Folding your grandmother’s chaise lounge on a breezy day at the beach. Closing an umbrella in the teeth of a windstorm. Madly checking all your pockets when you’ve misplaced your keys. The swing of Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman has no comparison among major league hitters, so you are left to find endeavors in everyday life with such mechanical quirks.
The Freeman swing is no oil painting, unless you had a Jackson Pollock in mind. Freeman starts with his bat off the shoulder and parallel to the ground. His back elbow is raised. As the pitcher winds up, Freeman snaps the bat to attention, upright, as if a predator put on alert by the sudden scent of prey. Then he pulls his hands close to his body and throws the barrel at the ball with what looks like a flick of the wrists. He finishes with two hands high, the wrists having completely turned over, in the manner of someone who has striped a 300-yard drive down the center of the fairway.
