All-Star Game: The Freeze upset by speedy sports trainer
The Atlanta Braves’ in-game promotion, The Freeze, had the chance to race in the 88th annual MLB All-Star game, but was edged by a sports trainer.
It’s been a heck of a first half for The Freeze, otherwise known as the Atlanta Braves‘ in-game promotion that has been taking the baseball world by storm.
His not-so-unusual come-from-behind wins granted his appearance in the 88th annual All-Star game in Miami, Florida, where his home-field advantage would hopefully translate to Marlins Park.
As the game goes, a fan is chosen to race The Freeze, and is given a good-portioned head-start starting at the left field foul pole. Once the fan is off and running, The Freeze is released and on a mission to track down the lucky spectator. He often does, but one speedy sports trainer was able to pull off a great upset Tuesday night.
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Unfortunately for the Atlanta headliner, his opponent was John McCoy, the lead performance specialist at Fast Twitch Performance Training, according to his Twitter account. Even the man behind the costume, 26-year old and former competitive sprinter Nigel Talton couldn’t hang with McCoy, who dusted him for his second-career loss.
McCoy is apparently the future son-in-law of Mack Jenkins, the Cincinnati Reds pitching coach.
Talton was a sprinter at Kennesaw State in Georgia and now serves as a groundskeeper for the Braves. Believe it or not, he’s currently training as a sprinter, and hopes to make the 2018 World Indoors team. “I just want to make a team before I’m done. My route to that path was detoured, and this came upon me, so right now I’m just continuing to train… just training and saving up for next year,” Talton told flotrack.org in June.
As Talton currently works two jobs and is in the midst of searching for a sponsor for next year, it’s no surprise to learn of his track-star status. He’s broken records and even surprised Atlanta’s management, who learned of his speed late last year during a contest typically meant for fans named the stolen base challenge.
He received a call later by the Braves, informing him of their plans for a new event the following season. He likes to run, and told them he was interested.
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The rest is history, and we can only hope The Freeze enjoys as much success in the second half as he did in the first. If all goes well, this just might be the perfect bridge to his pursued track career.