Freeman’s Dong Vs. Cole’s Boner: Who Ya Got?

How can you not be romantic about baseball?

It’s November, the season is over and it’s almost time to look ahead to next year… but not quite yet. There’s some World Series housekeeping yet to do.

This year’s Fall Classic is defined by two plays, both of them iconic: Freddie Freeman’s dong to walk off Game 1 and Gerrit Cole’s boner in the historically great fifth inning of Game 5, when he neglected to cover first on a routine grounder by Mookie Betts, opening the floodgates for a Dodgers team to score five runs in the inning and obliterate a dominant Yankees lead.

Both of these plays are precious and I will cherish them forever not entirely unlike I cherish my children, and similar to that I will adore them in different ways. While I’m more or less 50/50 on deriving joy from these two incidents, you may feel strongly about one or the other; I will now make my case for the greatness of each, not leastwise because I would like to relive them both as often as possible.

The case for Freeman’s dong

For a wider audience, Freeman’s dong is probably the runaway winner, a truly iconic baseball moment that will be aired for as long as baseball broadcasting exists, in whatever form you want. Wanna hear the TV call? Or a radio call? What about in Spanish? French? Japanese? Heck, what about Serbian? Doesn’t matter! Tim Burke has you covered on all fronts. My favorite is the FOX Deportes call:

If there is anything critical at all to say about a two-out, game-winning grand slam against the Yankees in Game 1 of the World Series — and really, breathe it all in, because there really isn’t — it’s merely that the moment was so reminiscent of the Kirk Gibson home run that, like so many Hollywood reboots, it was basically the exact same plot as the original story, albeit with a jacked-up premise and cast of characters. This is, of course, the smallest of nitpicks. This is pretty much as awesome as it gets:

Those are some nice dongs.

The case for Cole’s boner

If Freeman’s dong belongs to the world, Cole’s boner seems lab-designed for us. Cole finished second to Alex Verdugo in our poll of most hated current Yankees, and I daresay Dugie’s advantage was basically insurmountable. Cole is hilarious because he’s reliably great right up until it matters (or he faces Rafael Devers), which was true in microcosm in Game 5. He was unhittable until the whole team, himself included, forgot how to play baseball.

He tried to excuse himself afterward by saying he took a bad angle to the ball, which is great because it’s such a stupid lie on such a stupid play that it makes the memes so freaking easy:

I like that one. This one is weird but not complaining that it exists:

And it wouldn’t be election season without some political flair:

The thing is, Joe Biden would’ve actually gotten there in time. Anyhow, one pet peeve I have about all this is that people — mostly Yankees fans — argue that since none of Cole’s runs were earned, he actually pitched a great game. No! That’s not how this works! He gave up five runs and actively helped it happen, and, to top it all off for us, specifically, he did it against Mookie Betts, and then Verdugo made the last out of the season. At last, the trade has worked out in our favor, or something.

Sure, there are other moments that were great, or just one (Aaron Judge dropping an easy fly ball), but I think these two moments are head and shoulders above the rest. So which is your favorite? The dong or the boner?