The Freeze Is One Of The Best Things Going On In All Of Sports Right Now
One of my favorite things going on in all of baseball right now is happening at SunTrust Park in Atlanta. The Braves brand new mid-innings promotion of trying to beat The Freeze has swept the nation because almost no one can do it. He’s the definition of electric.
A grounds crew member since 2012, Nigel Talton, is a former track star who ranked at one point 31st in the country at the 100 yard dash. He missed qualifying for the Olympics by a few hundredths of a second and now is a baseball icon. This was Nigel before he became the superstar that is “The Freeze.”
MLB.com Last year was the final season at Turner Field, so Fan Experience gave me the chance to do the Stolen Base Challenge, which they continue to do now at SunTrust Park. You have 20 seconds to get a base from mid-field, behind second base, get there and get back. I did it at Turner Field, and I got it in, like, 13, 14, 15 seconds. They were like, “This guy, he’s pretty fast.” So at the end of the season, they were talking about trying to do something at the new ballpark, and they were like, “It’s probably gonna be someone racing a fan, would you be interested?” And I was like, “Sure.”
Two months before the stadium opened, they called me and were like, “Hey, we want you to race a fan. It’s from foul pole to foul pole.” So I went there and I prepped a couple of times with the marketing guys, the Fan Experience guys, and that’s how I became (The Freeze). They told me the name, and they were like, “We’re gonna get you a new nice little uniform to run in.” I’m like, “OK, that’s cool. I’ll do it.” So that’s when it happened.
He recently lost in a rare occurrence, but there was a reason why
Mush KFC has an unbelievable track record, but jinxing “The Freeze” is right at the top. Goddamit Kevin this why we can’t have nice things.
Anyways, The Freeze isn’t going anywhere despite Kevin’s antics. He’s an awesome follow on Twitter @BeatThaFreeze and is quickly getting the attention of the entire league. He’s training to hopefully race with the 2018 US Indoors team in which case I hope he shows up in his body suit.
I can’t get enough of this guy, and I need him to race Billy Hamilton straight up.
P.S. If he didn’t already seem like an athletic hero to all, read this about how he won his first race BLINDFOLDED
“The first time I had the goggles on, and I had the suit under it, my eyes were covered. So I couldn’t see. The only way I could see was if I looked up to the lights at the park, but I can’t look up there running.
So I just — with me working on the grounds crew, I knew how far the fence was for me. So when I ran that time, I kind of stayed close to the wall so I knew where I was. Because I didn’t know how close I was to the grass, and I didn’t want to step on the grass.”
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