MLB dad defends decision to walk
Adam LaRoche, who caused as stir by walking away from his $13 million contract with the Chicago White Sox Tuesday, took to the Internet to explain why a request to limit his son's time in the clubhouse sent him packing.
He wrote that while his teammates and manager stood behind his decision to bring his son Drake to work, White Sox Vice President Ken Williams went back on a standing agreement.
The several-paragraph explanation didn't stray far from the message he tweeted after his farewell, using the hashtag #FamilyFirst, but it did provide more details.
"Given the suddenness of my departure and the stir it has caused in both the media and the clubhouse, I feel it's necessary to provide my perspective," the note begins.
He writes that while he was given "the opportunity" over the last five years to have his son with him in the clubhouse, something for which he wrote he feels "an enormous amount of gratitude" he claims he'd also made it clear that"if there was ever a moment when a teammate, coach or manager was made to feel uncomfortable, then I would immediately address it."
He said had realized and made clear that he felt it "would not be fair to the team if anybody in the clubhouse was unhappy with the situation." But he says his teammates weren't the ones who balked.
"All of the statements from my teammates, past and present, should say enough. Those comments from all of the people who have interacted with Drake are a testimony to how he carries himself," he said of his son, admitting his own views on his offspring would be biased.
Before he signed with the White Sox, he said, he asked about Drake.
"My first question to the club concerned my son's ability to be a part of the team" he wrote. "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!)."
It was against that backdrop that White Sox VP Ken Williams advised him to significantly scale back the amount time his son spent with the team in the clubhouse and then told not to bring him to the ballpark at all, LaRoche wrote.
"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?"
That choice, he said, "was easy."
"I live by certain values that are rooted in my faith, and I am grateful to my parents for that. I have tried to set a good example on and off the field and live a life that represents these values," he said. "As fathers, we have an opportunity to help mold our kids into men and women of character, with morals and values that can't be shaken by the world around them. Of one thing I am certain: we will regret NOT spending enough time with our kids, not the other way around."
"This was likely to be the last year of my career, and there's no way I was going to spend it without my son," he added.
He said the advice he left his teammates applies also to his fans: "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."