Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman addressed comments from former Braves teammate Ronald Acuña Jr. on an Instagram live on Wednesday night in which the Atlanta outfielder said that he would not miss Freeman.
Acuña Jr. said while he and Freeman shared the “same stadium”, he often “clashed” with him on his stance of overly enforcing clubhouse rules during his rookie season, especially when it came to wearing eyeblack on his face.
Freeman, in response, stated that he would miss Acuña but that there were certain rules to be followed within the Braves’ organization.
“I’m gonna miss Ronald. Charlie [Freeman's son] is gonna miss Ronald, my family is gonna miss Ronald,” Freeman told MLB Network. “That’s my side of it. I love Ronald Acuña and I can’t wait for him to get healthy and get on the field. I think he’s great for the game of baseball.”
Unlike Acuña Jr., Freeman did not view the eyeblack situation as a clash or friction between the two.
“When you put on a Braves’ uniform … there are organizational rules, you don’t cover the ‘A’ with sunglasses, you don’t wear earrings, you have your hair a certain length,” Freeman said. “You wear your uniform out during BP. You don’t have eye black coming down across your whole face...
“I guess I was one of the older guys who did have to enforce that kind of things in the clubhouse. I didn’t view it as any friction or clashes or anything like that.”
Even more, Freeman doubled down on his rationale for being strict about Atlanta’s organizational rules with a personal anecdote of when he wore a pair of Christian Louboutin shoes during a 2016 road game. It was then where some higher-level personnel within the Braves’ organization stopped him and said that players on the team were not allowed to wear tennis shoes on road games.
“I thought these [Louboutin shoes] were nice shoes,” Freeman said. “He said ’No, you have to have a heel on the shoe in this organization.’ … I had just gone to Brandon Hicks’s wedding, and I had to wear cowboy boots … For the rest of the year, I wore cowboy boots, because they had heels on them.
“Those are like little rules that the Braves organization had. And I was just okay with it … it’s unfortunate that [Acuña] viewed them like that … I just tried to uphold those rules the best I could.”
Acuña Jr. previously stated that the comments made on the Instagram live were “blown out of proportion.”
Freeman joined the Dodgers on a six-year deal this offseason after spending 12 years with Atlanta.
