Sal Frelick had only one offer to play college baseball. It turns out that was all he needed.
The Lexington, Mass., native headed to Boston College to play under Mike Gambino in 2019. Six years later, Frelick is a Milwaukee Brewer and coming off the biggest award of his young career—a Gold Glove.
Frelick won the 2024 National League Gold Glove Award for right field after leading the National League in defensive runs saved and committing just three errors in 278 outfield chances. One more save would’ve tied him for most in the entire MLB.
“Man, this is awesome,” Gambino said he texted Frelick after the award was announced. “But I’m more proud of you for the person you are than this.”
Despite his flashy defense on the field, those closest to Frelick are eager to talk about everything else he offers outside of baseball.
“He’s the same person that he was as a 16-year-old kid,” Frelick’s BC teammate Cody Morissette said. “And now look at him. He’s a Gold Glove winner.”
When Morissette was rehabbing from an ankle injury post-BC, he lived with Frelick. And according to Morissette, Frelick is the one who helped him get through it all.
“He’s the guy you want your daughter to marry,” Gambino said. “He’s the guy that you want your son to look up to. He’s the guy that you want to have a big at-bat with the game on the line. If Sal did not go play in the big leagues, and he was working in an accounting firm, those things would all be true.”
It’s the balance between who Frelick is as a person and who he is as a baseball player that makes him stand out.
“In the clubhouse, he’s going to be that fun leader—enjoying the day, enjoying being with all his teammates,” Frelick’s BC teammate Peter Burns said. “Once that game starts, the switch flips and he turns it on, and he puts on the show for the 50,000 people in the stands every night.”
Baseball wasn’t Frelick’s only focus growing up. In high school, he only played when it was baseball season. Throughout the rest of the year, hockey and football took up his time.
“I never thought I was gonna even play in college,” Frelick said. “Commit to BC, sounds like a fun school I couldn’t get into without baseball. I got there, [Gambino] put me in the line first day as a freshman, where, I don’t know, I feel like I might have not even deserved it.”
For a long time before starting at BC, Frelick considered himself more of a football guy, and for pretty good reason. He was good at it—really good.
Frelick was named the Gatorade Massachusetts Football Player of the Year for his 2017–18 high school season, during which he passed for 1,940 yards and 30 touchdowns.
“I think he could’ve played in the NFL,” Morissette said. “But that’s just my opinion.”
Gambino thought differently.
“[Gambino] was like, ‘Look past college—you’re not gonna play in the NFL. Your best shot is baseball,’” Frelick said.
Gambino said he and his coaching staff had to compete with football offers from other schools but were determined to keep Frelick on board with BC baseball. Gambino saw something special in Frelick from the start.
But as a high schooler, unsure whether he had a shot at going pro for either baseball or football, Frelick just wanted to do as much as he could while in college.
“I committed to BC for baseball in the summer between my freshman and sophomore year,” Frelick said. “Then in my junior year, coach Addazio, who was the BC football coach at the time, offered me to play football. And I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, I’d love to do both.’”
Gambino quickly shut that down.
“I guess [Addazio] didn’t talk to my baseball coach, though, or I don’t know, maybe it wasn’t thorough,” Frelick said. “But I thought I was going to play both for like, a month, and my baseball coach called me and was like, ‘You are not playing football here.’”
Frelick agreed to leave behind football and commit fully to baseball. Gambino believed in him—big time—and that’s all he needed.
“I think he really did see something and kind of allowed me to grow as a baseball player,” Frelick said.
Frelick’s BC career wasn’t picture-perfect. Far from it, actually.
He started out his freshman Fall with an injury that kept him from playing. The Spring didn’t go entirely as planned, either.
“Towards the end of his freshman year, he got hurt again at the end of the year, and he missed the last three weeks,” Gambino said. “We missed the NCAA tournament by one game—lost to North Carolina in the ACC semifinal, and we were one of the first four teams out of the NCAA tournament. And if he had been healthy … we would have won one more game there someplace those last couple weeks.”
Despite injuries, Frelick started 38 of the 39 games he played in and was named to the ACC All-Freshman Team and All-ACC Second Team at the end of his first season in Chestnut Hill.
“He earned an instant respect from the guys, as a freshman, because of how hard he worked,” Gambino said. “There was a quiet confidence about him. He didn’t brag—he was very confident in who he is … He’s going to work hard, he’s going to play hard.”
Things looked promising for Frelick as he headed into his sophomore year—both because of his own talent and because of the team surrounding him. Gambino said Frelick’s sophomore-year team had the chance to be one of the best in BC history.
They didn’t get that chance, though. COVID-19 quickly took over and took baseball along with it.
“I remember it so clearly,” Frelick said. “We had just come back from Clemson. I went like, 0 for 18 in that series. And then in our next series, we were going to NC State, and we land down on Thursday, and all of the sudden, everything just shut out. Like, the world just stopped.”
Frelick hated the way it ended.
“I just remember being so mad because I didn’t get a hit in the last series,” Frelick said. “I was like, ‘The season can’t be over—like I’m batting .100. But it just ended there. We went home.”
Frelick’s unfavorable end to his sophomore season didn’t stop him. He started in 48 games the following year and led the team with 50 runs, 70 hits, 17 doubles, and six homers.
He and Morissette both knew their college careers could be over soon after. The MLB Draft was approaching.
