When I heard about David Freese’s decision to respectfully decline entrance to the Cardinals’ Hall of Fame, a recent conversation with Bill Walton came to mind.
When Walton came through St. Louis in April to be the keynote speaker at the College Basketball Writers’ Awards, he was as entertaining as advertised, except for when the discussion turned toward one specific topic.
I expected the conversation to be a fun and happy one.
It turned somber instead.
Walton played one of college basketball’s greatest games right here in St. Louis during UCLA’s national championship-game defeat of Memphis State in 1973 at The Arena. He scored an NCAA title-game record 44 points. It was and always will be one of the best games ever played. Yet it seemed to physically pain Walton to revisit it. He insisted he never watched the game again. For reasons only he can understand, the thrill of winning that championship almost entirely is overshadowed by not winning the next one in a final season in which UCLA’s 88-game winning streak ended.
“While the joy and happiness and the dream is all about winning the game, sadly, the nightmare of losing the games is what hangs heavy on my soul,” Walton told me that day.
It’s not how many would view it, but it’s how he views it, and he kind of has the ultimate say in how he views it, doesn’t he?
That brings us back to 2011 World Series MVP Freese, who last weekend became the first Cardinals player to respectfully pass on putting on a red coat.
Most fans and followers of the Cardinals seem to have responded to the surprising news with understanding, though some seem to be upset and/or forgetting something.
We don’t get to decide for athletes how they look back at their accomplishments. Their view doesn’t have to be our view. They are the ones who lived it, after all.
It’s clear Freese put a lot of thought into his decision. This is not about some sort of rift between the former player and the team. The relationship there is good. Freese did not know beforehand that he was going on the fan-voted ballot, so suggestions that he should have declined that part of it are unfair. So are suggestions that the Cardinals should not have put him on there if he wasn’t going to accept. How were they supposed to know he would decline? They’re not exactly used to former players saying no to the honor.
I’m not on the committee that selects the fan-voted ballot, but I do agree with those who did that Freese was more than deserving of giving the fans a chance to vote, whether he agrees or not. The Cardinals don’t have their 11th and most recent World Series championship without Freese. He came up huge in the postseason for an organization that prides itself — at least it used to — on coming up huge in October.
The Cardinals’ Hall of Fame is not Cooperstown. There can be all kinds of routes to it. Freese is worthy, and fans rushed to prove it with their votes. That doesn’t mean he has to agree, or accept. He indicated to some that he didn’t feel entirely worthy. Additionally, one part of his statement jumps out.
“I look at who I was during my tenure, and that weighs heavily on me,” Freese wrote in comments released by the Cardinals.
Freese has been candid in the past about the depression and anxiety he dealt with long before he became a Cardinals postseason hero, and how the baseball fame he found in his hometown hurt instead of helping problematic drinking that endangered his life and others. Freese became a player so many wanted to be, but a person he did not like. That’s a very hard place to exist.
Freese’s story got happier, fortunately. He found a fresh start after he was traded . He got help sorting out the feelings that were influencing his actions. He made big changes. He found peace, found comfort, found meaning far beyond the World Series highlights that don’t define him. He and his wife recently welcomed their third child. Life is good.
If joining the ranks of the red coats didn’t make that life better, or if it threatened to stir up things Freese is happy to have put in his past, then he made the right call, one that should not just be respected, but applauded.
It can be confusing when athletes don’t want to revisit what we think are their glory days.
Sometimes, it’s because what we think should be their glory days, actually, were not.
Maybe Freese is living his true glory days right now.
“Thank you to all the people that have 0 opinion one way or another,” Freese posted to his Twitter account. “You know how to live your life. Enjoy the rest of your summer.”
He punctuated the message with an emoji.
It was the peace sign.
