We didn't really cover it, which is fine because you can read about it everywhere, but White Sox designated "hitter" Adam LaRoche walked away from a $13 million salary this season when team management asked him to stop bringing his teenage son to the ballpark literally almost everyday. There are a lot more details to the story than that, but you got to ask yourself "Do I really want to read all the details about a guy retiring because his kid wasn't allowed in the clubhouse all the time?"
If the answer's yes there's a million god damn articles on Google for you to look through.
Now that it's almost a month later, and the dust is apparently settled, ESPN unveiled a pretty long-read about LaRoche today that touched on a variety of topics ranging from his abrupt retirement, to his bow hunting reality show. But they also dropped this nugget (about 10 percent in) that comes way the hell out of nowhere:
"LaRoche, along with Brewers pitcher Blaine Boyer, spent 10 days in November in Southeast Asian brothels, wearing a hidden camera and doing undercover work to help rescue underage sex slaves. "
Later on the author elaborates, because that's something that should definitely be elaborated upon:
"Working through a nonprofit called the Exodus Road, LaRoche and Boyer conducted surveillance in brothels and tried to determine the age of the girls -- known only by numbers pinned to bikinis -- and identify their bosses.
"Something huge happened there for us,' Boyer says. 'You can't explain it. Can't put your finger on it. If you make a wrong move, you're getting tossed off a building. We were in deep, man, but that's the way it needed to be done. Adam and I truly believe God brought us there and said, 'This is what I have for you boys.'
"When it came time to board a flight back home, LaRoche hesitated. 'I was sick,' he says. 'I was thinking about my kids and then thinking about the hundreds of thousands of parents who are searching for their 12-year-old daughters.'"
"'As they waited for their plane, LaRoche asked Boyer, 'What are we doing? We're going back to play a game for the next eight months?'
"'They wielded their emotions like crude homemade weapons. Every crazed thought ran through their minds. Quit the game. Sell the house and move here. Give up everything and fight the fight full time."
There's not much to really add to that. It's reasonable to infer that he's a good guy, but also reasonable to infer that he's freaking out there. Both can be true. If nothing else it certainly allows you to delve into the thought process of a guy who had one of the more absurd retirement sagas in recent memory.
Whether his son tagged along with him to said brothels is unclear.
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[via ESPN]
