The Fallout After Dad’s Death Is Kept Secret From World Series Starting Pitcher

When starting Kansas City Royals pitcher Edinson Volquez took the mound in Game 1 of the World Series Tuesday night, he knew he was about to face one of the most important moments of his professional career. What he didn’t know, according to the New York Times, was that one of the defining moments of his personal life had taken place earlier that day: His 63-year-old father had died of heart disease in the Dominican Republic.

Volquez’s family knew of the loss, but the Times reports that when the pitcher’s wife, Roandy, informed general manager Dayton Moore about what had happened, she asked that her husband not be told until after the game. “It was very hard for me,” Royals manager Ned Yost said in a press conference after the game. “There is no road map, but you do what the family asks you to do, and it was real special to them that Eddy goes out and pitches this game.” (Some outlets, including ESPN, Fox Sports, and the AP, are reporting that Volquez may have heard the news on his way to the game.)

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Royals officials also asked Fox announcers to withhold the news during the game, according to the Times, because Volquez often goes into the clubhouse between innings, where the TV broadcast was likely to be playing. Still, word of the pitcher’s loss made it to social media, where strangers were sharing the information long before Volquez himself reportedly received the news.

Edinson Volquez reportedly learned of his dad’s death only after pitching six innings in Game 1 of the World Series. (Photo: Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

The starter pitched six innings before he was taken out of the game and met in the clubhouse by his wife, who delivered the devastating blow. “You see Eddy out there competing his butt off, and you keep thinking, ‘Well, what’s coming next?’” Yost said, according to the Times. “The news is coming next. It kind of put a damper on things for us.”

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The game, which the Royals won 5-4 in 14 innings, lasted five hours, but Volquez left before it was over. “He was noticeably shaken,” Royals pitcher Jeremy Guthrie said, according to the Times. “He was not joking around like he usually does. He was very subdued and saddened. I patted him and told him I loved him.”

Grief experts agree that the decision to withhold the news of Volquez’s father’s death was the right one.

“You get one chance in your life sometimes to do something like pitch the World Series,” psychologist and grief expert Dr. Heidi Horsley tells Yahoo Parenting. “What an honor and a tribute and a celebration of his dad for [Volquez] to have been able to do this. Had he found out before the game, he wouldn’t have been in a head space to do it, and his father would be dead regardless of whether he played or not.”

It’s hard to know how Volquez will feel, down the line, about his family’s decision to keep the information from him, Horsley says. “I don’t know if he will one day resent that he wasn’t told earlier, but there could have certainly been resentment if they did tell him,” she points out. “It’s a beautiful tribute to his dad, and I’m sure if his dad were here, that he would have wanted [Volquez] to pitch.”

Alan Pedersen, executive director of the Compassionate Friends, an organization that assists grieving families, says Volquez’s wife did him a kindness. “Pitching a World Series game is the pinnacle of a lifetime of work for a baseball player,” Pedersen tells Yahoo Parenting. “If you look at it that way, it would have been almost cruel to tell him, since nothing is going to change. Whoever was behind that decision had the smarts to realize that and made the right choice — one that was made out of love and compassion.”

Knowing the news ahead of time, Pedersen says, would have amounted to saying, “You’ve reached the most important moment of your career, now go out on the mound in this soaking wet heavy burlap sack weighing you down, and pitch a great game.”

In general, there is no one way to break the news of a family death, Pedersen says. “Hiding it for months, or hiding from a child for years, how someone died — like not telling them that an uncle committed suicide, and just saying he went to heaven — that can elicit responses that are confusing,” he says. “But keeping that information from an adult for a few hours, I doubt it will have a long-term effect.”

Volquez hasn’t commented publicly about his loss and has reportedly returned home to the Dominican Republic, but Pedersen says the pitcher has likely not yet processed what went down on Tuesday night. “When you find out the news of a loved one’s death, you are in shock. You hear what people are saying, you see things, but nothing registers,” Pedersen says. “When it wears off — and for everyone that timing is different — that’s when you can sit down and wrap your head around it.”

It will probably be some time before Volquez even understands how he feels about the decisions that were made on his behalf. “When the grieving begins, that’s when anger, or the feeling that this was unjust, can set in,” Pedersen says. “He could feel like he had the right to know and to have decided for himself if he wanted to play. But personally, I would not have told him either. Telling him that news right before he was going to take the mound could have had a great effect on his performance in a negative way. This way, he was spared a couple of hours.”

Pedersen says grief counseling could help Volquez see the gift he was given, even if he doesn’t realize it immediately. “It’ll be interesting to see what [Volquez] says three or six months down the line,” Pedersen says. “When you are in that kind of shock, you can have physical reactions — panic attacks, vomiting — that are immediate. Do you put all that on somebody in the unique position he was in, or do you say ‘We are going to give you the gift of pitching’? If he gets good education, I believe he will see that he was given the gift of being his whole complete self to pitch that game, because once he got the news, his life will never be the same.”

(Top photo: Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

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