In the long and often torturous history of White Sox baseball, 2016 will be remembered as a season that went completely off the rails, convincing team Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf to sign off on a rebuilding plan currently in its third year.
The tipping point was Chris Sale’s uniform-slicing episode in July, but it started in spring training with the Drake LaRoche saga, when players took sides over management’s decision to ban the 14-year-old son of first baseman Adam LaRoche from traveling with the team and having his own locker in the clubhouse.
The ban led to Adam LaRoche’s shocking retirement, Sale’s verbal takedown of vice president Ken Williams and Adam Eaton’s statement: “Adam and Drake are probably the most respected people I’ve ever played with.” Eaton, of course, never played with Drake, who, as stated, was 14 at the time.
The LaRoches are long gone, Sale has a World Series ring with the Red Sox and many of the regulars on that 2016 Sox team are now scattered across the country.
But old scars never go away, as evidenced by the recent Eaton-Todd Frazier squabble.
Eaton, who had a spring training locker next to Drake, was a vocal member of Team LaRoche, along with Sale and a few other players.
Frazier was considered part of Team Rollins. Former shortstop Jimmy Rollins, who joined the Sox that spring, allegedly was the player who complained to management about the absurdity of a teenager being treated like a major-league player.
Whatever happened between Eaton and Frazier is pure conjecture, though it was a fact Eaton had to move his locker away from Frazier during the season, blaming it on an air-conditioning duct that made it too cold instead of an alleged dust-up between the two. Their chilly relationship was an open secret, but there was never any public airing of grievances, so it was kept under wraps throughout the season.
That all changed this week when Eaton and Frazier, now with the Nationals and Mets, respectively, traded insults in New York after a brief on-field exchange during Monday night’s game at Citi Field. It was a made-for-tabloids story that garnered national headlines because celebrity squabbles are the lifeblood of social media and indisputable clickbait.
“If you know Adam, every team he’s been on, you hear what people say, you understand that,” Frazier said of Eaton’s behavior. “I was part of it for a year and a half (with the Sox). … He understands where I’m coming from. He knows the past history and he’s going to have to take it. That’s it.”
Eaton responded by posing a question about the fateful 2016 season that ignited the feud.
“What happened in 2016?” he said. “He’s like an old girlfriend. I’m not going to bring it up. It’s very childish, honestly. You guys care what happened in 2016? This is 2019, guys. I’ve had a kid since then, bought a house, cars. Come on, let’s go. It’s funny. I don’t know why he’s bringing it up.”
The war of words has been the talk of baseball since. Even former White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen put in his two cents Tuesday on NBC Sports Chicago, though he was not in the organization at the time.
“Eaton, nobody liked you in a White Sox uniform in the clubhouse, OK? That’s what I know,” Guillen said directly to the camera.
Guillen has good sources, but that’s not exactly true. Adam LaRoche loved him, as did young Drake. Frazier was certainly more likable and a very popular player, though it was not unanimous.
It seldom is. Like any work situation, not everyone gets along in a baseball clubhouse. Peter Gammons, the writer and MLB Network personality, once coined the term “25 players, 25 cabs” for a particularly dysfunctional Red Sox team. That still holds true in some instances, though it has been updated to “25 players, 25 Ubers.”
Some players are more annoying to teammates than others, whether it’s Sammy Sosa blaring his boombox or former Pirate Derek Bell announcing he was going into “Operation Shutdown” when informed he had to compete for a starting job. When the Cubs suspended Milton Bradley near the end of the 2009 season, players openly cheered. “Sometimes you’ve just got to look in the mirror and realize that maybe the biggest part of the problem is yourself,” pitcher Ryan Dempster told reporters.
You have to have a pretty big ego to make it to the majors, and when big egos collide, anything can happen.
Hopefully the war between Eaton and Frazier continues, like a memorable beef between rap stars Cardi B and Nicki Minaj.
This has been a pretty dull season so far, with the Astros, Twins and Dodgers all threatening to wrap up their divisions by Memorial Day. There really is no other reason to pay attention to the Nationals or Mets, and frankly, baseball needs something to talk about besides strikeouts and home runs.
And for those of us in Chicago, it brings back memories of the 2016 Sox, the gift that keeps on giving.
Twitter @PWSullivan
