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MLB WORLD SERIES: RANGERS v CARDINALS

October 28, 2011

David Freese

ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI: Game Seven

Texas Rangers 2
St. Louis Cardinals 6

Q. When you wake up from this dream, what are you going to be thinking?
DAVID FREESE: I don't know yet. I'm trying to soak this all in. I've tried to soak in this whole postseason as much as I can because you never know if it's your last attempt at a title. You know, it's going to take me a little bit, I think, to realize what we've accomplished. And the funny thing is if we go down tonight and we're NL champs, we still did a ton that nobody thought that we could accomplish. And then just to win it is an incredible feeling.

Q. To grow up in St. Louis, could you ever, ever have imagined to be the NLCS and World Series MVP in the same postseason?
DAVID FREESE: No, I've had plenty of days of my life where I thought I wouldn't be even close to being a Big Leaguer. I'm here because of everybody around me. They've put so much trust in me to accomplish not only baseball but just stuff in life, and to do this is -- I'm just full of joy, finally.

Q. What did Tony La Russa bring to this championship?
DAVID FREESE: Everything. He started it. That guy deserves all the credit. You know, he rallies the troops. He's got a plan with every thought, with everything he says. He's got a great idea of what it takes to not only win a game but to get to this point, and for me to come to the Big Leagues and play under him right out of the gate, I couldn't ask for anything more.

Q. This is your first one, but you're going to have some more years to hopefully try to get another one. For some of these veterans like Arthur and Octavio and Rafi and Lance and Nick and all these guys who don't have a lot of years left to play, what's it mean to make sure they get one?
DAVID FREESE: That's what all of us less experienced guys, we talk about that all the time, let's get these veterans that have done this for so long, let's get these guys a ring and keep working. I think I heard a stat or something that Dotel has been traded five times in the middle of a season, and on each occasion he never played the playoffs until this year. I mean, that's incredible. And for those guys to get this is amazing.

Q. The Rangers obviously got some quick momentum in the first inning. Tell us about your at-bat in the first that turned it around and got things rolling your way.
DAVID FREESE: You know, when you hit fifth, sixth, seventh, whatever, you hope to hit in the first because good things are usually happening. I got up to the plate, had a fairly good idea about what was going to go down, so I took that approach, stuck with it, and got the bat out there and put it in the gap. I think that was a big turning point because it kind of started the game over and got things back to even.

Q. In the ninth inning, with three outs to go, Motte is on. At what point do you start allowing yourself to think, okay, we've got this thing?
DAVID FREESE: Playing the Texas Rangers, not until the last out. There's been a lot of times in this series where players or teams, you know, you start to smile, you start to this and that, and then all of a sudden it switches on you. You learn real quick, you play Philly, you play Milwaukee, you play Texas, there's no time to kind of take it easy. You've got to put it on them. There is some luck involved and momentum to win a championship, but we did enough things right this series to win it.

Q. After last night's walk-off home run, could you imagine things feeling any better than they did last night coming into tonight?
DAVID FREESE: You know, I didn't sleep much because I was so focused on this game. I was telling people like before Game 6 against Milwaukee, I slept like an hour. I was so fired up, I wanted to play that game. You roll on adrenaline this time of year.
I sit here right now, and I still can't believe that we actually did this. I keep thinking about mid-August, the mood of the team, kind of the disappointment of what was going down. And Carp said, "Let's get together and talk about some things." You know, most importantly we said that the fans deserve for us to make a run at this. You get 3 million plus for the last however many years consecutively, that's incredible, so they deserve this just as much as anybody else.

Q. We've seen this team swing at early pitches in counts, but most of the early runs tonight, including your hit, were on 3-2 pitches. Is there a different strategy or mindset coming in with this pitcher?
DAVID FREESE: Yeah, I don't know if it was a different mindset. Sometimes when you're feeling good at the dish, you get in the habit of you think you can kind of hit everything, and that's kind of when you get out of -- you kill your hot streak, this and that, and you've got to kind of zone it back in. You look at all the teams that get deep in the postseason, it seems like those are the teams that work counts, wear down pitchers. You look at Philly and the Yankees over the last few years, they've seen more pitches, I think, than anybody, and they do that for a reason.
So for me, I've got some guys behind me, and obviously a few guys ahead of me in the lineup that I just sit and watch and I learn and I soak up everything they do, from Spring Training on. I'm with Matt Holliday every day in the offseason. He took me under his wing a couple years ago when things weren't too hot, and he's a big brother to me. I owe him everything.

Q. After your hit and yet another St. Louis comeback, did you have a sense at all that the Rangers were losing a little fire after that, that it was just one comeback too many?
DAVID FREESE: No, I think Texas coming from the American League, that ballpark, they understand anything can happen, and I truly feel like they believed in the ninth inning that there was a shot that they could come back. I mean, look at what's happened over the course of this postseason.
You know, I look over at that team, and it seems like they have a lot of fun over there, and it seems like that's a lot of talent, obviously, and a great group of guys. We just won it this time.

Q. Not to bring up a sore subject, but I remember very well you being down in Springfield, Missouri, and the injury you had down there. When you're on top like this, how nice is it to be able to think about where you've come from and being able to overcome things like that?
DAVID FREESE: Yeah, I think you've got to kind of take a step back and understand all the work you've put into it, and then you realize how many people are the reason why you're here, starting with my folks. You know, I quit out of high school, and they were the only two people that supported that decision. If I listened to everybody else, I wouldn't be here right now, no chance.
But it's amazing. I sit around and think -- I just think about everybody that's involved in all this, and it takes a lot of people to get to this point.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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