It all started out innocently enough, but the details surrounding the retirement of Adam LaRoche continue to amaze. LaRoche is now addressing the situation publicly by sharing his side of the story.
Earlier this week, it was reported Adam LaRoche was contemplating retiring from baseball due to a personal issue. As we soon learned, that personal issue had a little bit of a disagreement between the baseball veteran and the Chicago White Sox about how much time LaRoche’s son was going to be hanging around the clubhouse.
Reports indicated LaRoche was told by White Sox president Ken Williams he could no longer bring his son, Drake, into the clubhouse, which later led to quite a vocal argument between White Sox players and Williams during a team meeting. Tensions got so hot that the thought of a team boycott became a real talking point.
LaRoche took to Twitter to release his first official statement regarding this bizarre sequence of events that has pushed him into retirement. In his statement, LaRoche outlines his side of the story from his discussions preceding his signing with the White Sox to the fallout that has led to a difference in opinion leading him to call it a career.
Prior to signing with the White Sox, my first question to the club concerned my son’s ability to be a part of the team. After some due diligence on the club’s part, we reached an agreement. The 2015 season presented no problems as far as Drake was concerned. (My bat and our record are another story!)
With all of this in mind, we move toward the current situation which arose after White Sox VP Ken Williams recently advised me to significantly scale back the time that my son spent in the clubhouse. Later, I was told not to bring him to the ballpark at all. Obviously, I expressed my displeasure toward this decision to alter the agreement we had reached before I signed with the White Sox. Upon doing so, I had to make a decision. Do I choose my teammates and my career? Or do I choose my family? The decision was easy, but in no way was it a reflection of how I feel about my teammates, manager, general manager or the club’s owner Jerry Reinsdorf.
The White Sox organization is full of people with strong values and solid character. My decision to walk away was simply the result of a fundamental disagreement between myself and Ken Williams.
After going into some moments of reflection on his baseball career and the lessons learned along the way, LaRoche wrapped up his statement with a closing thought.
In life, we’re all faced with difficult decisions and will have a choice to make. Do we act based on the consequences, or do we act on what we know and believe in our hearts to be right? I choose the latter.
Not to be outdone, White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf also issued a statement on Friday, which was basically an elaborate way of saying the White Sox have no formal comment.
Jerry Reinsdorf statement: pic.twitter.com/Od3hdebzla
— DanHayesMLB (@DanHayesMLB) March 18, 2016
Stuck in the middle of this fine mess is White Sox manager Robin Ventura, who summed much of this mess up quite well with his thoughts on Drake LaRoche…
Robin Ventura's dry humor: said Drake LaRoche is a hell of a kid and probably more mature than most of the guys in clubhouse. #WhiteSox
— DanHayesMLB (@DanHayesMLB) March 18, 2016
Well said.
[Twitter]
