'I get to have it forever': Freeman's World Series moment with dad captured in painting

Opie Otterstad was standing on the concourse atop the right field bleachers at Dodger Stadium during the bottom of the 10th inning of Game 1 of the 2024 World Series.

He had just emerged from his art gallery in the venerable ballpark, taking a break from his live painting of the scene to see Shohei Ohtani come to the plate with a chance to be the hero in his first World Series game.

There were two on and one out, and the Dodgers were trailing the Yankees, 3-2. Ohtani, though, popped out to the left fielder in foul territory. Left-hander Nestor Cortes, on the mound for New York, then intentionally walked the right-handed-hitting Mookie Betts to load the bases.

Up stepped Freddie Freeman as the Dodgers’ last hope. On the first pitch Freeman saw from Cortes, he launched the first walk-off grand slam in World Series history.

“As all the people around me are having this incredible moment,” said Otterstad, a renowned sports artist who has produced some of the most admired baseball artwork of this generation, “I’m a little emotional. I’ve got tears in my eyes. And my first thought is, ‘I’ve gotta call Dad.’”

Otterstad’s father had passed away five years earlier. But even though his dad -- the origin of his love of baseball -- was gone, his heart felt a hunger to connect with him about what he had just witnessed, one so strong that for a split-second, his father was still here.

The historic moment, and Otterstad’s reaction to it, was the genesis of one of the most special pieces of art he has ever produced -- both for him and for Freeman.

The intersection of fathers, sons and baseball

“I connected to baseball in sort of a ‘Field of Dreams’ way through my dad,” Otterstad said. “Through allegorical stories about baseball players. And I’m a history guy, like my dad was. So the history of the game and the stories of the players are what make it so rich and fascinating for me.”

When Otterstad was a boy, his father -- a sixth-generation Lutheran minister -- had one rule when it came to interrupting a conversation about theology.

“When you’re sitting around the table with your great-grandfather, your grandfather and your dad, and they’re all talking about theology,” Otterstad said, “the only subject that I was allowed to switch the topic to was baseball.”

Years later, Otterstad found himself on a panel with the great-grandson of Branch Rickey, the baseball executive who famously signed Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers in order to break the game’s longstanding color barrier in 1947.

Rickey had an innovative and forward-looking baseball mind, but he also had a strong sense of justice.

Otterstad said that Rickey’s great-grandson told him a similar story, just in reverse.

“The only thing he was allowed to change the subject to from baseball,” Otterstad said, “was theology.”

Otterstad’s love of the game is rooted in his father’s. And it led to an unforgettable moment that he wished his father had been alive to share with him.

As Freeman rounded the bases following his grand slam, Otterstad’s relationship with his father was about to intersect with Freeman’s relationship with his. And the common threads of love and baseball connected them.

In Otterstad’s case, he was standing in that spot at Chavez Ravine that night because of his dad. That’s where all of this began.

“It was Dad’s love of history,” Otterstad said. “It was Dad’s love of a great story. And Dad’s love of baseball.”

‘Something came over me’

Freeman was 10 years old when his mother, Rosemary, passed away from skin cancer. In the wake of that devastating loss and in the years that followed, baseball helped Freddie and his father get through it all.

“Baseball has just meant so much to my dad and I,” Freeman said. “It’s gotten us through some tough times when my mom died. It’s always been an out for us to take our mind off things.”

So there they would be, Fred throwing batting practice to Freddie through his high school years in Southern California. The hard work paid off when Freddie was selected by the Braves in the second round of the 2007 Draft.

Now, 17 years later, Freeman was living the biggest baseball moment of his life, and one of the greatest moments in baseball history. After being mobbed by his teammates upon crossing home plate, he made a beeline to his dad, who was in attendance and witnessed his son living the dream so many have lived in their imagination as kids in the backyard.

Grasping his father’s wrists through the netting while Fred’s open hands were in the air, words weren’t necessary. The jubilant, non-verbal communication was crystal clear.

“I knew he was sitting there in the front row,” Freeman said. “I went through all the hugging of the teammates, and I don’t know, something came over me to go run over to my dad. I just wanted to share the moment with him. For me, there was no one even around -- it was just tunnel vision.

“I ran over to him, and they always ask me, ‘What did you say to him?’ And I say, ‘Nothing. I just screamed in his face.’”

Freddie then alluded to what was conveyed in the screaming:

“A lot of words were said between us.”

While throngs of Dodgers fans were beside themselves in frenzied celebration as Freeman’s shot landed in the right field bleachers, Otterstad didn’t take his eyes off Freeman the entire time.

Otterstad was mesmerized.

“He rounds third and after celebrating with his teammates, he goes straight to his dad at the net,” Otterstad said. “And they’re having this moment. A lot of people aren’t even paying attention, and I’m just watching Freddie, and I know that’s his dad.

“And then, I just lost it at that point.”

As the tears flowed from Otterstad’s eyes and down his face while he stood amid the joyous madness, he knew what he was going to do -- what he had to do.

He couldn’t call his dad to share this moment with him. But he could honor him -- and the bond between Freddie and his father -- by doing what he does best.

“I thought in that moment,” Otterstad said, “Freddie Freeman, you’re going to pay for that. You’re making me ugly-cry in a Major League ballpark.”

‘I would have paid anything’

The painting was, unsurprisingly, magnificent. But every brushstroke meant something unquantifiably meaningful to the man who painted it and the man to whom it was presented.

“I got a call and it said Opie had done a painting,” said Freeman, who has known Otterstad for several years. “He was obviously inspired to do it, and I said, ‘Well, I want to see it,’ because I had heard what it was about. And then when I saw it, I said, ‘Opie, I need this.’

“And he said, ‘You can have it. It’s all yours.’”

Otterstad has said that his work “has a life of its own” after it leaves his hands and goes to the person who becomes its owner.

In the case of Fred and Freddie Freeman, the life of Otterstad’s painting of them after Game 1 of the 2024 World Series is generational. And given the frightening ordeal that Freeman and his wife endured with their five-year-old son Max during the regular season, it means that much more.

“It’s a moment you’ll always remember, but to have it captured in a way that Opie captured it, in a painting that’s hanging on my wall? Yeah, it’s special,” Freeman said. “Even my five-year-old walks by and says, ‘Is that you and grandpa?’”

Otterstad was joking when he said he would “make Freeman pay” after his grand slam and subsequent moment with his father caused Otterstad to be overcome with emotion.

But to Freeman, the painting is priceless, much like the experience of painting it was for Otterstad.

“I would have paid anything for it,” Freeman said. “Every time I see Opie, I say thank you. It’s one of my favorite things. Because, you know, it’s between you and your father. And a moment like that that’s captured … I get to have it forever.”