we were the laughingstock of the league,” head coach Seb Hines said Friday. “Now, she’s enjoying it. Now, everything’s coming together. We’ve got a great culture. We’ve got great players here. We’ve got structure within the top to the bottom now, and so she probably just reminds herself of, like, what it was like before, and just enjoying every single moment of what it’s like now.”
As much as the external focus is on Marta this week, especially after that semifinal goal, she’s not feeling that external pressure at all. She’s not thrown off by the high demand for her from the media, or sitting down for a couple of video features during a championship week. She’s never experienced the madness of an NWSL championship as a finalist, but she’s been to plenty of World Cups and Olympics. She’s also not focused on herself as an individual.
“It’s not this player, (or) this player, it’s the team,” she said. “We do it together. This is exactly how it’s supposed to be. It’s not about the one or two players, it’s about the project. It’s about the work that everybody put in. If the trophy comes to us, amazing. If not, we’re going to keep working hard.”
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Marta celebrates with teammates after scoring a goal against the Current. (Mike Watters / Imagn Images)
From the outside, it is easy to assume that the team would love to win a championship title for Marta. And while that’s not inaccurate, said Pride general manager Haley Carter, it’s also not the only internal narrative driving them. From her front-row seat, Carter said Marta embodies the team culture every day and that this is a group of players that truly loves each other.
“This is actually what makes her great,” Carter said on media day. “This is what gives her legendary status: everything is about the team. It’s not about, ‘I’ve never won a NWSL title. I’ve never won the league’. It’s not about that. It’s about getting the team in the space to be successful. That’s her priority.”
Marta has been crucial on the field for the Pride as well. So much of her success this year, including her nine goals and an assist during the regular season, as well as her two playoff goals so far, comes not just from her return to form, but a slightly more advanced position on the field. She’s been closer to goal, and adding Banda to the mix only helped.
When you look at her touches over the past three seasons, this year the Pride are essentially getting 12 percent more of Marta in the final third.
It has worked, to say the least.
There are still the intangibles, too. And for a player with Marta’s stature and legacy, those are impossible to overlook.
“She’s given so much to this club. She’s given absolutely everything. She hasn’t been at another team in this league, and so it’s part of her. She knows what it means to play for this team. She knows what it means to play for this badge,” Hines said Friday at his pregame press conference. “Take away all the individuality of the dribbling and shooting and stuff, her fundamentals of football when you see someone with stature doing it, there’s no questions for anyone else to do it, young, old, whatever.”
Tonight against the Washington Spirit at CPKC Stadium in Kansas City, Orlando’s captain will lead her team one final time in 2024. She’ll almost certainly be facing a hostile crowd, including locals who haven’t forgotten last week’s goal or Marta shushing them in the Pride’s 2-1 win over the Current there before the Olympic break.
But there will be at least one person in the stands who has never seen her play before in America: her mother.
Marta told The Athletic Thursday that she had finally managed to help arrange a visa for her mom to attend a match in the United States and that a family member had managed to take two weeks off to travel with her and help her get around. For Marta, it was the perfect time for her mother to finally see her play a professional game in the States. Sure, they had to run around Thursday morning buying her mom more cold-weather gear so she was prepared for the chill of Kansas City in November, but it was all worth it.
“She told me this year, ‘If I don’t come to America, and then I pass away, I’m gonna pass away so sad’.” Marta couldn’t help mimicking her own incredulous face at the heightened levels of maternal guilt. “And I said, ‘Mom! Why do you have to be like that?’.”
All this week, Marta’s been nothing but smiles and jokes, soaking in a game that is the culmination of her eight years in Orlando. But despite the clear joy emanating from the Brazilian, maybe tonight she’ll get a little mad too, and provide one more moment of magic this season.
Jeff Rueter contributed to this story.
(Top photo: Nathan Ray Seebeck / Imagn Images)
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Sports
Why the Texas Rangers are betting on Joc Pederson for a championship revival
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SURPRISE, Ariz. — The groundwork for Joc Pederson becoming a Texas Ranger was laid last September, when Rangers president of baseball operations Chris Young sat with Arizona Diamondbacks general manager Mike Hazen. The two men were discussing the divergent paths taken by their teams. After meeting in the World Series the year before, the runner-up Diamondbacks had gotten better. The triumphant Rangers had gotten worse. Young was trying to figure out why.
