Why this Dodger sticks his tongue out for HRs

This story was excerpted from Juan Toribio’s Dodgers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

LOS ANGELES -- Freddie Freeman now has 2,000 career hits and more than 300 homers in his career. On his way to becoming the 98th player in Major League history to accomplish both those feats, there are a couple things Freeman did throughout that journey.

The most obvious, and something he’ll always remind you, is that he keeps his approach in an at-bat the same. He’s looking to hit the ball the other way, preferably over the shortstop’s head. If he does that, he’ll usually live with the results.

Something else Freeman hopes to do for at least 1,000 more hits, has nothing to do with his mechanics. In fact, it’s not something he even realized until about his fourth or fifth season with the Braves.

But when you look at replays of Freeman hitting a home run in his career, there’s something that never fails. ... His tongue always sticks out before he begins his trot around the bases, hooking close to his right cheek as he watches the ball fly out into the seats.

Naturally, we needed to ask Freeman why that happens and the backstory behind it. Freeman doesn’t like comparisons, but should we call him baseball’s version of Michael Jordan? Jordan, of course, made sticking out his tongue famous over his legendary basketball career.

“[My teammates in Atlanta go] ‘Do you know your tongue comes out when you hit home runs?’” Freeman recalled while laughing. “I think my tongue comes out pretty much every time I hit the ball. I think Peter Moylan once said, ‘Once you see the tongue, you know [the opposing pitcher] is in trouble on the baseball field.’”

Freeman said he doesn’t stick the tongue out on purpose. It’s actually just something he does when he’s very concentrated. It carries over even while he washes dishes at home. His dad and grandfather do it as well, and he has noticed his oldest son, Charlie, also does it. The Freeman genes are strong.

“The other day -- I have a unibrow, so I was plucking it -- and I was like this,” Freeman said, while sticking his tongue out. “The tongue was out. It’s a concentration thing. We’ll see if my two young ones do it too, but I think it’s a Freeman thing and it gets blown up when I hit home runs.”

It does get blown up when he hits homers, especially when he took Josh Hader deep in Game 4 of the 2021 National League Division Series. Now it has blown up enough that there’s an entire article about Freeman’s tongue.

He’ll ride that all the way to what appears to be a Hall of Fame career.

“The tongue comes out,” Freeman said, smiling. “There’s nothing more to it.”