Two years ago today, baseball saw something it had never seen in over a century of October baseball. On October 25, 2024, Freddie Freeman hit the first walk-off grand slam in World Series history — two outs, bases loaded, the Dodgers trailing 3-2, and Freeman himself barely able to stand on a destroyed right ankle. The ball traveled 412 feet. Nothing has quite been the same since.
What happened in the tenth inning no one had ever seen before
The Yankees had intentionally walked Mookie Betts to load the bases and bring up Freeman against lefty Nestor Cortes — a textbook lefty-on-lefty matchup that looked smart on paper. The problem: Cortes hadn’t pitched since September 18 due to an elbow injury, meaning he’d gone more than a month without facing live hitters. The first pitch he threw — a four-seam fastball at 92.2 mph — left Freeman’s bat at 109.8 mph exit velocity at a 30-degree launch angle.
The result: 412 feet to right field, a 6-3 final, and a record that had been waiting since 1903. It was not only the first walk-off grand slam in World Series history but only the second walk-off grand slam in all of MLB postseason history. More than a century of October baseball, and no one had done it before.
The Kirk Gibson comparison came immediately — and it holds up
The parallels are hard to ignore:
- Gibson, 1988: Game 1, Dodger Stadium, injured player, tenth inning.
- Freeman, 2024: Game 1, Dodger Stadium, injured player, tenth inning.
Gibson hit his home run at 8:38 p.m. Freeman hit his at 8:39 p.m. — thirty-six years and ten days later. The key difference: Gibson had two runners on base. Freeman had the bases loaded. Same electricity, bigger swing.
How big the moment has grown in two years
The Dodgers went on to win the World Series in five games — their eighth franchise title — but the Game 1 home run took on a life of its own. The ball landed in Section 306, Row K, Seat 5 of Dodger Stadium’s right field — Freeman’s jersey number, naturally — and was caught that night by Zachary Ruderman, a 10-year-old fan.
Months later, SCP Auctions sold it for $1.56 million, making it the third most expensive home run ball in history — edging past Aaron Judge’s 62nd home run ball, which fetched $1.5 million in 2022.
Then, in October 2026 — right before the start of the postseason — the Dodgers painted that seat blue. The same treatment the organization gave to Gibson’s 1988 seat. It’s the kind of honor a franchise reserves for the moments it never wants anyone to forget, and a quiet signal to every fan who walks in: look here, this is who we are.
Freeman stepped to the plate that night hitting .219 in the postseason, with no home runs and no extra-base hits, visibly limited by the ankle. There were real questions about whether he’d even play. He saw one pitch. In front of 52,394 fans who had never witnessed that moment before — because no one in the history of October baseball ever had.
Why the second anniversary matters more than the first
A first anniversary is social media noise. The second is where myth starts to form. The painted seat, the auctioned ball, the pre-2026-postseason tribute: these are baseball’s way of officially placing Freeman’s grand slam on the same shelf as Gibson’s homer.
The difference between a great hit and a historic moment isn’t in the box score — it’s in everything that comes after. Two years out, Freeman’s walk-off has a blue seat, $1.56 million at auction, and a Gibson comparison that survives scrutiny. That’s baseball history now, not just a beautiful October swing.
