You can find Thom Freeman '63 all over the Bates baseball record book. He pitched 18 complete games in three seasons and struck out 181 batters -- both are program records to this day.

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Freeman led Bates to the Maine State Series title and the Eastern NCAA Finals in 1962. Then he was named second team All-American by the American Association of College Baseball Coaches in 1963.

Freeman starred on the basketball court too, helping Bates advance to the NCAA Regional Finals in 1961.

He signed with the New York Yankees after graduation and played four seasons in their farm system. Freeman learned from the great Whitey Ford and his height was even the subject of a Yogi Berra quote. The Hall of Fame catcher turned Yankee manager was quoted in The Sporting News as saying "These are the tallest kids I've ever seen in our camps. Good thing we don't pay rookies by the inch."

In 2016, Freeman was inducted into the Maine Baseball Hall of Fame.