ALinChainz
10-21-2004, 06:53 PM
By Fred Girard / The Detroit News
Cecil Fielder, the Tigers slugger who became a home-run maestro in the 1990s, plans to repay the millions of dollars in debt he has run up.
And, he said, he was saddened to learn that his son, Prince, 20, and daughter, Ceclynn, 12, want no part of their father.
“I’m going to be a man about it,” Fielder said Tuesday about his debt-repayment plan, speaking on his cell phone from Atlanta, where he lives. “I’m going to take care of all my responsibilities. But I’m not going to talk another thing about it, because, at the end of the day, everything is going to be OK. That’s all you guys need to know, because the rest of it, that’s on me.”
The News, citing public records and interviews with family and business associates, reported that Fielder threw away more than $47 million — his family’s entire fortune — on bad business decisions and an unstoppable gambling compulsion.
Through all his troubles — a welter of debts, liens, lawsuits and process servers, and a bitter divorce dispute with his wife, Stacey — Fielder said at least he remained a good father.
“One thing I’ve got to say about this whole ordeal is that anybody that knows me knows I’m a good person and I would never, ever, do anything to neglect my children,” he said.
Ceclynn and Prince, however, disagree with that assessment.
“My dad ... I just don’t know him,” Ceclynn said in a telephone interview, speaking in the presence of her mother and brother.
“My father is dead to me,” said Prince Fielder, now a minor-league baseball player in the Milwaukee organization.
Cecil Fielder, 41, said he was saddened by his children’s remarks.
“The only thing I can say about my son, because I want you to know, like everybody else knows in Detroit, (is) that I have done everything in my power to make sure that boy has gotten to where he’s gotten,” Fielder said. “The little girl is a 12-year-old, she’s going to react the way her mother and her brother react, but, in his case? That kid has gotten everything I had to give, and for him to have that kind of comment, that’s sad. But in a divorce as brutal as this has been, it’s going to happen.
“This has been one of the worst periods of my life.”
Hard times
Prince Fielder said his relationship with his father began deteriorating more than two years ago.
First, he said, his father kept $200,000 of Prince’s $2.4 million signing bonus without permission. Then, one of the many process servers chasing Cecil Fielder, and unable to find him, served papers on Prince instead, embarrassing him in front of his teammates and coaches.
But the final straw, he said, was when his sister went to Atlanta recently in an attempt to talk her father into giving more support to her mother. She found her father living in a $5,000-a-month penthouse with a woman. When Ceclynn called that situation unfair, and asked for more support for his mother, her father “slapped her in the face” in public, Prince Fielder said.
Cecil Fielder disputed the story.
“Ceclynn never got slapped in the face,” he said. “Her mother sent Ceclynn up to go to school here, and you know, I lived with a young lady. Ceclynn (was) in the beauty parlor — her mother sends her up here to get everything done so she doesn’t have to pay for anything. Anyway, Ceclynn got out of line and said some grown folks’ business.”
After the incident, Prince said, his sister came up with the plan to ask a lawyer to have their father legally removed as their parent.
“I’m her big brother, the only male in her life that she’s had, and I’m trying to do my best,” he said. “Things like this mess up little girls, and I don’t want her ever feeling bad about herself or feeling that she is the one who caused the divorce between my mom and dad. My dad just left my mom, it wasn’t because of her. I don’t think it’s fair for Ceclynn to feel like that, so whatever she’s trying to do, I just want her to feel right. She’s really serious about it, and I want to support her.”
Prince Fielder said his sister has tried to call their father on several occasions and left messages, but Cecil Fielder wouldn’t return them.
“So I told her, ‘If that’s what you want to do (divorce Cecil Fielder), I’ll do it with you, because I understand and I feel the same way. If that’s what you want to do, I’ll go with you and we’ll both do it together.’
“She’s vowed she never wants to see him or speak to him again. I don’t blame her. I’ve got a (2-month-old) son now, and if I ever slapped him in the face for asking a valid question, I wouldn’t expect him to want to talk to me, either.”
Prince Fielder said his issues with his father stem not only from his concern for his sister, but also from a financial disagreement.
Prince Fielder said that when he signed with the Milwaukee Brewers in June 2002, his father offered to act as his agent and handle his $2.4 million bonus, including hiring a friend of Cecil’s as a financial manager.
“He said he’d always had all these agents around him who made enough money off of him, and he wanted his son to be able to keep the first little piece of money he got,” Prince Fielder said. “I was like, ‘All right, I don’t think you know what you’re doing, but you’ve been around baseball enough, you have enough respect that I don’t think they’ll try to mess over you.’ ”
Prince Fielder said the problem started when he wanted to buy a truck with part of his signing bonus. His father suggested Prince pay him $200,000 as an agent’s commission, but added, “I’ll give it back to you so you won’t have to pay taxes on it, and you can buy your truck.”
