All-Stars bring Hawkins together after years apart
DENVER – The harrowing telephone call came to LaTroy Hawkins’ home nearly 24 years ago.
It was his mother.
It was about Ronald, LaTroy’s younger brother.
Deborah was sobbing uncontrollably, trying to tell LaTroy the news, and he couldn’t quite make out the words.
Ronald Sewood had been convicted, along with two others, of carjacking and using a firearm in his hometown of Gary, Indiana, and now was receiving his sentence on Dec. 2, 1997, in the federal district court in Hammond, Indiana.
Three-hundred and twenty-seven months.
“I was in shock, complete shock,” Hawkins, 48, who pitched for 21 years in the major leagues, told USA TODAY Sports. “The judge didn’t say it in years. He said it in months. My God, 327 months! I had to calculate how many years that would be.”
There it was, in black and white, 27 years, 3 months.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Hawkins said. “It blows your mind. You see people get less time who are murderers and drug kingpins. Nobody got killed.
“But at the time, carjacking was new to the books. They were trying to make examples to deter people from doing that. Everybody in that era got excessive sentences, and they enhanced their sentences to the max.”
Ronald Sewood, who had the same mother and grew up together with Hawkins in Gary, missed virtually all of Hawkins’ career.
He was in prison in Greenville, Illinois, during most of Hawkins’ stint with the Twins.
He was in prison in Florence, Colorado, when Hawkins signed a free agent contract with the Cubs.
He was in prison in Milan, Michigan, during Hawkins’ World Series run with the Rockies in 2007.
And he still was in Milan when Haw
kins retired after the 2015 American League championship series with the Blue Jays.
Now, after being pardoned and released early from prison at 7:44 a.m. on Feb. 5, 2020, Ronald Sewood will be together again with his big brother.
They are in Denver for Major League Baseball’s All-Star Weekend, where Hawkins managed the American League in the Futures Game on Sunday afternoon at Coors Field.
They’ll hang out during the Home Run Derby on Monday.
They’ll sit together Tuesday and watch the 91st All-Star Game.
And, in between, meet the game’s biggest and greatest stars, from the past to the future.
“Man, I can’t even express what this means to me,” says Sewood, who is now engaged and works at a manufacturing company in Gary that makes seats for SUVs. “There’s nothing I can do to make up for lost time – and I missed a lot of time – with my family, but this will mean so much to both of us.
“I know how special my brother is because of all the struggles and challenges we had growing up, but he was able to use his talent and abilities to escape this environment. He showed us all a way out, not only with his ability to play sports, but he talked to us about family responsibilities. He was always by my side, making sure I persevered, breaking that negative stigma, and being the man I should be.
“LaTroy is not only my big brother, he’s my hero, too.”
Hawkins never abandoned his little brother during the past quarter-century. He visited him several times a year, bringing along Sewood’s two daughters (Alaya and La’Aniiah) and their mother (Deborah), who passed away unexpectedly on July 24, 2020. They spoke several times a week with Sewood permitted 300 minutes of monthly phone service, with no calls allowed for more than 15 minutes. Hawkins sent money every month so his brother could use the vending machines, along with spending thousands of dollars for online courses, newspapers and magazines.
“Ronald was never a bad person,” Hawkins said. “I knew he wasn’t the person that people said he was. He just got in trouble with the wrong guys at the wrong time. I never left his side. You learn to deal with stuff, you cope with it. I just wanted to be the most supportive big brother I could be.
“Now, to be able to experience this with my brother, I can’t tell you how excited I am. He never got to experience the big-league life with me like other brothers have, and he was such a big baseball fan. We used to dream about being in the big leagues together.”
Hawkins and Sewood played baseball together all of the time in Gary. There were games when Hawkins pitched and Sewood was behind the plate at West Side High School. And when they weren’t playing baseball or basketball, they were watching baseball on the family TV.
Sewood still remembers hitting his first home run in an organized game when he was 13, over the fence, past the gate, and into the woods. Well, guess who ran into the woods to find the ball and give it to his brother for a keepsake?
There was the picture Hawkins sent to Sewood in prison commemorating the first time he struck out future Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr., actually twice the night of July 23, 1999, before Griffey took him deep at the old Minneapolis Metrodome.
Now, they can create new memories, take hundreds of pictures together and reminisce about this weekend as long as they live. They’ll be joined, too, by one of Sewood’s best friends, Lamar Key, who’s a police officer in Aurora, Colorado. Key’s mother-in-law was the schoolteacher who put a note on Hawkins’ desk in June 1991, telling him that he was drafted in the seventh round by the Twins.
Thirty years have passed since Hawkins was drafted, 24 without having Sewood by his side, but instead of lamenting the time they lost, they’re making sure they take advantage of the years ahead.
“There’s nothing I can do to make up for the lost time, but I know the importance of spending time with your family, the responsibilities, and being the man of the household,” Sewood said. “What I did, that mistake, cost me a lot. It was disappointing, embarrassing, to be involved with people like that. I let my family down. It was so mentally challenging, and humbling. I struggled being away from my family.
“But my brother, he never judged me or looked down on me. He just told me to keep my head up and prepare a plan for when you get out. That’s what I’ve done.
“My brother, I want to make him proud, because he’s the man I want to become.”
Hawkins, who remembers the pain of his brother not being by his side at his wedding, missing all of the family holidays, with Sewood not meeting his own grandchildren until last year, says he’ll forever be grateful that their mom was still alive when Sewood got out of prison. Sewood was able to spend two months living with their 94-year-old grandfather, Eddie “Fat Sam” Williams, who passed away in May.
“My brother still has a chance to make an imprint on society,” Hawkins said. “He has all of the tools, the smarts, everything. He’s motivated to stand on his two feet and be a productive citizen.
“He missed a long time. A long, long time. We’re starting to make up for it.
“Two brothers sharing an All-Star week together, how can it be better than that?”