Tino 'Mr. Team Chemistry' Martinez In Hot Streak
For all the non-baseball readers...
Don Mattingly a.k.a 'Donnie Baseball' was the most beloved Yankee of the late 1980s through to 1995. Tino Martinez took over his position to much booing after Donnie retired. Then, came the four World Series Wins and Tino became the celebrated 1B man. However, after the 2001 World Series loss to Randy Johnson's Diamondbacks however, Tino was not re-signed; George Steinbrenner opted for Juicin' Jason Giambi who was hitting like a pumped up superman. So Tino went wandering the wilderness of the Cardinals and Devil Rays for 3 years and occasionally got standing ovations for just turning up at Yankee Stadium. Then the Yankees stopped winning World Series, and so the myth grew that Tino Martinez and his team-first personality was an integral part of the 'team chemistry' that allowed the Yankees to win all those World Series in the late 1990s. In short, the media screamed out loud that not having Tino made the Yankees weak. (Yeah that's why they won 100 games three years in a row...) It was decreed that Tino was to team chemistry what Uranmium was to Nuclear Power.
So when Juicin' G conked out (how else do you describe it?) Tino was brought back into the fold as a back up option. Now that Juicin' is no long juicin' and hits like, well, me, Tino is back in the line up lighting it up; this was an entirely surprising turn of events, as nobody but the yankees were interested in bringing him back. In the meantime, the Yankees had brought back Donnie Baseball to be the hitting coach; traded for Randy Johnson; failed to dump Juicin' G; so now the Yankee clubhouse features ALL these wonderful cast of characters.
Did you get all that?
This is why sometimes people think the Yankees aren't just a baseball team, but an on-going soap opera. I must say because I grew up with it, I kind of like that bizzarro aspect too. You just don't get this with say, the Twins.
- Art Neuro
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