Part of the difference, Young recognized, was Arizona’s young players had improved while Texas’ group had stagnated. Hazen kept referencing the influence of Pederson, one of the eldest players on the roster, a part-time designated hitter with an outsized influence on less experienced players such as Corbin Carroll, Jake McCarthy and Pavin Smith. A lightbulb flickered for Young.
“I thought, ‘We’re missing some of that right now in our group,’” Young said.
Three months later, after Pederson inked a two-year, $37 million deal with Texas, Young received a message from Hazen: “He’s going to transform your offense.”
Pederson was the biggest addition for a franchise with an estimated $223 million payroll, a front office geared toward aggression and a roster with championship aspirations led by manager Bruce Bochy.
On the field, Pederson does mostly one thing, using his left-handed swing to crush right-handed pitchers. Not many were better at that than he was in 2024, when he slugged .531 with 22 homers and a .923 OPS against righties. His 151 wRC+ ranked 10th in the sport among hitters with at least 400 plate appearances. It is away from the diamond, though, where Rangers officials hope Pederson can be transformative.
At 32, Pederson acts as a baseball-centric combination of the Pied Piper and the Cheshire Cat, a font of wisdom and a source of insouciance for those trailing in his wake.
“People just gravitate to him,” said San Diego Padres senior advisor Logan White, who drafted Pederson for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2010.
Seven topsy-turvy seasons in Los Angeles provided the foundation for Pederson’s perspective. His fashion sense led to middle-aged men wearing pearl necklaces during Atlanta’s 2021 World Series run. He gifted the San Francisco Giants’ support staff with customized black and orange Air Jordan 1s. When Carroll was floundering last summer, Pederson set him up with his personal hitting coach.
“As far as treating people behind the scenes, clubhouse guys, young guys coming up to the big leagues for the first time, he’s basically the best I’ve seen with that stuff,” former Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi said. “He treats people really well — and he treats people really well when no one’s looking.”
Pederson can do all this, in part, because he did not become the player he once thought he might become.
“A lot of superstars, it takes a huge toll on your mental, physical, emotional body to be able to post for 162,” Pederson said. “I’m like right in the next tier — I don’t play for 162. I’m more accessible. Teams you go on, it always seems like, ‘Oh, he’s the best player. That’s his team.’ But rarely does it ever work out like that.”
Pederson carries himself with a blend of self-confidence, self-deprecation and self-awareness. To connect with teammates, he relies upon his wealth of experience, his generosity with time and money, his sneaky sense of humor. After a fantasy football dispute in 2022 led to former San Diego outfielder Tommy Pham slapping him, Pederson established a new peak for droll athletic comedy when he told reporters, as an explanation, “I did send a .GIF in the group chat that was making fun of the Padres.” At his introductory news conference with Texas, he heralded the demise of the Houston Astros’ hegemony in the American League West. “They’ve put together a nice little run,” he said. “It’s coming to an end.”
To make that boast a reality, the Rangers will rely on a resurgence from their homegrown core and a boost from Pederson. Those two hopes are intertwined.
“Some people want to be a—holes to the young guys,” Pederson said. “I don’t get down like that.”
As the winter unfolded, Rangers officials chatted with Corey Seager, who had teamed with Pederson for six seasons in Los Angeles. Seager, the $325-million shortstop, is an insular presence who dislikes rah-rah speeches and can usually be found before games silently sharpening his swing in the batting cage. Marcus Semien, the team’s other nine-figure infielder, has a similar fixation on his craft; he has played in at least 159 games in every full season since 2018. “How many players can truly relate to being Marcus and Corey?” Young said. Pederson, as became clear to Young in conversations with Seager and others, could fill that void.
“Every team needs that kind of guy, who can keep you light, keep you flowing,” Seager said. “Especially in the down times. He doesn’t get down.”
The down times outnumbered the good for Texas in 2024. The ferocious offense from 2023 turned feeble. Postseason hero Adolis García slumped all year. Third baseman Josh Jung broke his wrist in April. Evan Carter, who starred as a 21-year-old call-up the year prior, suffered a season-wrecking stress reaction in his back. The group finished the season ranked 23rd in slugging percentage, 23rd in OPS and 23rd in weighted on-base average. The team ended up six games beneath .500, a backslide that puzzled Young, Bochy and the rest of the front office.
