Being a father while being a big leaguer must be extremely difficult. You are effectively on the road nine months out of the year. 

That’s why we hear stories about how players like bringing their kids around whenever possible. There are the stories of Ken Griffey, Jr. and Barry Bonds hanging around their Dad’s clubhouses. There was Dusty Baker’s son acting as the bat boy during the 2002 World Series. Now, we have the story of Adam LaRoche and his son. 

LaRoche has historically had his son hang around during Spring Training. His son would get his own locker allowing him to hang out with his dad.  With LaRoche’s job as a baseball player, this is making up for lost time. After Spring Training is over, LaRoche is on the road the rest of the year. He goes from city to city. He plays night games and gets home late. This is his best chance to spend quality time with his son. While you normally can’t put a price on that, LaRoche did. He determined this was worth more than $13 million. 

Before signing with the White Sox last year, Robin Ventura told LaRoche he would have no problem with LaRoche’s son hanging around the clubhouse. In fact, LaRoche’s son had his own locker during the regular season so he could hang out during home games. At no time was LaRoche’s son a distraction.  That didn’t prevent the White Sox front office from asking LaRoche to only bring his son around only half the amount of time. Instead, LaRoche decided to retire. He would rather retire than spend less time with his son. 

The front office decision did not sit well with the players. As Karl Ravech said on Mike & Mike this morning, the White Sox players threatened to boycott yesterday. They were not going to take the field for practice. They were not going to play in Spring Training games. It wasn’t until Robin Ventura interceded that the disgruntled players finally agreed to go out there for practice and play in Spring Training games. 

Every take I see is that there’s no bad guy in this situation.  I disagree. When the players show a united front here, it’s the front office that’s the bad guy. We can have an honest debate as to whether children belong in the clubhouse at all. We can have an honest debate as to whether LaRoche’s son was in the clubhouse too frequently. However, the front office made a very poor decision here. 

First, the front office caused the retirement of their first baseman. Second, it almost caused a team mutiny. Third, it undermined the manager who is in charge of the clubhouse. There is no scenario in which you can look at this decision and say it was the right decision.  

Strange enough, the only good thing that arose from this situation was seeing how well Robin Ventura handled the situation. He kept control of the team and the clubhouse with an angry team on the verge of a boycott. He showed himself to be a strong leader who is respected by his team.  Seeing this, maybe the front office should’ve allowed Ventura to handle this whole situation. 

They didn’t, and now they are down a first baseman.