"You need to forget everything you think you know about professional athletes. ADAM LAROCHE is different," writes TIM KEOWN in his ESPN THE MAGAZINE profile of the recently retired WHITE SOX first baseman. We learn that LAROCHE, who famously walked away from the game, leaving $13 million in 2016 salary on the table, after the team told him his son could no longer hang around the clubhouse every day, doesn't have a favorite baseball team and doesn't generally follow the game. He never knew who all his teammates were until he showed up to work each spring. He understands how strange and lucky it is that he got paid millions of bucks to play a game. He doesn't care how his kids are doing in school as long as they're nice to their classmates and teachers. He knows he sucked in 2015 but thought he would have been better this year. Instead, he's currently on an open-ended RV trip to nowhere with his family. Oh, and he and MILWAUKEE BREWERS pitcher BLAINE BOYER spent NOVEMBER wearing hidden cameras in Southeast Asian brothels to help rescue underage sex slaves. In other words, meet your new favorite baseball player who you didn't know was your favorite baseball player until it was too late. KEOWN's thesis question: "After 12 year in the big leagues … how did LAROCHE's nearly cinematic level of nonconformity escape detection?"… Your other new favorite baseball player is MYLES THOMAS, a real-life not-very-good pitcher for the 1927 YANKEES whose fictionalized diary is the basis for a historical baseball novel by DOUGLAS ALDEN that ESPN and MEDIUM will be rolling out over the course of the season... The WORLD ANTI-DOPING AGENCY says "oops" in re that whole meldonium thing, in which it has so far ensnared 172 athletes including MARIA SHARAPOVA. Which leads to the question of not only why are you banning a drug you don't fully understand, but why are you banning an over-the-counter drug that's so widely used in the first place?... Behind the scenes of an NBA hotel... The wide world of soccer gender pay gaps... Drone racing coming to ESPN... Possibly the greatest ultimate frisbee play ever... Way after our deadline, the WARRIORS either did or didn't win game 73 last night. We're just going to assume you're already up on that one.