There were plenty of reasons to like Freddy Sanchez in his six years with the Pirates. He appeared in 676 games in black and gold, he rapped out 777 hits, he won a batting title and brought some life to Pittsburgh in a season when it wouldn’t have otherwise been there, and he hit a walkoff home run to end what’s still the longest losing streak the club has been on in this hellish 18 year ride. He was far from a great player, but he was at times a very good one and that’s frankly more than anyone can say about most of the players that pulled on black and gold over the same period of time.
But none of those reasons are why I really like Freddy Sanchez. I was always a big Freddy fan (Dave Littlefield’s trade to get him was one of his best moves), but the day he became one of my favorite Pirates was the day that I saw Jack Wilson on the scoreboard telling everyone that he still called Freddy “Clubby” because of the club foot he was born with.
Look, I’m no moralizer. Friends give friends crap about a lot of stuff that other people would be shocked by. I do it, you do it, our friends do it to us. But to still be teasing a guy about his club foot? I’m sure Sanchez has some rough memories of going to school in leg braces and having to work hard to be able to walk and run like all of his friends. It just doesn’t seem the same as ribbing someone about their receding hairline or the spare tire that’s appeared since college ended.
And so maybe this is true and maybe it isn’t, but I’ve just always thought a guy that can be good natured about something like the club foot that he was born with is probably a pretty good dude and the sort of guy I’d like to be friends with. And then when I found out about all the work that he did with the Pirates’ Miracle League and their special fields, well, that sort of confirmed my suspicions. If there’s one Pirate that played with the Bucs over the end of the Littlefield era that I can say that I’m really, truly happy to see get a chance to play in the World Series, I think it’s Freddy Sanchez.
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