Prince Fielder said he learned the financial adviser already had given his father the $200,000 without asking what it was for.
“I never in a million years thought my dad would steal from me,” Prince Fielder said. “But he kept all of it, and I never saw any of it again. My dad could have asked for $2.5 million from me, and I’d have gave it to him if he asked me. I would have helped my dad in any way possible if he had just come to me and asked.
“But he likes hiding everything when he’s got problems, and instead of asking for help, he just messes everybody up like he did here. He messed up a whole family. I hope whatever he messed it up for was worth it.”
Cecil Fielder wouldn’t discuss his son’s remarks, saying his bitter divorce lies behind all the hostility.
“I’m not going to elaborate on what happened in my personal business with my wife,” he said. “I’ve moved on with my life and got into a new relationship, and, you know, this is the part that probably hurts them worse than anything.”
Trying to rebuild
Stacey Fielder, meanwhile, says she remains hard up financially and is looking for work.
On Tuesday afternoon, she applied for a sales-clerk job at a shopping-center boutique in Orlando, near where she and her daughter live in uncomfortably close quarters with Prince, his fiancee, and their baby.
“I have to do what I have to do,” she said. “Things are getting really, really tight.”
She refuses to live off her son’s money, she said.
Only a few years ago, she was living in the largest, richest mansion in central Florida — a 50-room palace sprawled across six lots.
She cannot help, she says, but think of what her family lost.
“Over my husband’s career, he made close to $60 million ($47 million in salary alone),” she said. “In 1998, when I got run over by a car, we had $21 million, $10.4 (million) of that was cash, and the rest was our assets.”
It was during her recuperation from the near-fatal accident, she said, that the Fielder fortune, which she had always managed, began trickling, then pouring, into glitzy casinos and poor business choices.
“Right now, I’m really devastated, really hurt,” she said. “I’ve got to think about how I’m going to move forward from the place where I basically started with Cecil.
“I started with Cecil with nothing. I’ve been with him since I was 14 years old. I was in the minor leagues with him, and while he was doing his career I worked three jobs at one time to feed him.
“I didn’t know anything about baseball. I just knew it was his dream.”
http://www.detnews.com/2004/tigers/0410/21/f01-311090.htm
Cecil Fielder, the Tigers slugger who became a home-run maestro in the 1990s, plans to repay the millions of dollars in debt he has run up.
And, he said, he was saddened to learn that his son, Prince, 20, and daughter, Ceclynn, 12, want no part of their father.
“I’m going to be a man about it,” Fielder said Tuesday about his debt-repayment plan, speaking on his cell phone from Atlanta, where he lives. “I’m going to take care of all my responsibilities. But I’m not going to talk another thing about it, because, at the end of the day, everything is going to be OK. That’s all you guys need to know, because the rest of it, that’s on me.”
The News, citing public records and interviews with family and business associates, reported that Fielder threw away more than $47 million — his family’s entire fortune — on bad business decisions and an unstoppable gambling compulsion.
Through all his troubles — a welter of debts, liens, lawsuits and process servers, and a bitter divorce dispute with his wife, Stacey — Fielder said at least he remained a good father.
“One thing I’ve got to say about this whole ordeal is that anybody that knows me knows I’m a good person and I would never, ever, do anything to neglect my children,” he said.
Ceclynn and Prince, however, disagree with that assessment.
“My dad ... I just don’t know him,” Ceclynn said in a telephone interview, speaking in the presence of her mother and brother.
“My father is dead to me,” said Prince Fielder, now a minor-league baseball player in the Milwaukee organization.
Cecil Fielder, 41, said he was saddened by his children’s remarks.
“The only thing I can say about my son, because I want you to know, like everybody else knows in Detroit, (is) that I have done everything in my power to make sure that boy has gotten to where he’s gotten,” Fielder said. “The little girl is a 12-year-old, she’s going to react the way her mother and her brother react, but, in his case? That kid has gotten everything I had to give, and for him to have that kind of comment, that’s sad. But in a divorce as brutal as this has been, it’s going to happen.
“This has been one of the worst periods of my life.”
Hard times
Prince Fielder said his relationship with his father began deteriorating more than two years ago.
First, he said, his father kept $200,000 of Prince’s $2.4 million signing bonus without permission. Then, one of the many process servers chasing Cecil Fielder, and unable to find him, served papers on Prince instead, embarrassing him in front of his teammates and coaches.