Owner Ray Davis was unlikely to authorize massive free-agent additions after doling out nine-figure deals in recent years to Seager, Semien and starting pitcher Jacob deGrom, who has pitched in nine games and undergone a second Tommy John surgery since signing a five-year, $185 million contract. The largest expenditure for Texas this winter was a three-year, $75 million deal to bring back starter Nathan Eovaldi. Young still sought to change the composition of the lineup and alter the chemistry in the clubhouse.
The adjustments started in December with the acquisition of Miami Marlins infielder Jake Burger. Two weeks later, Texas dealt first baseman Nathaniel Lowe to Washington. Burger replaced Lowe at first base; Pederson took Lowe’s place as a source of left-handed-hitting thump.
Burger and Pederson punished fastballs in 2024 at about the same value as higher-profile sluggers such as Bryce Harper and Max Muncy, according to Sports Info Solutions. The Rangers identified the duo as crucial in a division that includes excellent fastball purveyors including Seattle’s trio of George Kirby, Bryan Woo and Logan Gilbert, plus Houston’s Framber Valdez.
“In our division, you’ve got to be able to hit righties,” Young said. “And you’ve got to be able to hit fastballs.”
Pederson does both. He also offered a relatability that Rangers officials thought might benefit youngsters such as Carter and outfielder Wyatt Langford.
“Not every player can be Joc Pederson,” Young said. “The fact that he views himself as more similar to most of the guys on the team, and not the superstars, speaks to his character.”
On the day before the Rangers’ first official workout, Pederson wandered through the clubhouse with a team-issued beanie cocked halfway up his forehead. On his third loop through the room, a visitor inquired about his meandering.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing,” he said. “I’m just trying to find my way. I’m just trying to find my way.”
He grabbed his iPhone and realized his immediate purpose.
“No,” he said, “I have groundballs at first at 9:30 a.m.”
Pederson did not take the field once for the Diamondbacks in 2024. He likely will fill a similar role for Texas. He has gained weight and lost speed since his days in the Dodgers minor-league system, when team officials dreamed about him becoming a five-tool player in center field. He was a multi-sport star at Palo Alto High in the Bay Area, the No. 1 wide receiver on a football team that also included future six-time Pro Bowler Davante Adams. He fell out of the early rounds of the MLB draft in the summer of 2010 because of worries about his willingness to sign.
Pederson was an All-Star in his first full season with the Dodgers. (Alex Trautwig / MLB Photos via Getty Images)
“The word on the street was $1 million, or he was going to go to USC,” said Logan White, the former Dodgers scouting director.
With Pederson still available in the 11th round, White took a flier. He suspected Pederson was bluffing. One of White’s part-time scouts, Larry Barton Jr., hounded him about getting Pederson to sign. “This guy’s going to be the next Freddie Lynn,” Barton said, as White recalled. As the deadline approached, White upped his offer to $600,000. He called Pederson to make one last pitch to sell the teenager on the Dodgers.
White’s intuition was correct. Pederson did not want to attend college. But the offer was still less than he sought. He asked White for a minute to think. Pederson put down the phone and grabbed a coin. Heads meant college, tails meant pro ball. “Tails never fails,” he said. The story, when White eventually heard it, left the longtime executive flummoxed. “To this day, I don’t know if it’s true or not,” White said. “Knowing Joc, it would not surprise me one iota.”
Pederson zipped through the minors. He was 22 when he debuted in 2014. A year later, he made his first All-Star team. But his performance cratered in the second half and he spent most of the Dodgers’ National League Division Series loss on the bench. As the years passed, his defense in center field degraded and left-handed pitchers picked him apart. He became a platoon player deployed mostly against righties, a designation that frustrated him. As the Dodgers set a franchise record for victories in 2017, Pederson was demoted late in the summer. He shrugged off the insult in time for October. In a rollicking seven-game defeat to the Houston Astros, Pederson hit three home runs and slugged .944.
He did not understand it then, but he was banking experience that would connect him with future teammates. “I’ve been in the ‘best player in the game’ category when I got called up to getting benched after being an All-Star,” Pederson said. “I’ve been sent down and then almost won the World Series MVP. I’ve done a lot of things where I’ve been at the top and the bottom.”
As a young player, Pederson felt welcomed into the clubhouse by veterans such as Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez. He often carpooled to Dodger Stadium with Clayton Kershaw when Kershaw wasn’t starting. Pederson also grew accustomed to winning. He never missed the postseason as a Dodger. He excelled against elite pitchers on the October stage, whether it was swatting a game-tying dinger off Max Scherzer in a 2016 elimination game or taking Tyler Glasnow deep in the 2020 World Series.
