At the crack of the bat, Alex Freeland was off.

It was a sharp grounder headed for left field, and the shortstop reached in time to backhand it and keep it on the dirt. An impressive stop, but not as impressive as what came next. Pivoting on his left leg, Freeland flung himself into the air and threw across his body toward first. In a clip of the play posted by the High-A Great Lakes Loons, the ball’s flight is accompanied by an excited description by the play-by-play announcer — Backhand stop by Freeland, a JUMP THROW — and then a short interjection by the color commentator. “No …” the second broadcaster says in disbelief, just as the throw hits the first baseman’s mitt.

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Out.

Just a normal day watching #Dodgers No.25 prospect @alexfreeland10…

— Great Lakes Loons (@greatlakesloons) June 8, 2023

The play was hardly routine for Freeland — or for anyone else, for that matter — but neither was it entirely uncommon. A switch-hitting shortstop drafted by the Dodgers in the third round last year, he has made his share of exceptional defensive plays since entering pro ball. They may inspire the occasional stunned reaction, but for those who have watched the 21-year-old for any length of time, they are not all that surprising. “He has proven over and over and over again,” says his father, Bobby, “that he is more than capable of anything.”

That word, “capable,” means more to Bobby Freeland than most. Twenty-one years ago, when his wife was pregnant with the youngest of their three sons, a professional baseball career was hardly on anyone’s mind. An ultrasound had revealed the possibility that Freeland would be born with a clubfoot, a deformity in which one or both feet are twisted out of position. He indeed entered the world with his right foot askew, and he spent his first year of life undergoing several procedures to correct it.

As an infant, he was put in tiny casts that he kept kicking off. At four months, he underwent surgery to lengthen his tendons. Three months after that came what his father calls a full foot reconstruction. Freeland learned to walk with a cast all the way up to his hip, a developmental hurdle that has left him with a slightly stilted gait. Throughout it all — every time Freeland kicked off a cast, each time his tiny body was put under for surgery — jump throws from shortstop were a distant fantasy.

“The only thing going through your mind,” his father says, “is you want him to come out of the surgery and be healthy.”

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In the two decades since, Freeland has been much more than healthy. He’s been exceptional. The foot surgery he required as a baby set him up for what now looks like a promising baseball career. He is not without limitations — his right foot and calf are smaller than their counterparts, and he has limited flexibility in that ankle — but he has always managed to overcome them. Though he is not particularly swift, he has stolen 17 bases so far this season. What he lacks in range he makes up for in anticipation and fundamentals. “You’d never know watching him play the field,” says one scout who saw Freeland recently. “His timing is uncanny.”

In a perfect world, never knowing about it is just what Freeland would prefer. He doesn’t hide that part of his backstory, but neither does he advertise it. “I’m not going to make it an excuse or a reason for people to treat me any differently,” he says. To him, it is something to be addressed only when necessary. And there are times when it is. Because of his foot, teams heavily scrutinized him in the draft, leaving Freeland to explain his condition over and over. Teammates will notice his calf or the way he runs. Even if kept a mystery to everyone else, he can’t ignore it himself. There are limitations to work around, like the way the switch hitter works out or sets up when he bats right-handed.

But he’s never allowed himself to be defined by his foot, and he’s determined to succeed or fail on his own merit. He’s in the right place to do it. The Dodgers drafted him there because they think he’ll hit and stick in the middle of the infield. They knew his backstory — “We definitely noticed it,” says amateur scouting director Billy Gasparino — and they weren’t concerned.

“I’m just another kid playing the game of baseball,” Freeland says. “If I suck, tell me I suck. Don’t blame it on my foot.”

After all, he never has.

There was a point early in Freeland’s life that, had his parents made one choice differently, professional baseball likely would have been out of the question.

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Freeland’s first few months had been a whirlwind of medical interventions. He kicked off his first casts with such regularity, his parents were toting him back to the doctor to get new ones applied every three or four days. After the casts proved ineffective, the Freelands turned to surgery to lengthen some tendons and shorten others. The results were good, but a few months before Freeland’s first birthday, doctors presented Bobby and Amy Freeland with another tough choice. On his current path, Freeland would be able to walk and have some normalcy, but his foot “would hinder him,” his father says. Less than a year earlier, he and Amy had learned for the first time just what having a clubfoot meant. Now doctors were asking them to decide if their son should undergo another serious surgery.

Bobby’s memory has faded over the past 20 years, but it’s likely the next surgery Freeland endured was a posteromedial release, according to Dr. John Herzenberg, an expert on childhood deformities and the head of pediatric orthopedics at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore. The procedure requires the surgeon “to cut open the ligaments to allow the bones and joints to be twisted into the correct position,” Herzenberg says. Often, pins are inserted to keep everything in place. What follows is casting, like the one Freeland wore up to his hip. Often, certain related conditions arise from surgery — limited ankle mobility and a smaller foot — like the ones Freeland has experienced.

