# I'm spending too much time with my son? Keep your $13 Mil, I'm outta here! **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [March 17, 2016, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-spending-too-much-time-with-my-son-keep-your-13-mil-im-outta-here/749271 "2016-03-17T16:11:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2016, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-spending-too-much-time-with-my-son-keep-your-13-mil-im-outta-here/749271/41 "2016-03-22T14:55:54Z")
Sportswriter Thomas Boswell discussed Laroche in his [live chat](https://live.washingtonpost.com/ask-boswell-20160322.html) yesterday. Here is an excerpt, but it’s worth reading in its entirety. > [@](#): > > This is a tough one because LaRoche is such an extreme case. He’s not like anybody else in baseball – or any other sport. Adam is a very nice man to talk to. Absolutely sincere. But he thinks it’s still 1858. If LaRoche had been along with DiCaprio in The Revenant, it would have been a buddy-trip comedy. That’s what LaRoche would consider a routine off-season Camping Trip. > … > > I’ve never thought – as you may – that Adam-and-Drake was a “bad story.” They obviously love and enjoy each other. And Griffey, Jr., turned out well – Hall of Fame. Petey Rose, who hung out with his dad’s teams a lot, not so much. But I have also NEVER thought that it was a warm and fuzzy story or an unambiguous one. I’ve watched them take infield together on the field I’m looking at right now and thought, “This could work out very well or pretty badly. But it is certainly at the most extreme edge of an eccentric way to raise a child.” So, I never wrote about it because, at that time, Drake was 10-, 11, 12 and any story, by me, would have said, “Is this heart-warming or heart-wrenching?” I wouldn’t have had an answer. And a boy that age shouldn’t have to read that story. Now, it’s a national story. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2016, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-spending-too-much-time-with-my-son-keep-your-13-mil-im-outta-here/749271/42 "2016-03-23T00:38:13Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#): > > Within reason, every parent should be able to discipline their child as they see fit. > [@BlankSlate](#): > > Laroche chose to force his son to attend White Sox games. You’re contradicting yourself. ---
**Author:** ![RetroVertigo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b38774/32.png) [@RetroVertigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RetroVertigo)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2016, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-spending-too-much-time-with-my-son-keep-your-13-mil-im-outta-here/749271/43 "2016-03-23T02:07:58Z")
> [@Chicagojeff](#): > > The fans have lined up on the side of the team in this issue… By the way…he (LaRoche) still hasn’t actually FILED the retirement papers yet… In a report I heard yesterday they said the team actually hadn’t filed the the papers. In an effort to make sure the player didn’t have a change of heart. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-spending-too-much-time-with-my-son-keep-your-13-mil-im-outta-here/749271/44 "2016-04-13T23:09:37Z")
Whaaaaat?? This just in: > **[Report: Adam LaRoche went undercover to help rescue sex slaves](https://abc7chicago.com/adam-laroche-sex-slaves-salves-white-sox/1289791/)** > > ABC7 spoke exclusively with the writer of a report that details former White Sox first baseman Adam LaRoche's sudden decision to retire, and also includes some shocking details on his undercover mission to stop sex trafficking in Asia. > **[Adam LaRoche goes deep on his decision to walk](https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/15159499)** > > Missions in Southeast Asia, 'Duck Dynasty' connections, a meat business -- the first baseman didn't retire just because of a kid in a clubhouse. For the first time, he tells his story. “According to [ESPN Magazine](http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/15159499), LaRoche and Milwuakee Brewers pitcher Blaine Boyer spent 10 days in the area wearing hidden cameras and doing undercover work to help rescue underage sex slaves.” ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-spending-too-much-time-with-my-son-keep-your-13-mil-im-outta-here/749271/45 "2016-04-13T23:31:47Z")