Heading into free agency, Pederson said he eschewed more lucrative offers to sign a one-year, $7 million contract with the Chicago Cubs for 2021 because the club offered him the chance to play every day. He hit better against lefties but he missed the thrill of contending. A lifeline emerged when the Braves acquired him that summer to mitigate a season-ending injury to Ronald Acuña Jr.
Pederson became a part-timer again. He found he did not mind it, as long as the team was winning. He thumped righties. He lightened up the clubhouse with banter and outlandish fashion statements. After he got attention for wearing a pearl necklace on the diamond, Truist Park sold replicas for $5. He added a second World Series ring to his jewelry collection that October.
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Pederson’s jewelry choices sparkled a fan phenomenon. (Daniel Shirey / MLB Photos via Getty Images)
The experience crystallized for Pederson how he wanted the rest of his career to unfold. He might never become a perennial MVP candidate. But he could embrace his place within a clubhouse hierarchy and aid those around him.
“I’ve played with so many people who are like, ‘I need to be playing. I need to be playing over this guy,’” Pederson said. “Where they’re just haters, and the word gets around. Like, ‘Oh man, you should hear what f—ing so-and-so’s saying on the bench, he’s just hating on [his teammate] because he’s not in there.’ That’s not it. There are a lot of guys who are like, ‘Oh, I should be playing,’ this and that. And it’s like, ‘This is why you’re always on a f—ing losing team.’”
On a trip to St. Louis last April, Hazen was chatting with Arizona manager Torey Lovullo about the trajectory of Jake McCarthy, a first-round pick in 2018 who had yet to establish himself. Lovullo offered a reason to feel encouraged. The manager had noticed how McCarthy was leaning on Pederson.
When Arizona signed Pederson to a $12.5 million deal for 2024, team officials were uncertain about his potential role in their clubhouse. Pederson had posted an .821 OPS during his previous two seasons in San Francisco, but the team struggled during those years and his pregame predilection for the Filipino card game Pusoy as the 2023 season capsized aggravated some within the Giants orbit, as The Athletic reported. Zaidi, who had bonded with Pederson during their shared time in Los Angeles, remains steadfast in defending his former player. “In the clubhouse, he really cared,” Zaidi said. “He developed connections with the staff, the front office. He really took after young players.”
As McCarthy started to stabilize, Hazen recognized Pederson might have more to offer than 400 useful at-bats. Hazen began referring to him as “our assistant G.M.” Pederson was invited to pregame meetings with Hazen, Lovullo and the two actual assistant general managers, Mike Fitzgerald and Amiel Sawdaye. “He knows everything about baseball,” Hazen said. “Like, the whole league. So he has an opinion on all the players. He knows everybody. It was valuable insights.”
Lovullo leaned on him, too. “You crush pitchers for us,” Lovullo would tell Pederson. “That’s what you’re here for. But if you have anything left in your tank, can you help out?”
Pederson could relate to players clambering for a foothold. “You talk to him and there’s no ego,” McCarthy said. “He talks to you as an equal.”
He could also relate to struggling stars like Corbin Carroll. After winning the National League Rookie of the Year award and finishing fifth in the MVP race in 2023, Carroll scuffled through last season’s first half. After the All-Star break, Pederson invited him to hit with Marlon Byrd, a 15-year veteran who has moved into private coaching. Carroll connected with Byrd on July 29, as the Arizona Republic reported last year. Across the rest of the season, Carroll posted a .931 OPS.
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On the Diamondbacks, Pederson brought levity, thump and guidance. (Norm Hall / Getty Images)
Pederson paid Byrd to fly to Phoenix for every Diamondbacks homestand in 2024. The two will continue to work together this season. As he has bounced from team to team, Pederson explained, he has come to appreciate the stability of a coach familiar with his approach and his mechanics. He tries to blend that with the information offered by the team’s coaching staff.
“I’m going to do my thing,” Pederson said. “I’ll take in your information, and I’m going to filter it and see what’s good. I’ll do that with every coach. You do that with everything. You read something online: ‘Shohei Ohtani just got traded.’ You would look at the source. ‘Hmm, let me filter this. Does it seem right? Eh …’ You can’t listen to everything people say.”
That perspective is the hard-earned product of more than a decade in the majors. Pederson does not like to advertise himself as an instantaneous clubhouse leader or a vibes guru or a sage for rookies. But reputations spread quickly. Before the Rangers position players were even required to report to camp, Carter sought him out for what Pederson called “conversations about growing, as a human and as a baseball player.”
