Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman addressed comments from former Braves teammate Ronald Acuña Jr. live on Instagram Wednesday night, in which the Atlanta outfielder said he wouldn’t miss Freeman.
Acuña Jr. said that while he and Freeman shared the “same stadium,” he often “clashed” with him over his attitude toward overly enforcing clubhouse rules during his rookie season, particularly when it came to wearing eye blacks.
Freeman stated in response that he would miss Acuña, but that there are certain rules that must be followed within the Braves’ organization.
“I will miss Ronald. charlie [Freeman’s son] will miss Ronald, my family will miss Ronald,” Freeman told MLB Network. “This is my side of it. I love Ronald Acuña and can’t wait for him to get well and get on the field. I think he’s great for the baseball game.”
Unlike Acuña Jr., Freeman did not view the black eye situation as a conflict 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 a certain length of hair,” Freeman said. “You wear your uniform during BP. You don’t have a black eye running all over your face…
“I think I was one of the older guys who had to enforce things like that in the clubhouse. I didn’t see it as friction or collisions or anything like that.”
Scroll to Next
Additionally, Freeman doubled down on his justification for strictly adhering to Atlanta’s organizing rules with a personal anecdote of wearing a pair of Christian Louboutin shoes during a 2016 street game. There, some high-level officials within the Braves organization stopped him and said that players on the team were not allowed to wear tennis shoes at street games.
“I thought these [Louboutin shoes] were nice shoes,” Freeman said. “He said, ‘No, in this organization you have to have a heel on your shoe.’ … I had just gone to Brandon Hicks’ wedding and had to wear cowboy boots… For the rest of the year I wore cowboy boots because they had heels.
“These are like little rules that the Braves organization had. And I was just fine with that…that’s unfortunate [Acuña] I saw them that way…I was just trying to uphold those rules as best I could.
Acuña Jr. previously explained that the comments on Instagram live were “overdone.”
Freeman joined the Dodgers on a six-year deal this offseason after spending 12 years with Atlanta.
More MLB Coverage: