Adam LaRoche's sex slave rescue mission in Southeast Asia, revealed this week in an interview with ESPN The Magazine, apparently was a factor in his sudden retirement from the Chicago White Sox during spring training.
LaRoche made headlines last month when he walked away from a $13 million contract this season after the White Sox told him to cut down and then eliminate the time his teenage son Drake LaRoche spent in the clubhouse, reported
ESPN.
What the public didn't know about was the volunteer work he did in November with a nonprofit called Exodus Road, which assists authorities in Southeast Asia in saving underage teenagers from brothels, LaRoche told the magazine.
NPR reported back in 2006 that experts believed that more than one million underage children were "effectively enslaved" in Southeast Asia in the child sex industry. New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof told NPR then that many of the girls were kidnapped off the streets, drugged and ended up in brothels.
Last fall, LaRoche and friend Blaine Boyer, a pitcher for the Milwaukee Brewers, helped conduct surveillance on some of the suspected brothels to determine the age of the girls working there and identifying the bosses, said ESPN.
"Something huge happened there for us," Boyer told ESPN. "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.'"
LaRoche said he was overwhelmed by thoughts of his own kids, including his 12-year-old daughter, while doing the work.
Chicago White Sox manager Robin Ventura, told the
Chicago Tribune on Wednesday that the ballplayer's work with Exodus Road came as a completely surprise.
"I didn't know some of what was going on with him in the offseason," Ventura said. "It was news to everybody."
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