Pederson did not want to say much more about those conversations. He can be evasive during interviews, uninterested in revealing insight into his psyche. But at the end of a conversation this spring, he offered a parting quip to a reporter that conveyed what mattered to him.
“Don’t make me look like a jackass, all right?”
(Top photo: Lindsey Wasson / Associated Press)
Sports
Maine House speaker deletes X account after censuring lawmaker opposed to transgender athletes in girls sports
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Ryan Fecteau, the Maine House of Representatives’ Democratic speaker, deleted his X account early Thursday morning, just days after censuring Republican Rep. Laurel Libby.
Libby was censured by the Democratic majority Tuesday evening for a recent social media post pointing out that a transgender high school athlete won a girls competition. The censure resolution passed by a 75-70 vote and revoked Libby’s speaking and voting privileges.
Fecteau said during a hearing that Libby’s rights would not be restored until she apologized, but she told him that night she would not be apologizing.
Libby pointed out that Fecteau’s account had been deactivated in an X post Thursday.
“Apparently Maine’s Speaker of the House didn’t like hearing the voices of the people. … State House Speaker Ryan Fecteau has deleted his X account less than 48 hours after the Democrat Majority’s attempt to cancel me,” Libby wrote with a screenshot of his deleted account page.
Fox News Digital reached out to Fecteau for comment.
Ryan Fecteau greets voters at Biddeford High School while campaigning for a seat in House District 11 Nov. 4, 2014. (Jill Brady/Staff Photographer)
Fecteau left his Facebook and Bluesky accounts active but has not addressed the situation with Libby or the deactivation of his account. Many of his posts on those platforms have been flooded with comments from those criticizing his decision to censure Libby.
“You’re a coward. A spineless, feckless, coward who obviously hates young girls,” one user commented on Fecteau’s latest Facebook post.
“While screeching that Trump and Republicans are Nazis and want a dictatorship, you silence a Representative for voicing her constituent’s valid concerns. Highlighting the usual hypocrisy of Democrats,” another Facebook user commented.
Fecteau has served in his role as Maine speaker of the House since 2020. At the time of his election as speaker in December 2020, Fecteau was the youngest active state speaker in the U.S. at the age of 28 and the first openly gay person to serve as speaker of the Maine House.
HOW TRANSGENDERISM IN SPORTS SHIFTED THE 2024 ELECTION AND IGNITED A NATIONAL COUNTERCULTURE
On Tuesday, Fecteau passed Libby’s censure based on the premise her social media post about the transgender athlete identified a minor with a photo and included the athlete’s name.
Libby’s post identifying the trans athlete came last Sunday when she pointed out that a transgender track and field athlete had taken first place at a Maine girls pole vault competition after competing as a boy just one year earlier.
“It’s a remarkable double standard as there are public photos of this individual in many places on social media and even some posted by his school, and, so, yes, this post went viral, but this was an individual who participated in a public event, who publicly stood on a podium and accepted a championship medal that rightfully belonged to the girls standing on the second-place spot,” Libby told Fox News Digital.
During Tuesday’s vote, Libby also approached the House floor with a prepared seven-page speech on the importance of protecting girls and women’s sports from transgender inclusion. However, throughout the night, her microphone was consistently turned off when she was trying to deliver that speech.
“I was completely unable, from my first sentence, to get a word out, before the other side was shutting me down,” Libby said, adding she had never seen anything like that happen during her tenure in the Maine legislature.
Libby’s revelation of the transgender athlete ignited national conversation and coverage of the state’s policy on trans inclusion after Maine announced it would not comply with President Donald Trump’s recent “No Men in Women’s Sports” executive order.
Trump then vowed to cut funding to the state for refusing to follow his order during a gathering last week of governors at the White House.
On Friday, Mills’ office responded with a statement threatening legal action against the Trump administration if it did withhold federal funding from the state. Then, Trump and Mills verbally sparred at the White House during a bipartisan meeting of governors.
Just hours after that interaction, the U.S. Department of Education announced it would be investigating the state for allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls sports and potential Title IX violations.
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Sports
Freddie Freeman returns to action, but will have to manage ankle during first half of season
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PHOENIX — He might have only been knocking the rust off. But Freddie Freeman was still less than thrilled.
Facing live pitching for one of the few times all spring this week, Freeman stood at the plate on a nondescript backfield at the Dodgers’ Camelback Ranch facility and took swing after swing against a couple of minor-leaguers.
