Faced with the possibility that another blow to his head might ruin his life, Jason LaRue retired from Major League Baseball about a month after a bench-clearing brawl between the Cardinals and Reds in 2010. It was on Aug. 10 that season that LaRue, playing for St. Louis, was repeatedly kicked in the face by Johnny Cueto, who had been pinned against the backstop behind home plate by a scrum of players continuing the fight.
With Cueto in the news for pitching a complete-game victory for the Royals in Game 2 of the World Series on Wednesday night, columnist Benjamin Hochman of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wanted to see how it set with LaRue 5 1/2 years out from the moments that persuaded him to stop playing forever.
It might surprise some that LaRue, now 41 years old, still suffers from concussion symptoms related to the fight. He definitely feels it when he works out strenuously, he told Hochman, and it bothers his sons -- ages 15, 12 and 10 -- to see Cueto on TV, because it brings back memories of the fight and the end of his career.
It also might surprise some to realize that LaRue says he holds no animosity toward Cueto. Instead, he is grateful to have been warned about the dangers of sustaining another concussion, because another brain trauma could have transformed LaRue's personality into something other than what it remains. Hochman writes:
He said numerous times that he doesn’t hold a grudge, and emphasized to me that he wanted this column “to be respectful and not malicious.” We can feel bad for how his career ended, but I sense he doesn’t want us to feel bad for him. There are lessons in his class. And there are lessons in his story.
It can’t be said enough — concussions aren’t your father’s concussions. We know so much more about them now. It was easy for the LaRues of 10 years ago to try to man up and play through them, because if you can’t see an injury, how bad could it really be? But as the wiser LaRue said, the true definition of a man doesn’t have anything to do with playing through pain. It has everything to do with being there for the ones you love, and sometimes, that means making sacrifices involving the sport you love.
Here's video of the fight, which is hard to watch even if it's hard to make out LaRue getting kicked.
You can see Cueto kicking, and you know LaRue is in there somewhere. Cueto was not among those ejected from the game, possibly because umpires determined his actions were in self-defense. The league apparently considered Cueto's actions to be overreactions and suspended him for seven games. It was said that LaRue considered suing Cueto for a time before he decided against it.
LaRue's career probably was coming to an end soon regardless of the brawl, and while he wanted to go out on his own terms, it didn't work out that way. But there is more to his life than baseball. So, LaRue does not blame, and while the word "forgive" does not appear in Hochman's column, LaRue makes it clear he does not forget. When it comes to concussions, not being able to forget is actually a blessing.
