The man that needed to speak on the matter finally did. Former Chicago White Sox first baseman Adam LaRoche issued a statement Friday in regards to the reason he decided to retire from baseball earlier this week.
The slugger left $13 million on the table because White Sox president Kenny Williams asked LaRoche to "dial down" the presence of his son in the team's clubhouse. LaRoche didn't take that lightly because, as he said earlier today, he and the team reached an agreement before he signed last offseason, which allowed his son, Drake, to a part of the team, thus insinuating that Williams had reneged on the original pact.
Drake has been at LaRoche's side for the past six seasons (one with the White Sox and five with the Nationals).
Here's a portion of LaRoche's statement addressing that:
"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?"
He chose his family and will not play out the final year of his two-year, $25 million contract with the White Sox.
White Sox ace Chris Sale told reporters earlier today that the players were "bold-faced lied to" by Williams regarding the situation. Sale said he came to the players and blamed it on the coaches and then went to the coaches and blamed it on the players. Then he eventually said it was a request from the team's owner, Jerry Reinsdorf, who declined to provide any specifics.
As we wrote yesterday, both sides could have handled this situation much more appropriately, as the White Sox made an unreasonable request just over two weeks before Opening Day and LaRoche, at the end of the day, abandoned his team and $13 million over a relatively insignificant issue considering he could have just retired after the 2016 season and spent the rest of his days with his family.
However you look at it, it's undoubtedly one of the most bizarre and outlandish controversies in recent memory.
