Adam LaRoche went undercover in Asia to rescue underage sex slaves
No one outside of maybe Bryce Harper made more headlines in baseball than Adam LaRoche did this spring. The on-again, off-again drama with LaRoche and his son Drake became the topic of conversation in spring training, surpassing anything that happened on the field.
As it turns out however, that pales in comparison to what LaRoche did this offseason.
A wide-ranging piece on LaRoche, retirement and everything in between was released by ESPN on Wednesday, and in it author Tim Keown explained that LaRoche worked undercover in Southeast Asia trying to catch sex traffickers.
Then there's this: LaRoche, along with Brewers pitcher Blaine Boyer, spent 10 days in November in Southeast Asian brothels, wearing a hidden camera and doing undercover work to help rescue underage sex slaves. All of which raises a question: After 12 years in the big leagues, the endless days and nights in dugouts and clubhouses, how did LaRoche's nearly cinematic level of nonconformity escape detection?
Later in the story, Keown added some more context:
Working through a nonprofit called the Exodus Road, LaRoche and Boyer conducted surveillance in brothels and tried to determine the age of the girls -- known only by numbers pinned to bikinis -- and identify their bosses.
"Something huge happened there for us," Boyer says. "You can't explain it. Can't put your finger on it. If you make a wrong move, you're getting tossed off a building. We were in deep, man, but that's the way it needed to be done. Adam and I truly believe God brought us there and said, 'This is what I have for you boys.'"
When it came time to board a flight back home, LaRoche hesitated. "I was sick," he says. "I was thinking about my kids and then thinking about the hundreds of thousands of parents who are searching for their 12-year-old daughters."
As they waited for their plane, LaRoche asked Boyer, "What are we doing? We're going back to play a game for the next eight months?"
Obviously, that's pretty heavy stuff.
It also helps explain why walking away from baseball this spring might not have been that hard for LaRoche.
