The 2025 World Series marked Freddie Freeman’s third championship overall and his second with the Los Angeles Dodgers, but it was the circumstances under which he won it that made the experience all the more memorable.
Freeman was born and raised in Southern California but has Canadian roots through his mother and father. As a result, he feels a close relationship to Canada and has twice played for the country in the World Baseball Classic as a way of honoring his parents, and in particular his late mother.
Rosemary Joy Freeman was born in Toronto and passed away because of melanoma in 2000.
It’s for this reason that Freeman particularly enjoyed playing against the Toronto Blue Jays in the World Series, via the “6-1-1 Podcast” with Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard:
“Every time I go back to Toronto, I always have little butterflies in my stomach because it’s a place where my mom grew up, was born and raised, worked in office buildings in downtown Toronto and things like that. So you just feel a little bit closer to her, and I always seem to play pretty well when I go up there. It’s not about playing well, it’s about, ‘Man, this is cool. I’m in a place where my mom was 50, 60 years ago.’
“It’s just those little moments and it takes your mind off what you’re trying to do and what you face. It’s, ‘This is cool. I’m in a place where my mom grew up.’ To be honest, when we won it there, I didn’t think, ‘Oh, I just won in my mom and dad’s home country.’ It was, we won.
“But now that you look back at it, one, she has the best seat in the house, obviously up there in heaven. And now, I got to win it in a place she grew up and was born. That’s really cool to think about it. Media day, you’re talking about it before Game 1 and all that, but then you think about it, and it’s really, really special. And my dad was in the stands, my stepmom who loves my mom just as much as we love my mom, and all three of my kids were there, Chelsea.
“That was the first time all three of my kids were at my World Series win. Brandon and Max were finally old enough. So there’s a lot of special things that were happening. To win it how we did, also, but to be in the home country of my mom and dad, and win a World Series, it’s special.”
Freeman’s comfortability in Toronto is reflected in his stats. Even as a visitor, he plays as if he is right at home at Rogers Centre, batting .304 with six home runs and 16 RBI in 17 regular-season games against the Blue Jays in his career.
Freddie Freeman hoping to play in 2026 WBC
Freeman hopes to play for Team Canada in the upcoming World Baseball Classic, but his health may prevent him from being able to.
In 2023, he went 2-for-10 with one RBI, one walk and three runs scored in three games.
Canada finished pool play with a 2-2 record, earning wins over Great Britain and Columbia. It was not enough to advance to the quarterfinals, but did guarantee an automatic birth for 2026 after finishing in the top-four of their pool.
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