WHEN DOES HANGING OUT WITH DAD CROSS THE LINE?
As White Sox player walks away from baseball, and $13 million, after a dispute with the team regarding his son, Jays’ Cecil advocates ’common-sense rules’ on kids in the clubhouse.
DUNEDIN, FLA.— Being a major-league dad with children in the clubhouse is kind of like being a father with kids in a shopping mall, Blue Jays reliever Brett Cecil says.
“I’m sure guys who bring their kids in here make sure their kids know the rules of the clubhouse,” says Cecil, whose six-year-old son Bryton has been a visitor to the Jays clubhouse.
“My son is six and he knows the rules, he knows you go where Daddy goes, you don’t touch anything, and if you want something, you ask Daddy, and that’s it.”
At the Chicago White Sox spring training camp in Arizona, the club asked first baseman Adam LaRoche to scale back visits from his now 14-year-old son, Drake, who was in the team’s clubhouse on a daily basis through camp.
Drake LaRoche spent much of the 2015 season with his father, and even had a locker in the White Sox clubhouse at U.S. Cellular Field.
He reportedly goes to a regular school when they’re home and does home-schooling on the road.
“I don’t think he should be here 100 per cent of the time — and he has been here100 per cent, every day, in the clubhouse,” White Sox team president Ken Williams told Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports, while stressing that everybody loves LaRoche’s son.
“I said that I don’t even think he should be here 50 per cent of the time. Figure it out, somewhere in between.”
That request prompted the14-year veteran LaRoche to retire and forgo the final year of his contract, which paid him $13 million (U.S.).
ESPN reported that LaRoche’s teammates threatened to boycott Wednesday’s game against Milwaukee before Sox manager Robin Ventura convinced them otherwise.
White Sox players fully supported LaRoche and his son, especially during the spring schedule, which is strictly exhibition and does not count towards anything.
That sentiment was echoed by fathers on the Jays team like Cecil, who also has a son, Bronson, 2, and hopes to have him in the Toronto clubhouse as well.
Cecil said he had no problem with LaRoche’s son being in the clubhouse all the time. But Cecil stressed what he called common-sense rules regarding sons and daughters hanging out with major-leaguers. Cecil said he observes certain limits, like keeping his son out of the clubhouse after tough losses.
“I’m all for bringing kids into the clubhouse, it’s something special, you’re with the best players in the world, your kids get to see them, they get to hang out with the best there is. It’s not something that a lot of kids get the opportunity to do,” Cecil said.
“To take that away from them just seems wrong . . . obviously, if a kid doesn’t listen, it’s best to keep him out. But I know the players supported (LaRoche) and they wouldn’t have if they had a problem with (a kid in the clubhouse). I’ve seen (Drake) on hunting shows with Adam and the kid seems like he’s very well behaved.”
David Zweig, associate professor of organizational behaviour and hu- man resources at the University of Toronto, told the Star’s Laura Armstrong it’s not unreasonable for the White Sox or any other company to set criteria around how often its employees bring their children to work.
“Obviously if your kids are at work with you, your attention is going to be divided,” Zweig said.
There needs to be understanding on both ends, he said.
That doesn’t mean employees, even a major-league player who might have more freedom and autonomy than in a normal job, can take advantage to the point where they’re ex- pecting their employers to allow them to bring their children to work frequently.
“You’re at work,” Zweig said. “You need to perform. You need to live up to your job duties. You need to do what you need to do to be effective. You can’t expect that the employer is going to turn (the workplace) into a daycare.”
The fallout between LaRoche and the White Sox spotlights MLB’s long tradition of father-son bonding at the ballpark.
Cecil Fielder, then a Blue Jays first baseman, used to bring his slugger-to-be son, Prince, to Exhibition Stadium. Ken Griffey and his son would hang out in the Reds clubhouse with the younger Griffey later becoming a Hall of Famer.
Jays prospect Dickie Thon Jr., called up from minor-league camp Thursday for the Jays game against the Canadian junior team, recalled his father being “old school” about limiting his son’s access to the field, clubhouse and players.
“He wouldn’t allow me out there when the pros were on the field,” said Thon, 24, whose father was a 15-year big-league veteran before he retired in 1993.
“I had to be there like two hours before everyone else if I was gonna be on the field, it’d be me and him. But things change . . . I see a lot of kids on the field and in the clubhouse these days and I have no problem with it.”