Crawford rallying after devastation
Shortstop’s play lagged last year as trauma hit family
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — You can see the change in Brandon Crawford this spring.
The man who prides himself on being a professional every day was miserable last year. He carried the burden not only of the Giants’ terrible season and a personally rough first half at the plate, but also the devastating year his family was experiencing off the field.
His wife Jalynne’s sister Jennifer died of an asthma attack just a few weeks into the season, leaving behind a husband and two daughters. Jalynne suffered two early-term miscarriages, one shortly after her sister’s death.
And another older sister of Jalynne’s, Jamie Dantzscher, was a leader in one of the biggest sexual abuse scandals in sports history, the first Olympic gymnast to break her silence.
“It was a crazy year, that’s for sure,” Crawford said, with typical understatement.
Now there is a new baby on the way, a boy due in mid-June.
A new house in North Scottsdale. Though the loss of Jen will never go away, the passage of time is helping.
And Dantzscher has been vindicated as hundreds of other victims have come forward and their abuser, Larry Nassar, will spend the rest of his life in prison. The ordeal has been more stressful without her older sister by her side.
“From Day 1, she was so supportive of me,” Dantzscher said. “It’s been really difficult to go through this without her.”
Difficult doesn’t begin to describe what the family has gone through. The baseball part seems almost trivial: Brandon Crawford had a magical first five years of his career: two world championships, a reputation as one of the game’s great defensive shortstops, three Gold Gloves and a Silver Slugger award.
“You’re definitely going to have some down years, but I don’t think anyone expected that bad of a year,” Crawford said. “I think stuff just snowballed.”
Off the field, it was an avalanche of devastation.
Dantzscher was a 2000 Olympian at 18. The team won a bronze medal (awarded years later, after the Chinese team was ruled ineligible). Dantzscher stood out in Sydney because she vocally opposed the controlling policies of team director Bela Karolyi. She went on to an All-America gymnastics career at UCLA.
Jalynne remembered her sister’s reaction when she learned about a reunion for gymnasts in San Jose, during the 2016 team trials prior to the Rio Olympics.
“I remember she was really sick to her stomach,” Jalynne said. “I didn’t really understand at the time.”
Finally, after holding the secret inside for almost two decades, Dantzscher told her family what had happened to her. That from the ages of 13 to 18, under the guise of “treatment,” she was sexually abused by Nassar.
“We all told her, ‘We support you, we are so proud of you,’ ” said Jalynne, who also was a competitive gymnast. “The Dantzscher girls are strong.”
In August of 2016, Rachael Denhollander, a club-level gymnast from Michigan, filed a police complaint against Nassar. Shortly after, Dantzscher filed a lawsuit against USA Gymnastics and Nassar. Both women spoke with the Indianapolis Star to describe the abuse. Dantzscher remained anonymous, but enough of her details — bronze medalist from the 2000 Olympics — were revealed that people figured out who it was. And another form of abuse began on social media.
“People said really nasty things about her,” Jalynne said. “They called her a whore and a liar. You really see why girls stay silent.”
For a long time, Dantzscher and Denhollander were on an island by themselves. But police set up a tip line and calls flooded in. With enough evidence to conduct a search, they found 37,000 pieces of evidence on Nassar’s computer and indicted him on federal child pornography charges.
Dantzscher turned to her family for support, especially Jennifer, the oldest of the seven siblings. Dantzscher moved from Sacramento to Southern California to live with her, so she could help with her nieces and be around supportive family as she went through her battle against Nassar and USA Gymnastics.
She moved in on April 11.
Jennifer Pippin had suffered from asthma all her life. On April 12, the 38-year old had an attack and tried her usual tricks of controlling it. Nothing worked and she was in cardiac arrest by the time the paramedics came. Dantzscher was helpless. The Crawfords immediately drove to Southern California, joining their devastated family.
“You obviously don’t want to lose games, but it’s nothing compared to losing a family member,” Crawford said. “I don’t know if I subconsciously let her death affect me on the field. I tried not to let it. I thought that was my escape from thinking about it, on the baseball field.
“But I don’t know. It could have affected me.” How could it not? After the difficult season, Crawford immersed himself in family. Settling into a new home. Taking the kids to Disneyland and Hawaii. Spending time with his nieces, who are adjusting to life without their mother. Jalynne’s twin, Janelle, is also pregnant with a boy; the sisters are due just a week apart. Another sister, Joanne, had a baby last week.
Crawford heard the opinions that the Giants should tear it all down after last year, start from scratch.
“I feel like that would be tough to do with the guys we still have here, in the middle of our careers,” he said. “I’m glad we didn’t.
“There’s the confidence our front office showed in us, to go out and get these new guys… I think we all learned from what happened.”
It’s a new season. Just as it was beginning, one part of the family’s trauma was resolved. Nassar was sentenced to a lifetime in prison. The case that Dantzscher had started has involved more than 200 victims, including some of the most decorated Olympians in recent history. It has brought down the leaders of USA Gymnastics and Michigan State. The fallout continued last week, when the head of the U.S Olympic Committee, Scott Blackmun, stepped down under pressure and gold medalist Aly Raisman filed another lawsuit against USA Gymnastics and the USOC.
“It definitely makes me feel like I made the right choice,” Dantzscher said. “It feels good that he’s going to be in jail for the rest of his life but it’s really just the beginning of a systematic failure. It feels liberating and almost surreal. It’s really important that people are finally listening to us. My main goal is to keep fighting for change.”
When things are difficult, people pull together. That’s what this family has done.
“It was a relief for Jamie, to get it off her chest,” Crawford said. “She wants to help protect girls and athletes for the future.
“We’re really proud of her.”
It was terrible year. The kind that puts everything in perspective. And can make you stronger.