The face of the franchise, Landon Knack is not — that distinction belongs to Dodgers stars Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts and Clayton Kershaw — but the rookie pitcher has been as much, if not more, of a social media presence than his more famous teammates in the weeks since the Dodgers beat the New York Yankees in the World Series.
What Knack, a 27-year-old right-hander from Johnson City, Tenn., described as a “whirlwind” month in the wake of the Nov. 1 downtown parade and Dodger Stadium celebration began with an invitation from the Tennessee Titans to watch their Nov. 10 game against the Chargers from a SoFi Stadium suite.
Knack was at Dodger Stadium with teammates Anthony Banda and Tony Gonsolin for a Thanksgiving turkey giveaway on Nov. 20. He returned to SoFi on Nov. 24, joining Banda and reliever Joe Kelly to show off the World Series trophy before a Sunday Night Football game between the Rams and Philadelphia Eagles.
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Knack watched the Nov. 30 USC-Notre Dame football game from the Coliseum sidelines with Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior, a former Trojan. On Dec. 1, Knack and fiancee Anisa Herlinda Garcia cruised down Hollywood Boulevard in the back of a vintage baby-blue convertible during the 92nd annual Hollywood Christmas Parade.
And last Friday, Knack rubbed elbows on the red carpet with the likes of singer-songwriters SZA, Meghan Trainor, Shaboozey, Paris Hilton and T-Pain on his way into the iHeartRadio Jingle Ball at the Intuit Dome.
“I kept saying yes [to requests from media relations staffers] because you never know if this is going to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said Knack, who pitched once in each of the three rounds of the playoffs, including a four-inning, one-run, two-hit stint in an 11-4 World Series Game 4 loss to the Yankees.
“There are so many guys who have played this game for 10-plus years and never get close to experiencing this. I’m a rookie, this was my first year in the league, but you never know if I’ll get to experience this again in my career, so I absolutely wanted to take advantage of it, to make some memories and just enjoy things.”
The spoils of victory have been bountiful for the Dodgers, who beat the San Diego Padres in the National League Division Series, the New York Mets in the NL Championship Series and the Yankees in a five-game World Series en route to their first full-season championship since 1988.
Five days after he was named World Series most valuable player for his four-homer, 12-RBI barrage against the Yankees, Freeman made his late-night debut on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” where he was showered with sunflower seeds — though not by teammate Teoscar Hernández — as he walked onto the set.
Kimmel played a video clip of an exchange from the World Series-winning clubhouse celebration in which shirtless utility man Kiké Hernández wraps Freeman in a bear hug and asks the first baseman, “Why are you still wearing a cup?”
As the laughter in the audience died down, Kimmel asked Freeman, “Why did he know you were still wearing a cup?”
“He’s gonna feel everything you have,” Freeman said of the notoriously frisky Hernández.
Freeman, who provided the signature moment of the World Series with his walk-off grand slam in Game 1, crashed Shaboozey’s red-carpet interview with Brooks and Dunn at the Country Music Awards in Nashville on Nov. 20 and spent an hour with football-playing brothers Travis and Jason Kelce on their “New Heights” podcast.
The highlight of the Kelce brothers interview came when Freeman, who has accrued $215 million in career earnings over 15 big-league seasons, was asked what sport he would have played had he not played baseball.
“Ooh … I probably wouldn’t have played a sport,” Freeman said. “I wanted to be a [certified public accountant].”
“Time out!” Jason Kelce, the former Eagles center, bellowed. “Nobody wants to be a CPA! What are you talking about?”
Freeman: “My dad owned his own CPA firm with my uncle, his brother … and I wanted to be a CPA. I know it sounds crazy, but I was going to be doing your taxes.”
Jason Kelce: “You do your own taxes now?”
“No, I don’t,” Freeman said with a chuckle. “That ship sailed 20 years ago.”
“I’m not gonna lie,” said Travis Kelce, the Kansas City Chiefs tight end. “I was not expecting that.”
Manager Dave Roberts, who played baseball at UCLA, roamed the Rose Bowl sideline for the Bruins’ Nov. 23 game against rival USC and, two days later, served as an honorary captain during the midfield coin toss for the Chargers-Baltimore Ravens Monday Night Football game in SoFi.
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Roberts also traveled last week with his son, Cole, to Okinawa, the Japanese island where he was born. Roberts received a hero’s welcome and was given a special honor award from Naha Mayor Satoru Chinen.
“I actually had a chance to have dinner with Sadaharu Oh, which was something I’ll always remember,” Roberts, speaking at this week’s winter meetings in Dallas, said of the now 84-year-old slugger who hit 868 home runs in 22 seasons with the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants from 1959-80.
“He’s in great shape. We were talking hitting. Obviously, he’s a huge fan of Shohei. I told him, ‘I always thought he was a figment of my imagination.’ I never really believed that Sadaharu Oh existed until I saw him and put eyes on him.”
Freeman, Betts, Jack Flaherty, Chris Taylor and Brusdar Graterol were greeted by Lakers star LeBron James before a Nov. 8 game against the Philadelphia 76ers and honored on the Crypto.com Arena court as they showed off the Commissioner’s Trophy.