But the final straw, he said, was when his sister went to Atlanta recently in an attempt to talk her father into giving more support to her mother. She found her father living in a $5,000-a-month penthouse with a woman. When Ceclynn called that situation unfair, and asked for more support for his mother, her father “slapped her in the face” in public, Prince Fielder said.
Cecil Fielder disputed the story.
“Ceclynn never got slapped in the face,” he said. “Her mother sent Ceclynn up to go to school here, and you know, I lived with a young lady. Ceclynn (was) in the beauty parlor — her mother sends her up here to get everything done so she doesn’t have to pay for anything. Anyway, Ceclynn got out of line and said some grown folks’ business.”
After the incident, Prince said, his sister came up with the plan to ask a lawyer to have their father legally removed as their parent.
“I’m her big brother, the only male in her life that she’s had, and I’m trying to do my best,” he said. “Things like this mess up little girls, and I don’t want her ever feeling bad about herself or feeling that she is the one who caused the divorce between my mom and dad. My dad just left my mom, it wasn’t because of her. I don’t think it’s fair for Ceclynn to feel like that, so whatever she’s trying to do, I just want her to feel right. She’s really serious about it, and I want to support her.”
Prince Fielder said his sister has tried to call their father on several occasions and left messages, but Cecil Fielder wouldn’t return them.
“So I told her, ‘If that’s what you want to do (divorce Cecil Fielder), I’ll do it with you, because I understand and I feel the same way. If that’s what you want to do, I’ll go with you and we’ll both do it together.’
“She’s vowed she never wants to see him or speak to him again. I don’t blame her. I’ve got a (2-month-old) son now, and if I ever slapped him in the face for asking a valid question, I wouldn’t expect him to want to talk to me, either.”
Prince Fielder said his issues with his father stem not only from his concern for his sister, but also from a financial disagreement.
Prince Fielder said that when he signed with the Milwaukee Brewers in June 2002, his father offered to act as his agent and handle his $2.4 million bonus, including hiring a friend of Cecil’s as a financial manager.
“He said he’d always had all these agents around him who made enough money off of him, and he wanted his son to be able to keep the first little piece of money he got,” Prince Fielder said. “I was like, ‘All right, I don’t think you know what you’re doing, but you’ve been around baseball enough, you have enough respect that I don’t think they’ll try to mess over you.’ ”
Prince Fielder said the problem started when he wanted to buy a truck with part of his signing bonus. His father suggested Prince pay him $200,000 as an agent’s commission, but added, “I’ll give it back to you so you won’t have to pay taxes on it, and you can buy your truck.”
Prince Fielder said he learned the financial adviser already had given his father the $200,000 without asking what it was for.
“I never in a million years thought my dad would steal from me,” Prince Fielder said. “But he kept all of it, and I never saw any of it again. My dad could have asked for $2.5 million from me, and I’d have gave it to him if he asked me. I would have helped my dad in any way possible if he had just come to me and asked.
“But he likes hiding everything when he’s got problems, and instead of asking for help, he just messes everybody up like he did here. He messed up a whole family. I hope whatever he messed it up for was worth it.”
Cecil Fielder wouldn’t discuss his son’s remarks, saying his bitter divorce lies behind all the hostility.
“I’m not going to elaborate on what happened in my personal business with my wife,” he said. “I’ve moved on with my life and got into a new relationship, and, you know, this is the part that probably hurts them worse than anything.”
Trying to rebuild
Stacey Fielder, meanwhile, says she remains hard up financially and is looking for work.
On Tuesday afternoon, she applied for a sales-clerk job at a shopping-center boutique in Orlando, near where she and her daughter live in uncomfortably close quarters with Prince, his fiancee, and their baby.
“I have to do what I have to do,” she said. “Things are getting really, really tight.”
She refuses to live off her son’s money, she said.
Only a few years ago, she was living in the largest, richest mansion in central Florida — a 50-room palace sprawled across six lots.
She cannot help, she says, but think of what her family lost.
“Over my husband’s career, he made close to $60 million ($47 million in salary alone),” she said. “In 1998, when I got run over by a car, we had $21 million, $10.4 (million) of that was cash, and the rest was our assets.”
It was during her recuperation from the near-fatal accident, she said, that the Fielder fortune, which she had always managed, began trickling, then pouring, into glitzy casinos and poor business choices.
“Right now, I’m really devastated, really hurt,” she said. “I’ve got to think about how I’m going to move forward from the place where I basically started with Cecil.
“I started with Cecil with nothing. I’ve been with him since I was 14 years old. I was in the minor leagues with him, and while he was doing his career I worked three jobs at one time to feed him.
“I didn’t know anything about baseball. I just knew it was his dream.”
http://www.detnews.com/2004/tigers/0410/21/f01-311090.htm