Back when he was a Dodger, Dee Gordon had an idea. He wanted to help kids. Specifically, he wanted to help kids who knew the pain he suffered as a child.
Gordon, 29, lost his mother to a fatal gunshot when he was just 6 years old. Devona Strange was 25. Her boyfriend was convicted of manslaughter and served five years in prison. Gordon’s family rallied to give him something resembling a normal childhood. His father, former major league pitcher Tom Gordon, provided some footsteps to follow.
As he rose through the Dodgers organization, Gordon chose to focus his energy on establishing himself in the majors. By the time he was traded to the Miami Marlins in December 2015, Gordon was entering his fifth season. He was ready to give his idea some wings.
Now, for the second consecutive year, children exposed to domestic violence are attending Marlins games for free through Gordon’s Flash of Hope charity.
“The first was a family,” Gordon said. “The mom actually survived. She got shot 13 times. She was there with the kids. One of her oldest daughters witnessed it. She was in the car when the dad shot her. It’s crazy.”
Gordon meets with the Flash of Hope kids privately. He said he does not seek publicity or accept donations. (The charity isn’t a registered non-profit, rather a partnership between Gordon and the Marlins.) His goal is to make a lasting impression.
“I just know my mom would be happy with me for being able to help these people, and sticking up for people,” he said.
In a sport with a short but conspicuous list of domestic violence headlines, Gordon is a vocal advocate for victims. That’s rare. The four major North American professional sports leagues have all instituted or revised their domestic violence policies in the last three years, but few athletes take up the cause on their own.
Prior to a recent game between the Marlins and the Dodgers, Gordon spoke at length about the children he’s helped through Flash of Hope. He spoke candidly about his own upbringing and the impact of losing his mother at a young age.
That made Gordon’s take on players who have been disciplined under MLB’s policy all the more fascinating. The policy was instituted two years ago Monday. Four players have been suspended. Yet Gordon drew a firm line when talking about his peers who have perpetrated domestic violence themselves.
“I don’t get into that,” he said. “I don’t want to get into anybody’s personal business. I just want to help children.
“I mean, I know what I’m not supposed to do,” Gordon continued. “I can’t tell you what another man’s not supposed to do. We were raised in two different households. You never know. I can’t tell you like, oh, a guy shouldn’t have done that, because I don’t know what the guy was brought up into. But me personally I don’t do that.”
If Gordon isn’t the most outspoken advocate for domestic violence victims in baseball, it’s Joe Torre. The former Dodgers manager and current MLB executive was instrumental in shaping the league’s policy, which was instituted in August 2015. Like Gordon, domestic violence is part of his past. He understands why Gordon draws the line where he does.
“I don’t think anybody is comfortable talking about it,” Torre said.
Also like Gordon, Torre shares his story willingly. His father, Joe Torre Sr., was a New York City police officer. Once, he said, he saw his father pull a revolver on his mother. He never witnessed any physical abuse that he can recall, but Torre remembers hearing his father throwing objects against a wall from a different room of their house.
The youngest of five children, “my older siblings were trying to protect me all the time,” Torre said.
Torre does have a registered charity. The Safe At Home Foundation has a stated mission of “educating to end the cycle of domestic violence and save lives.” In 2015, the foundation reported $3.3 million in contributions and grants to the IRS.
Like Gordon, Torre chooses to focus his resources on children. According to the Safe at Home website, the foundation has reached almost 60,000 children through individual and group counseling, a violence prevention curriculum in schools, and other awareness campaigns.
“Does it mean the abuse will stop in their homes? No, but it’s going to give them the tools to deal with and it’s going to make them realize that there is a future for them out there,” Torre said.
As a young player, Torre said, he was moody. He was afraid of his father. He buried feelings of shame inside. This demon played out on the field, where it at least served a purpose.
“I felt I had to get hits for me to be worthy of helping (my team),” Torre said. “If we lost the game and I didn’t get any hits, I felt totally responsible.”
But Torre couldn’t reflect on this, publicly or privately, until December 1995. He remembers the moment. It was a self-help event in Cincinnati. By the end of the four-day symposium, this 55-year-old man was sobbing with strangers. A flip had been switched.
“Once that happened, I wanted to talk about it,” Torre said. “It sort of made me feel free.”
Other survivors haven’t flipped the switch yet. They haven’t reflected on their own experience. Maybe they can’t. Maybe they don’t want to if, like Torre, it provides a powerful intrinsic source of motivation on the field.
Torre wouldn’t say whether he believes the average baseball player is more likely to have first-hand experience with domestic violence growing up compared to the rest of us. However, if there are adult survivors in baseball, Torre acknowledged the basic problem with trying to reach them through training and education: “Players are still a little reluctant to give into the fact that there’s a demon in there somewhere.”
Under baseball’s collectively bargained policy, players undergo mandatory domestic violence training once a year in spring training. MLB conscripted a San Francisco-based nonprofit, Futures Without Violence, to spearhead its training program. The nonprofit is also part of MLB’s joint committee on domestic violence, a collaboration between the players’ union and the commissioner’s office.
“We’re advising on educational strategies as well,” said Rachael Smith Fals, the senior vice president, public engagement and corporate relations for Futures Without Violence. “We haven’t moved beyond spring training but that is the goal.”
Should that be the goal, though?
Players from six MLB teams, all of whom went through the mandatory domestic violence program this year, had mixed reactions to this question. Some acknowledged the value in being able to talk openly about a personal issue with teammates. On the other other hand, how many guys really need more domestic violence training?
“I commend their efforts for getting the guys to not be beating on their wives and stuff,” Gordon said. “It didn’t take nobody to tell me that losing my mom to a man – I know not to put my hands on a woman. I don’t need formal training to tell me not to put my hand on a woman.”
Angels pitcher Matt Shoemaker, the team’s representative to the players’ union, said “you have a pretty good idea you’ll never be in that situation. But that’s where you can’t comment on other people’s situations and scenarios. It’s tough to even comment on other people’s situations because you have to realize you weren’t there.”
Jose Reyes was there. The New York Mets infielder allegedly grabbed his wife by the throat and shoved her into a door in October 2015. A police report was filed and Reyes was arrested on misdemeanor charges of abusing a family member. The charges were eventually dropped.
In 2016, Reyes became the second player suspended under baseball’s domestic violence policy. He missed 52 games without pay.
“It’s always good to have that in spring training,” Reyes said of the training program.
Beyond that, Reyes said, “I don’t feel too comfortable talking about that. … It’s hard for me. I’m kind of sensitive. I’ve talked a lot about that kind of stuff so far. I try to put it behind me.”
Coincidentally, on the same April night that Mets pitcher Jeurys Familia returned from his own domestic violence suspension, Torre’s Safe at Home Foundation held its annual Los Angeles dinner at the Hotel Bel-Air. Torre said he measures the success of baseball’s policy not through a lack of suspensions but through the effectiveness of its educational training. That makes success difficult to quantify, if not impossible.
“Going in once a year is not enough to change a culture,” Smith Fals said. “In terms of deep, long-term, sustainable, cultural change, it has to be ongoing. We always do evaluations of our programs with people who participate in the sessions. We’re not at the point yet where we’d even be willing to evaluate our success.”
