MARION, Iowa (KCRG) – Friends of Dakota Freese’s family are remembering the former minor league baseball player whose life was cut short in the Cedar River Monday.
Police officers found Freese’s body in the Cedar River on Monday. Witnesses said he had been fishing from the I-380 bridge when he dropped some of his gear into the water.
Police said he waded into the river to get the equipment when the current swept him under.
Freese graduated from Washington High School in 2011. He played minor league baseball for years before signing with the Oakland Athletics in 2013. He traveled the country playing in West Virginia, New York and Kentucky.
While watching Freese play, his grandfather, Rick, got an idea for Prospect Meadows, a baseball and softball complex in Marion.
“He [Dakota] was all over the country, so he [Rick] saw all these beautiful complexes, you know, throughout the United States. And I think he thought why don’t we have that here?” said Jack Roeder, Prospect Meadows president and CEO.
While he was older than the kids that typically play at the complex, Roeder said Freese was a familiar face around Prospect Meadows.
“He would come out here and practice during the day, sometimes off the mounds, before he went to college or wherever he was going to. So yeah, I had a lot of nice visits with him. And like I said, he was a great kid. Rick, it’s a wonderful family. And Rick was just everything to Dakota, helping him, you know, play baseball throughout high school and traveling around the country and really a premier player,” Roeder said.
Roeder said the community is still processing the loss.
“I think that everyone was just really kind of in shock. When someone is 33 years old, you just don’t expect that to happen. Everyone’s kind of just really numb, quite frankly,” Roeder said.
Roeder said they hope to honor Freese at the fields in some way, but until then, those who knew him are holding on to the memories.
“One of my favorite memories is Rick used to catch and he didn’t have any catcher’s equipment on, he’d just have his work clothes on and the catching glove and the kids throwing 95 miles an hour,” Roeder said. “Just a really nice kid. Always enjoyed being around him. Very polite. Some good memories.”
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