The surgery has since gone out of fashion in favor of a less-invasive method that produces better outcomes — Herzenberg says 95 percent of his young patients with clubfoot now avoid it — but the doctor notes it’s not unprecedented for a child to go on to athletic success following a posteromedial release. And it certainly didn’t take Freeland long to chart his own path to a baseball future. Inspired by his older brothers, Freeland asked to start baseball at 3 years old. At 4, his parents started him in tee ball. Within a week, they quickly realized he was out of place — not because he was physically limited but because he was uncommonly serious about it. “He was bored to death,” says his father. “He was frustrated because everybody else was laying in the grass.” His parents had to sign a waiver, but soon a 4-year-old Freeland was playing among kids two and three years older.

After that, Freeland’s foot ceased to be much of an issue for him. He excelled all over the diamond, taking up switch hitting in the cage at 7 and debuting it in a game at 9. At 4, “his focus and intensity was that of a 15-year-old,” his dad says, and he remained engaged beyond his years into high school. Freeland “would rather have gone to the field and hit than go to prom,” Bobby Freeland says. He did go to prom, but he eschewed other staples of adolescence in favor of his favorite sport. “His focus was baseball,” his dad says. “He would have skipped over anything, anyone, anywhere to get where he needed to be.”

The next step was college. Freeland visited more than a dozen programs, few of which even asked about his foot. They just cared that he could perform for 60 games. Freeland had hoped to be drafted out of high school, but those aspirations were dashed by the onset of the pandemic in 2020 and the resulting truncation of the draft. Unselected in the draft’s five rounds, he honored his commitment to the University of Central Florida, where he hit .285 with an .893 OPS over two seasons. Draft-eligible once more after his sophomore season, he once again turned his eyes toward a pro career.

But as pro teams began to scrutinize him, his foot was suddenly an issue again. Despite the fact that Freeland’s foot had never hindered him in any meaningful way on the field — he still hit, he still played a good shortstop — his father says “there were teams that were just absolutely no shot” to take him. The Dodgers, however, were not one of them.

That doesn’t mean they weren’t thorough. Gasparino says the team consulted with player health director Dr. Ron Porterfield about the history of the condition and what the possible long-term effects might be. (Helping Freeland’s case: Former Pirates infielder Freddy Sanchez, who won a batting title in 2006, was also born with a clubfoot.) The team examined Freeland’s medical records and even had performance scouting coordinator Tyler Norton evaluate him in person during a pre-draft workout in Orlando. Norton inspected Freeland’s right foot up close, shoe off, and put the infielder through some mobility tests. It went well. “That,” Gasparino said, “gave us the most confidence.”

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That and their interactions with Freeland before the draft. “He didn’t hide from it at all,” Gasparino remembers. “He was like, ‘Yeah, I have it.’ Almost in defiance. ‘I can still run, I can still play shortstop. Let me show you I can do it.’” Gasparino and the Dodgers believed him, and they believed their eyes. “We watched him play a lot and really didn’t think it impacted his play,” Gasparino says. The Dodgers took Freeland with their second pick of the draft, 105th overall, and signed him for a $580,200 bonus. He was in pro ball, where he’d sink or swim purely on his own ability.

Just how he wanted it.

It’s mid-May at Dow Diamond, home of the Loons, and Freeland is taking early batting practice under a gloomy Michigan sky. The weather matches his recent production at the plate, with a .146 average through his first 12 games in May. That comes on the heels of batting .216/.332/.338 in April. At the end of his practice session, he brings the barrel of his bat to his face and makes a lighthearted plea. ‘’Get some hits, get some hits,” he commands.

Things have gone better since then. In his past 20 games heading into Thursday, when he went 1-for-4 with a home run, Freeland hit .338/.449/.514. Depending on the evaluator, he’s either played shortstop adequately — “Makes the plays he should,” says one scout — or exceptionally. Some scouts aren’t aware of his backstory, and some of his teammates aren’t, either. At least once, a teammate has noticed the way he runs and asked him if he was hurt. Freeland is happy to clue someone in when prompted, but he’s not going to call a team meeting to discuss his right leg. “I don’t sit there and think about it,” Freeland says. “It is what it is.”

What it is, even now, is something for which he must account in small ways. Because he can’t flex his right foot up toward his shin — think of the position ski-jumpers enter as they fly through the air — he uses heel lifts and angles his foot outward while doing squats. When he bats right-handed, his weaker side if his pro splits are to be believed, he angles the same foot differently in order to activate his glutes and transfer force from the ground.

Hitting, a relatively stationary act, is one thing. Playing shortstop, one of the most athletically demanding positions on the field, is another. Freeland loves playing short — “It’s the captain of the infield,” he notes — and has learned over the years to compensate for his foot’s limitations. His reads and first steps are quick and accurate. His arm is strong. His defensive aptitude will be tested the further he moves up the developmental ladder, but he’s certainly getting the job done in High A. He has yet to appear at another position all season.

“I don’t think I’m different than anybody else playing the game,” he says. “I just play the game.”

(Photo of Alex Freeland turning a double play against the Peoria Chiefs: Mike Janes / Four Seam Images via Associated Press)