The Los Angeles Dodgers found a new way to freeze one of the biggest swings in franchise history.
The night before the club begins another postseason run it hopes ends with a three-peat, Dodger Stadium unveiled a Freddie Freeman tribute tied to his walk-off grand slam in Game 1 of the 2024 World Series against the Yankees. The team painted a seat blue in the right field pavilion to mark the spot where the ball landed, turning Section 306, Row K, Seat 5 into a permanent reminder of the moment.
The detail makes it even better: the seat number is 5, Freeman’s jersey number.
To commemorate Freddie’s walk-off home run in Game 1 of the 2024 World Series, we painted the seat blue where the ball landed in the Right Field Pavillion in Section 306, Row K, Seat 5. pic.twitter.com/Uyx0vDzCe1
- Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) October 3, 2026
It’s the second time the Dodgers have painted a right field pavilion seat blue for a franchise icon. The first was for Kirk Gibson, whose walk-off homer in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series also earned a permanent marker. Gibson later visited Dodger Stadium and autographed the seat.
Freeman now occupies rare company in Dodgers history. Gibson, Justin Turner in 2017, Max Muncy in 2018, Chris Taylor in 2021 and Freeman in 2024 and 2025 are the only players in franchise history to hit a walk-off home run. Freeman is the only one in that group to do it twice in the World Series.
The ball itself took on a life of its own after the game. It was retrieved by 10-year-old Zachary Ruderman, who attended the game with his parents, and later went to auction through SCP Auctions in Southern California from Dec.
4-14. The final price was $1.56 million.
That made Freeman’s grand slam ball the third-highest price ever paid for a home run ball at the time, behind only Shohei Ohtani’s ball from the swing that put him into the 50-50 club, which sold for $4.392 million, and Mark McGwire’s 70th homer from 1998, which brought $3.05 million.
The ball reached that figure without MLB authentication because of the chaotic finish to the game. Even so, it carried the official 2024 World Series logo and what was described as a scuff mark from Freeman’s bat.
Sports Investors Authentication also made a conclusive photo-match thanks to the many images and videos of Ruderman recovering the ball. Zachary’s father, Nico, passed a polygraph test and submitted a notarized letter verifying the ball’s authenticity.
Auction proceeds went to the Ruderman family, with an emphasis on Zachary’s future education.
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