LaRoche was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado. His surname was Garcia, but he changed it to LaRoche at age seven, the last name of his stepfather. "LaRoche is French, but I have no French in me", Andy LaRoche said. "My grandfather was 100% Mexican." According to the 1979 Complete Handbook of Baseball, LaRoche decided to change his name because classmates often teased him because an overweight, bumbling character on the then popular television programZorro was named Sergeant Garcia. in 1976 LaRoche was drafted by the California Angels in the 5th round of the 1967 amateur draft out of West High School in Torrance, CA. He made his debut for the California Angels in and went on to pitch 14 seasons in the major leagues. During his time as a player representative for the Minnesota Twins LaRoche had a reputation as a troublemaker. According to Twins public relations director Tom Mee, LaRoche "complained about everything. In fact, they filed a grievance about the choice of ice cream we had in the clubhouse. loved to agitate, and it was not right." According to Rod Carew, "He was always negative about everything in the locker room. I finally got tired of it one night...we were having a team meeting and he was constantly interrupting people. I said to him, 'Just shut up and listen to what the guys have to say.' He asked what I was going to do about it, so I challenged him to a fight. There was a broom closet in the back of the clubhouse. I opened its door, turned on the light and said, 'Come on, let's go in.' As soon as he walked in, I turned off the light, closed the door and whaled away at him." According to Twins teammate Bert Blyleven, "A reporter asked him why he wanted to be player rep and Dave said, 'Because all the player reps under Calvin Griffith get traded.'" He was traded by the Twins to the Chicago Cubs for Bill Hands, Joe Decker and minor‐league pitcher Bob Maneely on December 1, 1972. LaRoche's sons Adam and Andy both became MLB players. Another son, Jeff LaRoche, played minor league baseball before entering law enforcement. LaRoche was named as the pitching coach for the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp in the Miami Marlins organization for the 2018 season.
