NBC appearance about more than baseball for former big-leaguers

At their origin, the Kansas Stars were simply a baseball project.

Adam LaRoche and Nate Robertson, native Kansans with major-league experience, rounded up some friends for a week in Wichita to play in the National Baseball Congress World Series. Details beyond that were barely considered.

“The guys we were thinking it could help were the guys who have been out of the game who would just love the opportunity to compete again,” LaRoche said by phone this week. “I’ve talked to so many guys over my career who love being retired and don’t miss the grind, but they miss that competition that you can’t get on the golf course or anywhere else.”

The Stars’ purposes began to change during the tournament last year. They donated to local charities and gave back their prize money to other teams in the World Series. It’s an approach they’re expanding this year as LaRoche launches his E3 Foundation with a benefit concert at Kansas Star Arena on July 30.

The Stars have donated 3,000 tickets – about 75 percent of the arena’s capacity – to military members for the concert headlined by country singer Craig Morgan and featuring Stars pitcher Jake Peavy and his band the Outsiders.

LaRoche’s foundation addresses military and veterans’ causes, and fights sex trafficking, an issue that the former Nationals, Braves, Pirates and White Sox first baseman wasn’t necessarily expecting to become close to his heart.

“I have no idea other than, I think it was something God kind of showed me a few years ago and kept putting into my life through different people,” LaRoche said. “Finally I was like, OK, I’ll listen. Four years ago I couldn’t have told you what the word trafficking meant. It never even crossed my mind, other than I think that’s something that happens in third-world countries.

“I ended up taking my first trip two years ago, and it really wrecked me, spiritually, when I came back and saw how devastating it was.”

The Laroche foundation’s causes are sacred to Morgan, who works closely with veterans groups, and to Peavy, the National League Cy Young Award winner for the San Diego Padres in 2007.

Peavy, who plans a return to major-league baseball next season after taking this year off, discovered his love for playing music with influence from Tim Flannery, the third-base coach for the San Francisco Giants when Peavy pitched for them.

Flannery talked Peavy into opening for him at a show in the summer of 2015, on an off-day for the Giants.

“That was the first time that I had ever played with anybody,” Peavy said. “I just put a group of my buddies together, which is still what it is. Since then, I’ve just been out doing charity stuff. Playing music when the time is right. We own a studio in Mobile, Ala., so there’s no shortage of guys that can play with me and love to write.”

LaRoche’s foundation was instrumental in bringing Peavy and other players to the Stars.

“When you wrap music around a charitable night, everybody feels the neighborly love that’s in the room,” Peavy said. “Everybody who bought a ticket to come, whether it be the active or retired servicemen and women who get to come, everybody’s grateful and feels good about what they’re doing.”

The Stars’ impact in Wichita goes beyond charitable work. The added revenue from Stars games – they filled Lawrence-Dumont Stadium for three pool-play games last year – trickles down to the other teams who play at the NBC World Series.

“The Stars really help our community and certainly the event itself,” tournament director Kevin Jenks said. “Just because of the additional revenue, we’re able to increase our team compensation. We’re paying back more to our teams this year, dramatically.”

Even though it wasn’t the initial thought, the Stars – especially LaRoche and Robertson, who spurs the efforts toward local charities – have embraced their role as philanthropists. Baseball has become secondary as LaRoche’s foundation becomes a foundation for future Stars appearances.

“In the past, we’ve just kind of funded the stuff we do,” LaRoche said. “In the past three or four years, getting more involved in the sex trafficking issue and working with veterans … we did a ton with them. That’s when we sat down and were like OK, it’s probably time to set up something a little more formal, a platform to work off of.

“The foundation is new. The work is not new at all.”

This story was originally published July 23, 2017 at 5:19 PM with the headline "NBC appearance about more than baseball for former big-leaguers."