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Family feud Everett facing issues on and off the field
By Josie Karp, CNNSI.com Carl Everett posted All-Star numbers over the first half of his first season in Boston. But here in the second half, he is gaining notoriety for an on-field explosion that has nothing to do with his prowess at the plate. This is nothing new for Everett, who has faced character questions before. Carl Everett's home-plate meltdown on July 15, during which he appeared to head-butt umpire Ron Kulpa, might have been the singular event capable of overwhelming his play this season. Before the incident, Everett's dominance in winning over a new team and a new town was complete. "I think I bring another attitude to this team," Everett said to CNN/Sports Illustrated in an April interview. "I have no fear of any part of this game. I fear no pitcher. I fear no opposing team. You know, I go out there to beat you. You're human. I'm human. I'm going to make mistakes, but I feel that I'm going to minimize mine and you're going to make more than me." After being traded from the Houston Astros to the Red Sox in December, Everett stayed out on pace to make this season his most productive. He became a Fenway favorite in part because of his numbers and in part for the same reasons that undermined him on Saturday. Everett gave off the appearance of being a player who would say or do anything. "Sometimes by my being brutally honest a lot of people take me to be arrogant, cocky," he said. "I don't mind that. That's your prerogative to view me the way you want to, but to me if I don't perceive me as who I am then what can other people take me for? So, you know. I'm just going to be myself, regardless how people view me. " The Red Sox organization is the fifth Everett's been associated with since being drafted by the Yankees in 1990. After stints with the Marlins, Mets and Astros, the 29-year-old Florida native who says he welcomes criticism may have found he opened himself up to a deluge of it with his behavior. "When I suck I want you to let me know that I suck because that's what's gonna make me step up my game a little bit. You know, a lot of guys don't like that, [but] it doesn't make my skin crawl by booing me. Sometimes it enhances it." Off the field Everett has taken steps to shield his family from the scrutiny that accompanies celebrity. Unlike most players, his entry in the Red Sox media guide does not list his five children. But in his hometown of Tampa, Carl Everett the father is being scrutinized. A judge in Florida is trying to determine whether Everett should retain custody of his 8-year-old daughter, Shawna. In part that decision will be based on an examination of what happened three years ago, when Everett and his wife, Linda, were found guilty of child neglect in Queens, N.Y. In August of 1997, when Everett was playing for the Mets, Shawna and Linda and Carl's son, Carl IV, were placed in foster care after workers in the Mets' childcare facility reported seeing bruises on 5-year-old Shawna. Doctors examining the little girl reported seeing marks on her forehead, right eye, cheeks, right earlobe, both shoulders, between the shoulder blades and the thigh, according to court documents. A New York family court found that Linda Everett, Shawna's stepmother, had used excessive corporal punishment and Everett did not take steps to protect his children. In his decision, Judge Richard Berman wrote, "There is without question an underlying Everett family problem involving the use of excessive force in disciplining." Everett said: "Everything was circumstantial. Where, when. They have no idea [what] the entire thing is, I have so much proof sitting at my house right now that everyone is a liar. They didn't want to take it to trial. I can actually sit down and sue a few people, but why? ... No one can come in our house right now and try to say we are bad parents." Everett now says he agreed to accept a lesser charge of neglect in order to avoid a trial. But at the time he admitted he had hit his children with a belt. "I mean ... anyone that's my age or older knows you're going to get your spankings, you're going to get discipline," Everett said. "But [in] this day and age, you have people trying to tell people how to raise their kids that don't have any kids.
"You know, most of the people that make these laws don't have kids, don't have a relationship, can't tell you the first meaning of how to change a diaper, you know, how it is to stay up to 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning when you have a sick child, when you have a child who's hungry. Most of the people who make these laws can't tell you the first thing about raising a child." After eight months in foster care, Carl IV was returned to his parents. But the court determined that Shawna should live with her maternal grandmother, Delores Brown. The child remains there today, as Everett, Brown and Shawna's biological mother, Iresenia Hunter, vie for custody. "I feel like I should stay involved," Brown said. "It's more of a cushion, protection for Shawna. I would think she would benefit more being with me or her mother. That way we all have contact." Hunter says it's important she remains in touch with her daughter. "I just prefer to be in contact because I know if she [Shawna] leaves and goes away, and goes with her father, I really won't have contact with her and speak with her and see her," Hunter said. Ashley McCorvey Myers, Hunter's attorney, explained, "Basically, we have the burden to prove that it would be to Shawna's detriment to return, if you will, to the primary residential care of Carl Everett." Both Hunter, who originally lost custody of Shawna, and Brown say it's been months since Everett has had any contact with Shawna. They also say he has fallen behind in child support payments. Earlier this year Brown filed a contempt motion to get Everett to pay about $12,000 in back support payments. According to Brown's lawyer, Everett, who signed a three-year $21-million contract with Boston in February, has been as much as two months behind in making $500 monthly support payments. Cynthia Cobb, the mother of another daughter born to Everett, has also been to court to secure child support payments. "It's never been about a money issue," Cobb said. "I just feel that if you're gonna be the parent and be in the child's life, do it on a consistent basis." Brown said, "I don't know what the problem about wanting to take care of your children, especially when you can afford it. So I don't have no idea why he doesn't." "Anybody with common sense knows he makes $7 million a year," says Everett's attorney, Victor Ines. "If you know Carl Everett, he would never do that. You know, there is no reason to do that. I would absolutely tell him not to do that. There is no intentional reason for doing that and we will fix that if that's what they have been telling you." Everett and Linda now have a total of three children together, and he remains determined to include Shawna in his household. "My kids going to always be with me," he said. "I'm going to show them. I am going to give my kids that respect: I owe you everything, you owe me nothing. You can't take love away from a home that is solid. Regardless, we are a God-fearing, God-loving family that no one can take that away from. So regardless of what other people say, they're the fools." In Boston, Everett just made the All-Star team for the first time in his career. In Tampa, Shawna recently finished the second grade as an honor roll student. A judge in Florida will decide whether it's in their best interests for the father and his daughter to reach future milestones together.
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