Though Ronald Acuña Jr. of the Braves got all the glory on Thursday for creating the 60 stolen base/30 homer club with a grand slam against the Dodgers (deserved glory!), there was another man in the building on the verge of joining his own clubhouse.
As laid out by Jayson Stark in his Weird & Wild weekly column for The Athletic, Freeman has an outside chance to go 60-30 in an entirely different way, adding 60 doubles to 30 home runs.
If he's able to accomplish this feat (en route, perhaps, to the all-time NL doubles record?), he'll be the first player in baseball history to hit those totals.
Sounds MVP-worthy, right? ...Right? How do we live in a world where that's not right? Crazy world we live in.
Dodgers' Freddie Freeman could go 60-30 in a different way from Ronald Acuña Jr.
Based on his on-field reaction, Freeman didn't love Acuña's slam putting his Dodgers in a four-run hole (and who would?). Hopefully, for his sake, he'll have the chance to make his own, similar history in a few weeks, then ride that momentum on an October run.
Freeman entered September with 25 bombs and 51 doubles, meaning it wouldn't take an atypical performance to get him past the finish line and open up the clubhouse here. Also within reach? The Dodgers' franchise doubles record (Johnny Frederick's 52), the NL doubles record (Joe Medwick's 64), and the all-time MLB record (forgotten Red Sox OF Earl Webb with 67).
In a way, it'd be nice for Webb's total to last forever so children in the Year 3000 can continue to ask their parents, "Earl Webb was the greatest, huh?" Explaining Freddie Freeman's greatness would feature far fewer "Ums," "Uhs," and outright lies ("Yeah, Webb was a hero to us all, now let's get chicken tenders.").
While Freeman got his shine stolen in his own house by an ex-teammate this week, he has an outside chance to print Dodgers-colored "60-30" t-shirts and see if he can out-sell Acuña Jr.'s version. And isn't that really what it's all about?