Kiké Hernández worked the morning shift at a Raising Cane’s restaurant in Alhambra on Nov. 4, manning the fry cook station and serving customers at the drive-through window and inside counter. He also did a meet-and-greet session with catcher Austin Barnes at Disneyland in Anaheim.
Ohtani, who won his third most valuable player award, and his wife, Mamiko Tanaka, were gifted with Lakers jerseys before Sunday night’s game against the Portland Trail Blazers, No. 17 for the Dodgers slugger and No. 12 for his wife, a former professional basketball player in Japan.
Though Ohtani didn’t attend the event, the Japanese American National Museum held an Ohtani lookalike contest on Nov. 23 in Little Tokyo, with Joseph Ma of Orange County emerging from dozens of contestants to win the $17 first-place prize.
Three days later, a handful of fans gathered in Elysian Park for a Banda lookalike contest, with seven contestants showing off their resemblance to the bespectacled and heavily tatted Dodgers reliever, who emerged as something of a cult hero this season.
Pitcher Walker Buehler and second baseman Gavin Lux were honored during ceremonies in their hometowns, with Lexington (Ky.) Mayor Linda Gorton declaring Nov. 18 as Walker Buehler Day and Kenosha (Wis.) Mayor David Bogdala and Kenosha County executive Samantha Kerkman proclaiming Nov. 23 as Gavin Lux Day.
Flaherty joined Roberts on the sidelines for the Chargers-Ravens game. The pitcher also appeared on the “Throwbacks” podcast with Matt Leinart and Jerry Ferrara, the “All Facts No Brakes” podcast with Keyshawn Johnson, the “Rich Eisen Show,” “The Herd with Colin Cowherd” and the “Run it Back Show” with Michelle Beadle and Chandler Parsons. And on Wednesday, he worked a shift at Villa’s Tacos in Grand Central Market.
“It’s been a whirlwind, a crazy three weeks since we won it,” Flaherty told Leinart, the former USC quarterback, and Ferrara, the actor known for his role as “Turtle” on the HBO series “Entourage,” in November. “I’m just enjoying every little part of it.”
The Dodgers set the tone for the offseason revelry on the night of Nov. 1 when several players gathered at the hilltop Encino home of Betts for a party after that day’s parade and stadium celebration.
The multitasking Betts used the occasion to tape several segments for his “On Base” podcast, with Buehler telling the story of how, two nights after he threw five innings in a Game 3 start against the Yankees, he came to close out the Game 5 clincher.
Kiké Hernández revealed an outfield conversation that he had with Betts and Teoscar Hernández during a pitching change in the second inning of Game 5, with the Dodgers trailing 4-0 after Flaherty’s shaky start.
“I looked at you and said f— it,” Kiké Hernández told Betts. “Worst-case scenario, we finish it at home, best-case scenario, we do some legendary s— and come back and beat [Yankees ace Gerrit] Cole.”
The Dodgers, of course, rallied from a 5-0 deficit when the Yankees suffered an epic meltdown in the top of the fifth, committing two physical errors and one mental gaffe that allowed the Dodgers to score five unearned runs in an eventual 7-6 series-clinching win.
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Kiké Hernández led off with a single. Yankees center fielder Aaron Judge dropped Tommy Edman’s routine fly ball for an error. Shortstop Anthony Volpe threw low-and-away to third on an attempted force play, allowing the Dodgers to load the bases.
Cole inexplicably stopped between the mound and first on Betts’ two-out squibber to Anthony Rizzo, and Betts beat the Yankees first baseman to the bag for an RBI single. Freeman followed with a two-run single, and Teoscar Hernández hit a score-tying two-run double.
“We’re all thinking they kind of s— down their leg, right?” Taylor said of the Yankees. “They were pressing. It was one thing after the next. Our energy in the dugout was kind of feeding off that. It was like all we gotta do is put the ball in play right now, you know?”
Kelly, the brash and often-outspoken reliever who missed the playoffs because of a shoulder injury, piled on the Yankees during an early November appearance on the “Baseball Isn’t Boring” podcast.
“Look at the team, look at the talent,” Kelly said. “We go through numerous scouting reports. We pay attention to every single detail. We have a lot of big superstars in our clubhouse, but our superstars also care and aren’t lazy and play hard. That’s the difference, and the biggest separator.”
Veteran ESPN analyst Buster Olney criticized “the small handful of Dodgers who are chirping,” and Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations, admitted to cringing at some of the critical comments.
“I’m glad our guys are getting to soak it in some, as they should, but I think they should be reveling in the success and all they did to put us in a position to do that,” Friedman said. “I think as little focus as we can pay to others and the more we can be internally focused, the better.”
Knack, meanwhile, finally has some time to catch his breath after “we’ve been going, going, going,” he said earlier this week. But as he celebrates his fiancee’s graduation from Arizona State, dives into the planning for next winter’s wedding and cranks up his offseason throwing program, Knack can’t help but pinch himself.
“To be honest, what we did hasn’t truly set in, even with me going out and doing everything I’ve done,” Knack said. “The scope of everything is just insane, that we actually reached the mountaintop of baseball and won a World Series. I understand what happened, but the true meaning behind it hasn’t fully hit me.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
