Braves Today

That Time Braves Chipper Jones Saved Freddie Freeman During Snowmageddon

When Atlanta came to a standstill 11 years ago this month, the Braves hall of fame third baseman aided the then-Braves first baseman

Harrison Smajovits

One of the highlights of that crazy day was one ballplayer rescuing another
One of the highlights of that crazy day was one ballplayer rescuing another / Dale Zanine-Imagn Images
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If you’re reading this, you probably remember the last time Atlanta got a significant amount of snow - for better or for worse. Somehow, the Atlanta Braves found a way to become part of the lore too, and a certain Hall of Famer knows it. 

Chipper Jones jumped on X (formerly Twitter) Thursday night and made sure to let everyone know his ATV was ready to go if anyone needed it. 

“Snow coming to Atlanta tonite!” Jones tweeted. “Just got my buggie all clean and oiled up, so if anyone in the Canton, Milton area needs some help, holler at me. Especially any of my Braves! Y’all be safe out there. Us southerners tend to lose our mind when freezing precipitation falls from the sky!”

Jones is making a nod to the time he rescued Freddie Freeman on Jan. 28, 2014. Like many others that day, he was trapped on the highway during what has been infamously dubbed Snowmageddon (or Snowpocalypse). 

Freeman tweeted that he had been stuck in traffic for over five hours. Jones saw that and sprung into action.

He managed to find the then-Braves first baseman on the road. Eleven hours after he got in his car, Jones got Freeman back home. 

Freeman later tweeted that Jones' rescue was "a moment I'll never forget."

Jones’ wife, Taylor snapped a photo of the two Braves legends on the ATV as they pulled into the garage. Jones is dressed up in camouflage and you can make out a smirk on his face. Freeman, on the other hand, is in a jacket and jeans clutching Jones by the hips. 

“He hugged me the whole way home!” Jones tweeted afterward.  

There’s photo evidence for it. 

Jones looks ready to do it again, and after what happened in 2014, someone might think to take him up on it.

Freeman was arguably one of the luckier people that day. He made it home that night. Others took much longer. 

According to 11 Alive (Atlanta’s NBC affiliate), over 1 million people were jammed on the major highways in Atlanta primarily because everyone in the city was attempting to head home out of the snow at the exact same time. 

Ninety-nine school buses from Fulton County were stuck in the traffic until midnight, while 2,000 students were forced to spend the night at school. Hundreds of people were forced to abandon their cars on the interstate and seek shelter in nearby stores such as Kroger, Home Depot and CVS. 

Georgia’s director of emergency management eventually resigned over it.

Hopefully, nobody is in need of saving and they’re able to just look back and get a good laugh at the time one ballplayer rescued another. 

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Harrison Smajovits
HARRISON SMAJOVITS

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