Ken Rosenthal has an exclusive interview with Tino Martinez, who recently resigned as the Marlins hitting coach amid allegations that he was physically and verbally abusive to players. It’s a fantastic interview in which Martinez does what people involved in clubhouse controversies rarely do: he says exactly what happened between him and the players who have accused him.
You need to read this in Martinez’s own words to get the full flavor — he provides a dialog-based play-by-play of the encounters — but the upshot is that Martinez, on two occasions, asked players to do something entirely reasonable — help other players pick up balls in the batting cage — only to have them pull some “why should I?” thing. Martinez said that he used profanity to correct the players’ behavior in both instances, and in one grabbed one of the players by the jersey and maybe pushed him back.
Now, that’s Martinez’s side of the story. It’s possible that the players involved have different stories and we can’t be 100% sure who is right without being there. And we can’t say whether or not Martinez’s acts were provoked or justified or, alternatively, whether they were out of bounds regardless of provocation.
But it’s fascinating that Martinez is opening up like this and well worth a read.
