Royal Oak Leprechauns honor hometown baseball legend Bill Freehan

ROYAL OAK — The Royal Oak Leprechauns hosted Bill Freehan Night during the team’s July 22 home game against the Kalamazoo Growlers as a way to honor the local legend.

Freehan, who played 15 years for the Detroit Tigers and made 11 All-Star Games, was raised in Royal Oak and played baseball at Memorial Park throughout his youth. He died at age 79 in 2021.

“(Freehan) went to Shrine elementary school. … He had these deep roots to Royal Oak,” said Judy Davids, Royal Oak community engagement specialist and member of the Royal Oak Historical Society board of directors. “And we were just so tickled that Pat Freehan (Bill’s wife) drove all the way down from the Petoskey area by herself. She’s 84, so for her just to be there (was great).”

Several members of the Freehan family joined Pat at Memorial Park to see the displays and billboards put up to honor Bill.

“Our little display is very hometown-ish, and the family was just fine with that,” Davids said. “They were touched; I was really pleased.”

The displays are a perfect ode to the history of Freehan and the city of Royal Oak. There’s a sign outside the park now that describes his roots in the city and highlights the famous home run that Freehan hit as a child. The home run is something of baseball lore in Royal Oak, and there’s now a decal on the ground where the society believes his home run landed.

Legend has it that Freehan was just a young teenager and hit the home run more than 400 feet, which cleared the concession stand in left field and rolled all the way onto 13 Mile Road. The home run is something that seemingly everyone who’s played at Memorial Park has heard about, and now it’s forever immortalized.

“We can tell by aerial photographs where the old concession stands were, so we believe that’s approximately where it landed,” Davids said. “The thing that we heard most from fans at Memorial Park was about this home run that Bill Freehan hit as a kid. … There were a lot of people that were definitely excited.”

The Leprechauns, who play in the Northwoods League, a summer league for college baseball players, had a huge turnout for the July 22 game and had Freehan’s grandson, Blaise Salter, throw out the ceremonial first pitch for the game.

“We want to be more ingrained into the city and the fabric of things. We want to be that team,” Leprechauns Director of Media & Public Relations Mark Stowers said. “Be a successful team and have a lot of people come out and have a lot of fun.”

Events like this help solidify the relationship between the team and the community. The Leprechauns are having a good season on the field and continue to host fun events.

Despite the fact that the story of Freehan’s home run has been told across multiple generations, some people didn’t believe it. Although Freehan wasn’t one to boast about the story, Freehan’s son-in-law, John Salter, said Freehan told him it was real. The Leprechauns wanted to help make this more than an urban legend.

“We wanted to do something so that this legend would actually become a fact,” Stowers said. “That’s a big thing and that generation that’s leaving us, so we wanted to honor that and keep that story out there, and keep that fact alive.”

The event was a great opportunity to celebrate one of Royal Oak’s most famous and talented baseball players, while also getting people out to Memorial Park to cheer on the next generation of athletes.

“I think there was just an overwhelming sense of hometown pride, and one of our own made it really big,” Davids said. “And we’re not going to let people forget about (Freehan).”

The Leprechauns final regular season home game was on Aug. 5, after press time, and the regular season will end on Aug. 9. Royal Oak is pushing for a playoff spot in the final week of play.