Three days after making the controversial decision to walk away from $13 million, Adam LaRoche detailed his side of the story.
LaRoche issued a statement providing further perspective on why he walked away from the game when White Sox VP Ken Williams told him to limit the time his 14-year-old son, Drake, spent with the team.
“Over the last five years, with both the Nationals and the White Sox, I have been given the opportunity to have my son with me in the clubhouse,” LaRoche posted Friday in a long message via Twitter. “It is a privilege I have greatly valued. I have never taken it for granted.”
LaRoche said he was especially disappointed because his first question prior to signing with the White Sox last offseason was whether his son could “be part of the team.” Now, he feels betrayed by Williams.
“Obviously, I expressed my displeasure toward this decision to alter the agreement we had reached before I signed with the White Sox,” LaRoche wrote. “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.”
LaRoche doesn’t expect everyone to understand or agree with his decision to walk away from the White Sox, but he hopes that it will ultimately be respected.
“In each and every instance, baseball has given me some of my life’s greatest memories. 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.”
Plenty of LaRoche’s teammates, including pitcher Chris Sale, have shown public support for LaRoche.
“Somebody walked out of those doors the other day and it was the wrong guy,” Sale told reporters Friday.
“We got bald-faced lied to by someone that we trust.”
