Dalyn
Fredi Gonzalez Supporter
https://sports.yahoo.com/no-days-off-freddie-freeman-pushes-braves-teammates-to-play-every-game-140954730.html
Some excerpts from the article:
On the evening of Sept. 9, coaches called Swanson to ask how he felt about being left out of the lineup the next day.
“Which I appreciate,” Swanson said. “It wasn't like, ‘You're gonna do this.’”
They stressed to him that he would only come in if it was an absolute emergency. He was to take the day and decompress, watch some baseball, get his perspective right again.
Once it was cleared with Swanson himself, there was one more person left to call: Freddie Freeman.
“I got a call at one o'clock [in the morning] to take it easy on Dansby,” the reigning NL MVP and undeniable captain of the club recalled recently.
“And I said, ‘Oh, that's fine, I'll take it easy.’ So I didn't say anything.”
But the next day in the clubhouse: “I just took his jersey down, I took his pants down, and put his little sweatshirt up. And right when he walked in, I was sitting at my locker, he just looked at me and he goes, ‘I've been, unfortunately, not waiting for this moment today.’
“Because everyone knows I'm going to get on him.”
Sitting in the dugout on a recent rainy afternoon in Atlanta, Freeman tells a story about Adeiny Hechavarría. Two years ago, after Swanson hit the IL with a bruised heel, the Braves signed Hechavarría mid-season to fill the gap at shortstop. One day, he made a game-saving, diving catch and landed hard on his elbow and considered sitting out the next game. The following day, Freeman found him in the trainer’s room and explained to Hechavarría that he had to play.
“I know it hurts, but you're not injured,” Freeman told him.
That night, Hechavarría hit a two-run home run in his first at-bat (one of just nine he hit that whole year.) When he got back to the dugout, Freeman was waiting for him.
“I said, ‘You're welcome.’”
At the end of August, Albies fouled a ball off his own knee and had to be carried off the field. He missed the next two games, the most rest anyone around the horn has gotten this year.
“He got two days, there's his two days,” Freeman says. “Now you're out there every single day the rest of the way.”
Some excerpts from the article:
On the evening of Sept. 9, coaches called Swanson to ask how he felt about being left out of the lineup the next day.
“Which I appreciate,” Swanson said. “It wasn't like, ‘You're gonna do this.’”
They stressed to him that he would only come in if it was an absolute emergency. He was to take the day and decompress, watch some baseball, get his perspective right again.
Once it was cleared with Swanson himself, there was one more person left to call: Freddie Freeman.
“I got a call at one o'clock [in the morning] to take it easy on Dansby,” the reigning NL MVP and undeniable captain of the club recalled recently.
“And I said, ‘Oh, that's fine, I'll take it easy.’ So I didn't say anything.”
But the next day in the clubhouse: “I just took his jersey down, I took his pants down, and put his little sweatshirt up. And right when he walked in, I was sitting at my locker, he just looked at me and he goes, ‘I've been, unfortunately, not waiting for this moment today.’
“Because everyone knows I'm going to get on him.”
Sitting in the dugout on a recent rainy afternoon in Atlanta, Freeman tells a story about Adeiny Hechavarría. Two years ago, after Swanson hit the IL with a bruised heel, the Braves signed Hechavarría mid-season to fill the gap at shortstop. One day, he made a game-saving, diving catch and landed hard on his elbow and considered sitting out the next game. The following day, Freeman found him in the trainer’s room and explained to Hechavarría that he had to play.
“I know it hurts, but you're not injured,” Freeman told him.
That night, Hechavarría hit a two-run home run in his first at-bat (one of just nine he hit that whole year.) When he got back to the dugout, Freeman was waiting for him.
“I said, ‘You're welcome.’”
At the end of August, Albies fouled a ball off his own knee and had to be carried off the field. He missed the next two games, the most rest anyone around the horn has gotten this year.
“He got two days, there's his two days,” Freeman says. “Now you're out there every single day the rest of the way.”
