What would cause a superb Major League Baseball player to walk away from the game \u2014 and a big pile of money? God only knows.<\/p>\n
In March, Major League Baseball player Adam LaRoche shocked the sports world. LaRoche, a 12-year veteran who averaged more than 20 home runs a year and won many awards for his defensive skills at first base, unexpectedly retired.<\/p>\n
By doing so, he walked away from $13 million \u2014 the amount left on the final year of a two-year contract with the Chicago White Sox.<\/p>\n
Even more shocking than leaving $13 million on the table was the reason he did so: The White Sox had informed LaRoche that his 14-year-old son, Drake, could no longer accompany him in the club house every day.<\/p>\n
If you can\u2019t imagine walking away from that kind of money for that kind of reason, you\u2019re not alone.<\/p>\n
But then again, a lot of what LaRoche does is peculiar, and I mean that in the best possible way.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s fair to say that most of those who commented on his decision, which in the age of social media means practically everyone with access to the Internet, were critical of LaRoche\u2019s decision to put his ideas about being a good father ahead of his team and his teammates.<\/p>\n
Not that it matters to LaRoche. He told ABC news that \u201cI have zero regrets.\u201d While he admitted to being angry with the White Sox at first, he added that their actions made his decision to retire easier. As he put it, \u201cI don\u2019t want to be defined by this game. I know there\u2019s a lot more to life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, this understanding that there\u2019s a lot more to life is why Tim Keown of ESPN wrote in his profile of LaRoche, \u201cYou need to forget everything you think you know about professional athletes. Adam LaRoche is different.\u201d<\/p>\n
Part of the difference, as LaRoche\u2019s comments suggest, is that he\u2019s not consumed by the sport, despite being the son of one major leaguer and the brother of another. He has other interests, chief among them his Christian faith and his family. It\u2019s why Drake, who attends regular school in the off-season and is home-schooled in the spring quarter, accompanied his dad to the ballpark every day.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s why, when LaRoche played for the Washington Nationals and the Chicago White Sox, he and other teammates sponsored \u201cFaith Days\u201d in 2014 and 2015.<\/p>\n
And most of all, it\u2019s why LaRoche and Milwaukee Brewers\u2019 pitcher Blaine Boyer spent ten days last November working undercover in Southeast Asian brothels trying to rescue underage sex slaves.<\/p>\n
Yes, you heard me right. LaRoche and Boyer, working with a group called Exodus Road and at great personal risk, used a hidden camera to identify trafficked girls \u2014 known only by a number pinned to their bikinis \u2014 and also their bosses.<\/p>\n
As Boyer told Keown, \u201cSomething huge happened there for us … Adam and I truly believe God brought us there and said, \u2018This is what I have for you boys.\u2019\u201d On the flight home LaRoche turned to Boyer and said, \u201cWhat are we doing? We\u2019re going back to play a game for the next eight months?\u201d<\/p>\n
Upon his return from Asia, LaRoche was haunted by what he had seen and by the fact that it was going on while he lay safely in his bed.<\/p>\n
Keown writes of LaRoche\u2019s \u201cnearly cinematic level of nonconformity\u201d to people\u2019s expectations of what an athlete should be. But a better description would be \u201cpeculiar.\u201d Peculiar in the biblical sense of being \u201ca peculiar people.\u201d The Greek word translated \u201cpeculiar\u201d means \u201ccostly\u201d and \u201ctreasured,\u201d but because our treasure is found in different places than the rest of the world, Christian are to be \u201cpeculiar\u201d in the more typical sense of being \u201cdifferent,\u201d maybe even considered \u201cweird.\u201d<\/p>\n
LaRoche\u2019s confidence to be peculiar, even at the cost of $13 million, comes from the fact that there\u2019s a lot more to life than the world would have us believe, but that God is waiting to show to us \u2014 maybe through a peculiar ball player.<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
Copyright (c) 2016 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. “BreakPoint” is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What would cause a superb Major League Baseball player to walk away from the game \u2014 and a big pile of money? God only knows. In March, Major League Baseball player Adam LaRoche shocked the sports world. LaRoche, a 12-year veteran who averaged more than 20 home runs a year and won many awards for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[169,81,1189,797,226],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6907"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6907\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}