![]() ![]() At the time, he figured it was a nice moment, but what else could possibly come of it?Īs the Braves were preparing to settle into SunTrust Park, the fine folks at RaceTrac, an Atlanta-based gas station/quick-mart company, were looking to get some love for their new line of frozen drinks. He first unleashed his speed for the Braves last year in the final game at Turner Field, when he raced on behalf of a fan and obliterated the “stolen base challenge” (a race to grab a base and return to the starting line in time). A sprinter at nearby Kennesaw State, he notched a 4.28-second 40 at a football camp in 2011, a time just six one-hundredths of a second slower than John Ross’s all-time NFL combine record. Talton, 26, has worked for the Braves since 2012, and he’s been a competitive runner for even longer. Talton paints the base lines and swaps out the bases mid-game before disappearing underneath the grandstands to switch into his costume. In his secret identity as a member of the Braves’ ground crew, he hides in plain sight. And as good as the story of The Freeze is, the story of the guy under the goggles might be even better.ĭon’t tell any evildoers, but The Freeze is a guy named Nigel Talton. What was supposed to be a short-term promotion is now an open-ended one. ![]() The Freeze’s races have racked up millions of views on Facebook and Twitter, plus love from athletes, celebrities, and Jimmy Kimmel. The Atlanta Braves haven’t even played in their gleaming new ballpark for three months, but they’ve already got their first legitimate viral hit: Beat The Freeze, a mid-inning foot race where some hapless fan takes on a speedster in an ice-blue bodysuit … and the fan almost always loses badly, oh so badly. (Getty)ĪTLANTA - It’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 feet from foul pole to foul pole at SunTrust Park, but when someone twice your speed is chasing you, it feels a whole lot farther than that. ![]()
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