Mother’s Day holds special meaning for O’s Adam Jones
This year, he dispatched his usual array of purple roses to his mom, Andrea Bradley, and left a special gift for his wife, Audie, who has given him two sons over the past three years. The love will have to arrive by phone, because he’ll spend the day playing the Royals in Kansas City before flying off to Detroit for the final stop on the Orioles road trip.
This is not his first Mother’s Day with a wife and kids, but every year seems to provide a greater reminder of how much those two moms have impacted his life and how mothers in general impact the world.
“You see what sacrifices mothers have to make in terms of personal careers and personal goals and aspirations for the family,” Jones said, sitting in the dugout before Wednesday night’s game at Nationals Park. “My mother, she had to make sacrifices for me and my brothers, and my wife has to make sacrifices for our two kids. They’re not the only ones. I know plenty of friends have to halt their careers and ambitions for the betterment of their families and their kids. It shows how strong these women are and sometimes how weak the men can be.”
Jones is 31 years old. He’s more than a decade into a stellar professional baseball career and has grown up as a player right before our eyes. He’s a big, strong man with well-tested principles, but he’ll be the first to admit that you’re never too old to ask your mother for advice or lean on her in a tough situation.
So, when he was peppered with racial epithets during a game at Fenway Park in Boston two weeks ago, Bradley was an immediate resource as he dealt with the understandable anger and bitterness spawned by such an incident and tried to turn it into a teachable moment.
It certainly wasn’t the first time that Jones — or any other African-American professional athlete — has heard that kind of stuff from the stands, but it struck a nerve and Jones decided it was one of those times when he had to swing back.
“The recent events that occurred, she was a very good person to talk to in that regard as someone who has been living [a lot longer than me],” he said. “She’s just able to offer me some sort of peace of mind. She knows me better than most. She knows how my mind works. She knows how to guide me through it. I think the majority of the time I guide myself through it but it’s always good to have someone else understand your thought process going through those sorts of things.”
Don’t misunderstand. She’s a mom and she was just as angry as Adam when she heard what happened — maybe more.
“Always ... 100 percent, she was angry,” Jones said. “Being around the game, she knows that kind of stuff doesn’t belong in this game. But in the same breath, she also knows that it’s understandable because she has her eyes wide open. She’s not dumb to the fact that these things do happen. It’s like we calmed each other down.”
Jones laughed when he was asked if — after all that — the only thing he was going to send his mom this year was a nice flower arrangement. Clearly, there’s a bigger picture.
“I generally just send her flowers,” he said. “The woman has just about anything she could possibly want. She’s a very spoiled woman. Don’t let her tell you anything different. She’s spoiled absolutely rotten. It’s awesome I’m able to do that.
“I give her something purple because that’s her favorite color. Just some nice purple roses. She appreciates that. I think Mother’s Day and her birthday tend to happen once or twice a month these days. It’s starting to catch up.”
Obviously, Audie Jones also gets the royal treatment. Adam said his perspective on motherhood has expanded and matured as he has watched her bring two sons into the world and raise them while he works in a profession that takes him away from home so much.
“You’ve got to honor your wives,” Jones said. “The Lord says you must relinquish all family and all that stuff for your wife. Obviously, my mother is one of the most important women in my life. My wife has not necessarily taken full reins of it, but obviously has a strong hold on me and a lot of control. My day-to-day life is my wife and my two kids.
“My wife will be getting a very, very good gift this year, but it seems like Mother’s Day and her birthday seem to be coming once or twice every month also. What’s up with this? Nobody told me this is how it works when you get older.”
If you’re waiting for a stream of nostalgic anecdotes about Bradley hovering over Jones while he played youth basketball and baseball, you’ll be disappointed. Jones points to his older brother as his major athletic influence and says his parents were too busy trying to keep up with the bills to attend many of his athletic events.
“The sacrifices that they make, you’ve got to respect it,” he said. “Sometimes you don’t always agree with it. Of course, I would have loved for my mom to be at all of my games as a kid like other people’s parents, but she was doing her thing and she made the sacrifices that enabled me to have food on the table so I could be big and strong to play those games — keeping the lights on and cable and all those things that some people take for granted.
“I tip my cap to my parents for keeping the lights on so me and my brothers could run up the bill. Having food available all the time so we could eat it all. Until you get older, you don’t appreciate the little things.”
Pressed for the most important thing his mom impressed upon him while he was growing up and growing into a major league superstar, Jones said it was pretty simple.
“She just always told me to be me, to be myself,” Jones said. “So far, it has worked.”
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