He had tremendous "cut" from leg as well as pace,[3] which was said by those who played against him to reflect a classic round-arm delivery and powerful twist extending as far up as his elbow.

Freeman appeared in a non-first-class game for a "Miscellaneous All England Eleven" against 22 of Ireland in 1869, when he took 4 for 19 and 6 for 5, to register 10 for 25 in the match.

W. G. Grace scored 150 against him, and for the next five years Freeman, with a growing business claiming all his time, played only very occasionally in minor matches for the Malton club.

[9] In 1878, however, playing as an amateur, Freeman appeared in first-class cricket for the first time in six years against Middlesex at Lord's, but lack of practice and the improvement in pitches from the heavy roller and motor mower meant he could not take more than three wickets at a cost of ninety-one runs.

Under the pseudonym "Old Ebor", Alfred Pullin (1860–1934) interviewed eighteen former cricketers for the Yorkshire Evening Post during the winter of 1897/98.

Even after the careers of Tom Richardson, William Lockwood and Walter Brearley were finished in the years before World War I, Freeman, along with John Jackson, was still thought of by cricket historians as among the best four or five fast bowlers to have played the game.