FREELAND, BASEBALL WAIT TO START COMEBACK
Freeland feels pain of delayed hope
Rockies pitcher Kyle Freeland is Colorado strong. But in the age of coronavirus, he compulsively grabs a bottle of hand sanitizer before leaving the house. Freeland loves baseball. But instead of taking the mound for Colorado, he is stuck in the backyard, playing fetch with Benny, his German shepherd.
“It’s very strange knowing we’re not going to play baseball on opening day,” Freeland said Wednesday.
There will be no baseball today. No turnstiles clicking or crowd buzzing. No happy crunch of peanut shells underfoot in the bleachers. No fifth-grade class singing the national anthem delightfully off-key before the home plate umpire leads our chorus: “Play ball!”
From Fenway Park to Wrigley
Field to Chavez Ravine, major-league ballparks sit empty. Opening day has been put on hold, while we obsessively wash our hands and hoard toilet paper, hoping that’s enough to beat a pandemic.
No baseball also means the redemption of Freeland has been delayed.
“It’s frustrating,” said Freeland, giving voice to the stay-at-home anxiety the rest of us also wrestle. “It really seems like no positive news has come out. … Nothing to look forward to.”
Nobody wants to get back to Coors Field with more urgency than Freeland. He was a 17-game winner and Colorado’s favorite son in 2018, when the Rockies has visions of World Series glory. Then all the good vibes were flushed straight down a rabbit hole for both Freeland and his teammates, who lost 91 games last year.
“I’d be lying to say that my mind never went there, where you say: ‘This (stinks) in general. And I (stink).’ It’s hard not to go there, because you’re struggling, you’re not seeing any kind of success,” said Freeland, whose earned run average ballooned to 6.73 in 2019.
As a much-anticipated playoff race went off the rails for the Rockies, the 26-year-old graduate of Thomas Jefferson High School was shipped to the minor leagues in search of his mojo and fastball command.
On the first weekend in June, Free
land was broken and emotionally battered as he took a seat in the office of Albuquerque Isotopes manager Glenallen Hill.
Hill, who spent 13 big-league seasons as an outfielder bouncing among seven teams, looked the reeling pitcher in the eye and offered words that began Freeland’s recovery.
“Look, you’re in a tough spot right now,” said Hill, telling the hard truth. “But in this organization, you’re one of the guys looked up to.”
It was a small display of unwavering faith that allowed Freeland to realize he wasn’t alone in a struggle with a game that dares to mess with a player’s head. Hill, who had experienced horrendous slumps as hitter, could relate to “what I was feeling. That sense of loss. That sense you’re not good enough to play this game anymore,” Freeland said.
So we cheer for a comeback to his dominating form, because Freeland is one of us. He’s as genuinely Colorado as the sport utility vehicle he proudly drives with dog hair from his golden retriever and German shepherd on the seats.
Freeland ditched skis for a snowboard at age 8, and grew up loving Denver sports teams as much as you do. During the magical Rocktober run of 2007, as a freshman stuck in Spanish class, he surreptitiously glanced at updates from an afternoon playoff game against Philadelphia via text messages from his brother, who was camped out in the parking lot, listening to the car radio.
Then Kaz Matsui hit a grand slam for the Rockies.
And Freeland was oh-so-busted.
“Right when my brother sent that text, half our classroom erupted,” he recalled, laughing.
Determined to again be a pitcher fans stand up and cheer, Freeland has put together a five-step plan to return him to the defiant and fistpumping lefty who silenced Wrigley with 20 scoreless outs during a 2-1 playoff victory against the Cubs in 2018, which is the best night in franchise history, if you’re asking me.
Freeland has stared down the self-doubt. But how close to complete is the rehab of his pitching delivery and his bruised psyche? Heck, we don’t know, because he can’t know. The sample size for this recovery is too small. Between a bout of back spasms and the pandemic that shuttered sports, Freeland threw only five innings during spring training.
The uncertainty of what’s next? That’s a stress test. For Freeland, and for us all. When can we get back to hugging, much less return to work? This might be the new normal, but that doesn’t stop it from feeling unnatural.
“When can we fire things back up and get things rolling again?” Freeland said. “I think that’s the question everybody wants to know.”
As we ride out the coronavirus together, trying not to go stir crazy by occasionally walking our dogs in sunshine that promises better days ahead, we are all Kyle Freeland.
We are Colorado strong. And itching to make a comeback, stronger than ever.