By GREG BEACHAM AP Sports Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Freddie Freeman apparently avoided serious injury Wednesday night when the Los Angeles Dodgers’ first baseman took a frightening tumble down the stairs and into the visitors’ dugout while trying to catch a foul popup in the eighth inning.
Freeman isn’t sure whether he’ll play when the Dodgers begin an important four-game series with the MLB-leading Milwaukee Brewers on Thursday, but he’s grateful his freefall to the dugout floor wasn’t worse.
“I didn’t hit my head, so that was the key part there,” Freeman said. “I am sore. Kneecaps are sore. Shoulder is sore. Hand sore. Wrist sore. I mean, I fell. (But) I’m in good spirits.”
Freeman stayed in the game and finished the top of the eighth, but Tommy Edman pinch hit for him in the bottom of the inning before Los Angeles closed out a 4-2 victory over the Kansas City Royals, its fourth in five games.
The right side of Freeman’s body took the punishment, but the 2024 World Series MVP apparently didn’t break any bones. He’ll wait to see how he feels in the morning before he decides whether to play Thursday night when the back-to-back World Series champion Dodgers welcome Milwaukee in a reamtch of last year’s National League Championship Series.
Freeman said he simply miscalculated the location of the dugout railing while he tracked Isaac Collins’ foul pop.
“I went to lean, like I was going to lean against the rail to catch the ball — and obviously there was no rail,” Freeman said with a smile.
Freeman, who turns 37 in one month, said he was fortunate to fall all the way into the dugout, missing the top flight of stairs entirely. That’s because when he landed, his head stuck out into the open space above the second flight of stairs that goes down into the visitors’ clubhouse instead of banging on the ground.
“Luckily, I was tall, so I missed everything else,” the 6-foot-4 Freeman cracked.
This wasn’t Freeman’s first fielding misadventure: He said he fell into the seats in Arizona roughly a decade ago while he was with the Atlanta Braves.
The Orange County native and childhood Angels fan also said he still remembers the infamous 1999 opening-day dugout fall by Mo Vaughn, who got hurt on the first play of his first game with the Halos.
The Royals rushed to Freeman’s side after the fall, urging him to stay on the ground. Freeman decided to get up anyway, and the Dodgers’ training staff rushed across the field to check on him.
“I think that we really dodged a bullet,” Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts said. “Very scary visually. For right now, he’s in good spirits, which I think is a good sign. Just kind of total body soreness.”
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