Less than three months removed from offseason surgery on his right ankle, the session was a grind.
Several times, Freeman grunted as he rolled soft grounders toward first base. On a lazy pop-up to left, he sarcastically quipped that it “went the other way, at least.” After ending another at-bat with a big swing-and-miss, Freeman simply looked down as he trudged out of the box.
As the live batting practice ended minutes later, Freeman saw Dodgers strength and conditioning coach Travis Smith approaching. Smith, he knew, was there to oversee the baserunning drills that were next on Freeman’s agenda. So, he turned to hitting coach Aaron Bates and cracked a joke.
“I blame Trav,” Freeman deadpanned, loud enough for a Smith to hear. “I was thinking about running.”
Coming off his triumphant World Series and celebratory offseason, this moment was a more appropriate snapshot of the reality Freeman has faced this spring.
After Freeman gutted it out through his badly sprained ankle and broken rib cartilage last October — when his storybook postseason culminated with MVP honors in the World Series and a historic walk-off grand slam in Game 1 — the physical toll the 35-year-old endured finally caught up with him this winter.
In early December, with his ankle still aching more than a month into the offseason, Freeman had an MRI exam that revealed the need for a debridement surgery; cleaning up loose bodies and chipped cartilage that had matriculated to his Achilles’ tendon.
As late as January, manager Dave Roberts said, there was doubt over whether he’d be able to start the 2025 season on time.
“He wasn’t moving very well, wasn’t recovering, still was in a lot of pain,” Roberts said. “Opening Day didn’t even seem feasible.”
Fast-forward two months, however, and Freeman is now fully expecting to be in the lineup when the Dodgers open their season on March 18-19 in Japan against the Chicago Cubs.
His ankle isn’t 100%, and probably won’t be for the first half of the season. But he has progressed to an important point in his recovery, making his Cactus League debut Thursday with a one-for-three performance in a 2-0 loss to the Colorado Rockies.
“I felt pretty good today,” Freeman said afterward. “Saw the pitches well. Felt like I swung at strikes … Just wanted to swing a lot today. That was my goal, to see where the timing was.”
Freeman still has more boxes to check between now and when the Dodgers leave for Japan in less than two weeks.
He has yet to play the field in a game, limited to designated hitting duties on Thursday. He is continuing to work through a running progress to complete his ankle rehab; his post-BP drills with Smith earlier in the week serving as the latest reminder of the hurdles left to clear.
“It’s good enough,” Freeman quipped when asked if his ankle was 100% yet. “I wish it felt like my left one does.”
That might not happen for a while. Freeman said he will probably have to tape his ankle in games until some point around the All-Star break. He will be a familiar presence in the training room, and might even agree to take an occasional off day early in the campaign — something he has been loath to do during his 15-year career.
“Lower-body injuries are hard to rehab, especially the ankle,” Freeman said. “So I do believe it’s gonna be a lot more treatment-wise than I would like.”
The good news for Freeman is that he’s already starting to feel better about his swing.
On Thursday, he recorded his first hit, a line-drive single to right, after battling back from an 0-and-2 count. He’ll get more chances to collect at-bats over the weekend, planning to DH again on Saturday and potentially return to first base on Sunday.
“I thought he was moving really well,” Roberts said. “Better than I would have expected.”
What wasn’t unexpected: The loud reception Freeman received before his first at-bat, and the “Fredd-ie! Fredd-ie!” chants that followed him as he walked up the clubhouse tunnel after leaving the field.
All offseason, Freeman has experienced such attention; his already substantial popularity skyrocketing in the wake of his playoff heroics last October. Even during trips to the grocery store, he said, fans have approached him to simply say thanks.
“It’s very uncomfortable for me,” Freeman joked with a laugh. “But that’s OK. I appreciate it. I really do. It’s not something you set out for, but taking it in stride. You appreciate what you were able to create for people. I don’t take that for granted.”
Looking ahead to this season, Freeman said he is eager to see the kind of welcome the Dodgers (and the three Japanese stars on the roster) get in Japan during their highly anticipated trip next month.
But it’s the team’s domestic home-opener a week later that he is admittedly most looking forward to — thankful that the ankle he hurt helping the Dodgers win the World Series last year won’t keep him off the field the day they receive their championship rings.
“For me, it’s easy to focus on the now,” Freeman said, “but I can still appreciate last year.”
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