> [@bobot](#): > > Whaaaaat?? > This just in: > [Report: Adam LaRoche went undercover to help rescue sex slaves - ABC7 Chicago](http://abc7chicago.com/sports/adam-laroche-says-he-helped-rescue-sex-slaves/1289791/) > > [Adam LaRoche goes deep on his decision to walk - ESPN](http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/15159499) > “According to [ESPN Magazine](http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/15159499), LaRoche and Milwuakee Brewers pitcher Blaine Boyer spent 10 days in the area wearing hidden cameras and doing undercover work to help rescue underage sex slaves.” That ESPN article is an abomination. It’s a big old rim-job for LaRoche, and has almost no redeeming features whatsoever. I have no particular beef with LaRoche himself, but the author of that article seems to have him up for some sort of red-meat, good-old-boy version of sainthood. The whole thing is a sort of mini-hagiography, romanticizing his conservative politics, his penchant for hunting, and his ambivalence about formal education and schooling, and pretending that he’s some sort of iconoclastic folk hero. They describe him as having a “nearly cinematic level of nonconformity” for doing the sorts of things that just about any redneck with a bazillion dollars in his bank account would do. As for the sex slave thing, there’s painfully little evidence that what he did there actually helped save anyone, and to be honest, while i suspect that “sting” operations can probably do some good in areas like this, the story is just fucking bizarre. The whole scenario reminds of a scene from an _NYPD Blue_ episode, where a guy caught with a bunch of kiddy porn on his computer says that he’s only using it for “research” so that he can help catch the pornographers. ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-spending-too-much-time-with-my-son-keep-your-13-mil-im-outta-here/749271/46 "2016-04-14T15:55:39Z")
No doubt there are many aspects of LaRoche’s worldview that I strongly disagree with, but a great many MLB players could be fairly described as rednecks with a bazillion dollars in their bank accounts, and they \*aren’t \*doing these things, so it seems perfectly fair to describe him as a unique character. I don’t think it’s a stretch to describe spending his offseason working to rescue teenage sex slaves as a legitimately heroic thing to do, and it seems quite churlish to point out that there’s no proof that his efforts actually succeeded in helping any particular person. It’s downright disgusting to suggest that this trip, which AFAICT nobody had known about until he mentioned it in that interview, was somehow an excuse to gratify his own pedophiliac urges. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-spending-too-much-time-with-my-son-keep-your-13-mil-im-outta-here/749271/47 "2016-04-14T16:11:51Z")
It’s a blow-job puff piece with no redeeming journalistic value. It could have been crafted by the Adam LaRoche PR Agency. It also falls into the age-old “white guys from the mid-west are the true Americans” bullshit, and is part and parcel of the whole “playing the game properly” and “respecting the traditions” crap we get from aging douchebags like Goose Gossage. The final sentence was tongue-in-cheek, and i certainly don’t think LaRoche is a pedophile, but i also think that these sorts of rescue operations are sometimes more about the self-righteousness of the rescuers than effecting long-term change. As [this Forign Policy article](http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/22/the-new-abolitionists-mexico-dominican-republic-human-trafficking-mormon-our/) suggests, the rescuers sometimes actually get in the way of more sustained local efforts to help, and the rescuers often march away after their mission is accomplished without doing anything to ensure the long-term safety of the people they’ve rescued, many of which end up in situations just as bad as before the rescue. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-spending-too-much-time-with-my-son-keep-your-13-mil-im-outta-here/749271/48 "2016-04-14T18:31:05Z")
I don’t know. Fighting child sex slavery is indeed a noble cause, but it does’t really seem to lend itself to being a job you do while on vacation. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-spending-too-much-time-with-my-son-keep-your-13-mil-im-outta-here/749271/49 "2016-04-14T19:24:30Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > You’re contradicting yourself. He was making a joke. ---
**Author:** ![russian\_heel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f05b48/32.png) [@russian\_heel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/russian_heel)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2016, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-spending-too-much-time-with-my-son-keep-your-13-mil-im-outta-here/749271/50 "2016-04-18T06:30:24Z")
La Roche is a sufferer from Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder as well as a devout Christian. I don’t know how much those factored into his decision, but who the fuck cares? Its his life, and who knows why he wants to spend so much time with his son? Maybe theres something not being reported here. Since when did a stupid game become more important than family? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-spending-too-much-time-with-my-son-keep-your-13-mil-im-outta-here/749271.md?page=2)