MLB star Randy Arozarena jeopardizes his career via custody incident in Mexico
In a turn of events, this outfielder for the Tampa Bay Rays jeopardized his extremely bright future in the MLB in an incident concerning his family.
Randy Arozarena with the Cuban national baseball team at the 2013 18U Baseball World Cup in Taiwan by Boomer-44. Photo is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
As the 2020 MLB season concluded and the Los Angeles Dodgers took home the title over the Tampa Rays, baseball fans from all over the country were prepared for a long offseason, assuming the excitement was over. And it was, until rising star Randy Arozarena was named the 2020 ALCS MVP. Throughout the duration of the exhilarating season, he broke the postseason record for home runs and helped lead his team to the World Series, all within his rookie year. His reputation would be deeply affected in November of 2020.
In a turn of events, there was more buzz surrounding Arozarena’s name when he was taken into Mexican police custody after getting into an altercation with his ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend while attempting to “kidnap” his daughter, inside sources told ESPN. With this story making worldwide headlines, it seemed as if Arozarena had thrown his extremely bright career away.
Videos had surfaced on the altercation, and everyone thought he was done, until ESPN reported on November 26th that all the charges were dropped and that he was exonerated. His former girlfriend did not press charges, resulting in his release.
“I think he was trying to do what was best for his daughter, however the media made it seem worse than what it was,” junior Jackson Waller says.
“He (Arozarena) was always sending money down there (to his daughter and her mother), and he was very involved in her life. I don’t want to speculate about (anything else),” Arozarena’s agent Abel Guerra said.
However, this brings up multiple questions. How will his career be affected by this event? Why would he want to kidnap his daughter? These questions, however, can only be answered by Arozarena himself. Time has passed, and the topic has seemingly faded from the headlines of the media. We likely won’t be seeing many of these questions answered, but we hope that was the end to the familial affair
Arozarena will be going into the third year of his career in the upcoming 2021-2022 season. Time will tell if he can reach the extremely high ceiling of potential that the Tampa Bay Rays believe he has, or if his career will be ruined by an event such as the incident in Mexico.
