Divorce, MLB Style

True love doesn't always conquer all.

Ben and Julianna Zobrist during happier times in Kansas City.

Ben Zobrist is one of my all-time favorite blink-and-you’ll-miss-em Kansas City Royals. Over a fourteen-year MLB career, Zobrist bounced around to several teams and became the ultimate super-utility man in the process. He played every position except catcher, and even pitched once, and racked up a career statline of .266/.357/.426, 167 HR, 768 RBI, 1,566 H, 884 R, 116 SB, .783 OPS, 113 OPS+, and 44.5 WAR.

Zobrist came to Kansas City during the 2015 season from Oakland, the team the Royals beat in the Wild Card Game the year before, as the Royals shored up their roster for the postseason. Omar Infante was struggling mightily at second base, and the Royals saw Zobrist as the answer. Of course, almost immediately after the trade was made, Alex Gordon got hurt and Infante received a brief stay of execution as Zobrist was plugged into left field. Fortunately, Gordon healed fast, and by the time the postseason rolled around, he was back in his usual position and Zobrist was the everyday second baseman.

Zobrist played his part and the Royals won the World Series, and he signed a big contract with the Cubs when he entered into free agency that offseason. The following October, he was the MVP of the World Series as the Northsiders broke their 108-year-long drought and hoisted the trophy. The guy was on the top of the world and seemed to have it all.

He had a beautiful wife and three kids. His wife, Julianna, was launching a singing career, and no doubt because of Zobrist’s influence, she sang the national anthem for the Royals and “God Bless America” at Wrigley during the 2016 World Series. He was living his dream, and the only minor knock I had on him was he was a little too religious for my taste.

Don’t misunderstand, I have no problem with anybody being religious. Personally, I’m not, but it’s a free county and people can worship however they want. I don’t even have an issue with someone being very open about their faith, as Zobrist was, so long as they aren’t actively pushing it on me or attacking someone who believes differently. And to be clear, Zobrist never struck me as that kind of guy. But it was his religious affiliations that ultimately pulled the rug out from under his dream life.

In 2019, Zobrist stepped away from the Cubs for personal reasons, and it was eventually revealed that he and his wife were separating. She engaged in a year-long affair with their pastor, who Zobrist also sued for defrauding his charity. That lawsuit was later dropped, but the damage was already done.

I couldn’t help feeling for the guy when this news broke. Not just because I admired him as a fan, but I’d been through a divorce myself a few years earlier. No, my wife didn’t sleep with our pastor, but it was still one of the most painful experiences of my life, and in my case, a large part of the blame fell on me. Just for the record, I didn’t sleep with our pastor either. We didn’t even have a pastor. Try and focus, people.

My parents did not have a particular happy marriage, but they chose to stick out. Then my mom died unexpectedly, and a few years later, my dad remarried, and I believe he found a measure of real happiness. The whole situation saddened me, however. Not because I begrudged my dad his happiness. If anything, my parents should have called it quits long before then, and he could have experienced even more years of happiness. But at least he got something. The worst part was my mom never got a chance to experience that happiness for herself. It was no one’s fault, not really, but I made up my mind I was never to stick around in a marriage gone bad.

But that’s exactly where I ended up. I certainly didn’t intend for it to happen, any more than my parents or the Zobrists did, but that’s how life works sometimes. The first few years of my relationship with my first wife were some of the happiest of my life, but then it got twisted. I won’t go into the gory details in this article, but like I said, a lot of the blame lies at my feet. Things got ugly toward the end, but I was still hesitant to leave.

By then, we had two young kids, and the prospect of not being a constant part of their lives terrified me. But it wasn’t just that either. This was my true love, the woman I’d convinced myself was my soulmate. How was I supposed to walk away from her, even if every sensible cell in my brain was telling me it was the right thing to do? Eventually, she was the one who made the call and served me with papers.

Then came the shame. I’ve failed many times in my life, but never at something that mattered so much. I was embarrassed to leave the house and be around other people. I kept it hidden from people at work for as long as I could, even as I moved into a crappy, bedbug-infested apartment across town and only got to see my kids a few days a week. I felt like I’d let them down, and I’d lost the person who mattered most to me in the world. It was the lowest point of my life.

And I was only living in a small Kansas town, dealing craps at a casino and going back to school. The only people who knew what I was going through were close family and friends. Ben Zobrist was a world-famous baseball player on one of the most popular teams in the league, so I can only imagine what it was like for him. His face was splashed across the internet and TV. Even though he’d done nothing wrong, it must have been humiliating and extremely painful. Hopefully, his faith helped him through the worst of it. That was something I didn’t have to rely on.

I don’t know where Ben Zobrist is at today. After stepping aside in 2019, he made it known he did not plan to return in 2020, and that was the end of his career. Nearly five years have passed, and I hope he and his ex-wife have found a way to be civil in the best interests of their kids. It took some time, but my ex-wife and I got there, and thankfully she never tried to keep my kids away from me. Eventually, the worst did pass. Not long after my divorce was finalized, I met the woman who became my second wife, and life has been pretty damn good ever since.

If a heathen like me can do it, surely, Zobrist’s faith can lead him out of the darkness too. Then again, I never accused my wife of cheating on me and stealing millions of dollars, so who knows? He might have a slightly steeper climb to the light.

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Thank you for reading Powder Blue Nostalgia. What are your thoughts on Ben Zobrist? Do his off-field issues change how you view his career on the field? Do you know of any other baseball love stories gone wrong? Share them in the comments.