For Morissette and Frelick, this meant they wouldn’t be playing together anymore, after doing so since they were 12 years old.
But according to Morissette, they put that aside. They wanted to focus on what was at hand—the privilege of sharing the field under Gambino.
They wanted to enjoy the moment while they were still living in it.
Gambino got a FaceTime call from Frelick.
“There’s a look on his face,” Gambino said. “I’m like, ‘You okay?’”
Gambino got emotional as he repeated what Frelick said next.
“He goes, ‘I just got the call, Coach … I’m going to the big leagues.”
When the Brewers called Frelick up from the minors, he called his girlfriend, his parents, then the Gambinos.
Frelick’s loyalty to his relationship with his former coach has never dwindled, even though it’s been four years since he played for Gambino.
Gambino describes him as fiercely loyal and says the relationships Frelick builds with his coaches and teammates speak volumes about who he is as a person.
“When Sal was a freshman, my son was three or four, so he didn’t know enough to know who the good players were,” Gambino said. “But he would go sit on the bus and hang out with Sal.”
A few years later, Gambino’s son sat in Frelick’s lap as he was drafted to the MLB.
“It’s because of how he treats everybody,” Gambino said. “Go back to his hometown, and everybody will tell you stories about who he’s volunteering with, and his family that he took care of.”
Morissette brought up Frelick’s involvement with the Special Olympics and Best Buddies organizations back in his hometown.
“He’s an even better person than he is a baseball player,” Morissette said.
Don’t get it twisted. A roster spot in the MLB isn’t earned by being a good friend. A Gold Glove isn’t won by being a nice guy.
“Weightlifting, in the batting cages, he’s the most competitive person there is,” Morissette said.
It’s simple, Frelick is a competitor.
“You have that type of a kid combined with the type of baseball player and the type of work ethic,” Gambino said. “It sounds weird, it sounds fake.”
At the end of his freshman year, nursing a knee injury and waiting on surgery, Frelick couldn’t run. But technically, he could bat. He told Gambino he wanted to be available to hit in BC’s matchup against NC State.
After talking to doctors and trainers, Gambino agreed—on one condition.
“All right, here’s the deal,” Gambino told Frelick. “I will keep you available, stay in uniform. But if I see you even starting to run, I’m gonna tackle you.”
Up one in the eighth inning with runners on first and third, one of BC’s right-handed hitters was on deck. In response, NC State warmed up a pitcher known to be tough against right-handed hitters.
It was then that Gambino felt someone’s eyes on him.
“I’m looking at my lineup card, and I look back at the dugout, and Sal is just staring at me,” Gambino said. “He will not take his eyes off of me—with his helmet, his batting clothes on, and his bat on his shoulder, in the dugout just staring at me.”
NC State’s pitcher was ready to come in.
“So they make the move, and I look at him,” Gambino said. “We just lock eyes.”
The Eagles needed a sacrifice fly.
“There was no doubt in anybody’s mind in the dugout,” Gambino said. “When Sal came up, he was getting the job done.”
Frelick stepped up to the plate, hit the ball all the way to the outfield wall, jogged down to first base, then took a right turn back to the dugout.
“He always truly knows and believes he’s going to get the job done,” Gambino said. “No matter what the situation, he wants the at-bat. There is no fear of failure.”
After he was drafted, Frelick spent some time in the minor leagues.
“It’s definitely hard, and you’re bussing everywhere, like 14 hours,” Frelick said. “You get off the bus and you just gotta play immediately.”
Frelick equates his time in the minors to the experience you get at an entry-level job in any other industry.
“I’m not gonna sit here and say it’s fun, but it’s unique,” Frelick said. “And I think it should be challenging as your first job out of college. I think most are, in any profession you’re in.”
Frelick made it out of the minors. Now, he’s a resource for his former teammates trying to do the same.
“For all of us guys who are still playing pro ball in the minors, he’s such a great resource,” Burns said. “And just all of the tips and tricks that kind of help you get through the grind. Not only that—in life, he’s there all the time for you. He’s someone you can text at any time of the day, and he’ll respond and try to help you out.”
Frelick described moving to Milwaukee after growing up in Massachusetts as a culture shock—but not necessarily a bad one.
“Coming from Boston to Midwest friendliness, I’m like, ‘What is going on?’ Like, no one honks their horn, no one screams,” Frelick said.
Although he’s been in Milwaukee for over a year, Frelick’s connections from home have stayed strong. He says Gambino is like his “second dad,” and that the two still speak every day.
In the offseason, Frelick and Burns lift at the same facility and hit together almost every day. Frelick is going to be in Morissette’s wedding next year.
“He’s my closest friend,” Morissette said.
Regardless of how far he moves or how high he makes it up in the big leagues, Frelick is the same guy he’s always been.
“No matter the day, he’s never going to change,” Burns said. “He’s obviously a super successful player, so I guess at times, it can always be tough to stay level-headed. But he’s super, super even-keeled, and the same person every day, which is what you look for in a teammate and a player. And a friend.”
Frelick grew up going to Fenway Park with his dad, dreaming of playing baseball for the Red Sox.
Who wouldn’t? He was a Massachusetts kid who loved baseball.
That childhood dream has taken a backseat. Like he cherishes his relationships, Frelick cherishes the moment he’s in right now.
“Obviously deep, deep down that would be cool,” Frelick said. “But at the same time, I’m already living my dream, no matter what team I play for.”
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