Craig Kimbrel and Freddie Freeman said it was a tough gig. And they weren't talking about any race for Rookie of the Year, which, frankly, they won't discuss at all.
When the Braves asked them to be at something called MLB Fan Cave at 11:30 ET Friday morning, nobody told these naïve rookies they would have to go Kevin Costner on anybody, even if "For The Love of the Game" is Kimbrel's favorite sports move.
"Had no idea what Fan Cave was or what this was about," said Freeman.
Mike O'Hara, between gigs in Hollywood and loving every minute of a "job" he won out of 10,000 applicants to watch baseball at the MLB Fan Cave from first pitch to the last out of every single game of the 2011 season, could have told the two young Braves that acting for a living might even be tougher than winning the National League East. But whatever might have been O'Hara's secret fear of growing an already-oversized pool of thespians by two, he resisted any urge to be mean and tell the baseball players not to quit their day jobs.
Not that Kimbrel exactly saw himself as Gary Cooper doing Lou Gehrig.
"I'm not very good at this," said the Braves' closer. He meant at repeating and ad-libbing lines, not at being a good sport during a sketch for FanCave.com, in which the kid pitcher and first baseman are stunned to learn there is such a thing as a postseason and that the Braves' success could cause them to have to cancel previous October plans.
"Mike, what is that number 767 over the door?" asked Kimbrel.
"The number of games left to the playoffs," said O'Hara, causing the pitcher to look even more quizzical than the batters who have hit a combined .200 against him this season. Told later there was always the chance that the Braves actually wouldn't make these playoffs and that they may have dumped friends and loved ones for nothing, Kimbrel and Freeman managed to look even more crestfallen and perturbed than were the Pirates at the end of the bottom of the 19th inning last week at Turner Field.
"Rookies," said O'Hara shaking his head disapprovingly.
Kimbrel sat at a desk, picked up a phone and gravely disappointed an imaginary girlfriend whom he had promised significant October time, reneged on an RSVP for a Bar Mitzvah, and infuriated a buddy with Alabama football tickets, plus a cooler packed with tailgate treats (this one actually Kimbrel's real-life suggestion).
Freeman went to a grease-board wall calendar that marked a dentist appointment, an afternoon of leaf raking, and four days of intensive Korean language training. After knocking the board to the floor on the first take, Freeman wiped it clean and wrote "playoffs" diagonally across the entire month.
It may turn out to be art imitating life, considering that Freeman was NL Rookie of the Month for July, Dan Uggla has been sizzling, Chipper Jones was expected back in the lineup Saturday night, Michael Bourn is now in center field and the Braves' bullpen, anchored by Kimbrel, has the second-lowest batting average against and WHIP (both trailing the Giants) in the National League.
"We have had a lot of injuries, and it's almost like we made another trade getting Chipper back, and with [Brian McCann] coming back soon," said Freeman.
All one more plot for O'Hara and his wingman, Ryan Wagner, to follow with 1,663 games down and 767 to go as of Friday at noon.
"I'm tired," said O'Hara, who has guested on Parks and Recreation and is a lead singer of a punk band, The Mighty Regis. "But I'll never get sick of baseball."
He says he hasn't fallen asleep once, not even when the Padres and Dodgers had 3 1/2 hours of rain delays in April that kept he and Wagner at Fan Cave until 5 a.m. There is no nodding off allowed at Fan Cave, where there are no shades to the love for baseball or, for that matter, on the windows.
"Here in The Village, people are living their own lives. It's not like Times Square, where people are looking in every window," O'Hara said. "We're sort of just under the radar and part of the neighborhood.
"They knock on the window every once in a while."
On Friday, none of those knockers was Atlanta manager Fredi Gonzalez, telling his closer to get up, or -- even at the corner of 4th and Broadway -- talent scouts for the Great White Way. Then again, neither Freeman nor Kimbrel are knocking on any doors looking for Rookie of The Year votes.
"We haven't even joked about it and we never will," said Freeman. "Knowing Craig as long as I have, it doesn't matter to him, so it doesn't matter to me. We have one goal in mind, and that's to get that ring."
Any politicking was saved for Golden Globe Award voters. Asked just before leaving for Citi Field whether it was he or Kimbrel had best broken a leg -- relax Braves fans, that's just a showbiz expression for knocking 'em dead -- Freeman immediately said "me," with a deadpan made perfect by a lunchtime of practice. Suddenly there was more hope for his second career than exists in Wild Card aspirants chasing Atlanta.
