He Replaced a Legend

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In today's edition...

His summer days were different than the other kids.

But it helped him unlock a secret formula.

So when it came time to replace a legend, he was prepared to become one himself.

Let’s dive in 👇

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The D2 Grinder Who Replaced a Yankees Legend (And Became One Himself)

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The strong smell of tobacco clung to his body like a second skin.

At just 10 years old, he’d learned what it meant to earn his keep.

“Hard work never hurt anybody,” his father would say.

The words echoed in his mind every night when he collapsed onto his mattress, wiped out from another long day of work.

While other kids spent carefree summer mornings sleeping in and watching cartoons, Tino Martinez and his brothers were helping out at their family’s cigar factory.

Arriving at sunrise, the boys helped out in the fumigation chambers, unloaded shipments, and arranged tobacco in the sorting room until their muscles ached.

“It was a full day of unloading these huge bales of tobacco…150 pounds, and you’d have two of them stacked up [on our handtrucks],” Tino told YES Network.

At the end of each day, they were soaked with sweat from hours of labor under the Florida sun.

“My dad’s philosophy behind the whole thing was: ‘You guys gotta go to school and get an education because this is not the kind of job you want to have the rest of your life,’” Tino said. 

“He made us work there summer after summer, and it made us better people.”

Those lessons laid a foundation that took Tino far beyond the walls of the tobacco factory.

In West Tampa, baseball wasn’t just a game, it was a way of life.

Tino spent his free time at Lou Pinella Field, a place that produced plenty of big league talent.

Luis Gonzalez, Fred McGriff, Dave Magadan, and many others got their start right there in the same batter’s box.

Tino intended to follow in their footsteps.

As a freshman at Tampa Catholic High School, he made the varsity team as a first baseman.  Success came early, and the team won the state title.

Then, after two solid seasons, he made a bold decision to transfer across town to Jefferson High School.

“I thought, well, Jefferson’s a bigger school, all my friends are there, why not go there and see what happens?”

That’s where he started to develop his reputation as the hardest worker in the room.

Head coach Emeterio “Pop” Cuesta had a rigorous regimen that some players said was “almost like a minor league system.”

But for Tino, the work at practice still didn’t quench his thirst to improve.

“If you went by his house,” Cuesta said, “he had a fence where he’d hit 500 balls off a tee every night.”

The extra work was paying off in games, so Tino kept up his tee work every night after practice.  He began to call it his ‘magic formula.’

"When the hole opened up in the fence, he covered it with a net and kept going,” said his brother, Rene Jr.

“If he was bored and had nothing to do, he'd go back to the tee and hit."

To this day, there is still a mangled section of chain-link fence in that old backyard where he hit an untold number of balls off the tee.

Tino “ate, drank, and slept baseball.”

And living in Florida meant he could play year-round.

After helping Jefferson win a state championship in his senior year, big league scouts started calling.

In 1985, the Boston Red Sox took him in the third round of the MLB Draft.

For most teenagers, the chance to sign a pro ball contract would be a no-brainer – a dream come true that they'd accept without a second thought.

But Tino had other plans.

Education always came first in the Martinez household.

And just because an MLB team wanted him now, didn’t mean they wouldn’t want him later – after he went to college.

“I decided to go to college because my parents pushed me in that direction,” Tino said. “And looking back on those days, I thank God that I did not sign.”

As for the college he picked?  That was another unorthodox decision.

Rather than going to a powerhouse program where scouts would always be in the stands, he chose to stay close to home at Division II University of Tampa.

At the time, the school had produced very few big leaguers, with Lou Pinella and Jeff Carter being the only ones to make it up to the majors.

The D2 level in general was nowhere close to the big D1 schools in terms of producing MLB talent.

But Tino made it hard for scouts to ignore him.

As a first baseman for the Spartans, he was a three-time First Team All-Conference player and a three-time All-American.

In 1988, he was a finalist for the Golden Spikes Award, which had never been given to any D2 player before.

The same year, he won Division II Player of the Year – an honor that was later renamed the Tino Martinez Award in 2010.

And, making his parents proud, he was named an Academic All-American for his work in the classroom.

“Those years in college helped me develop and become a more mature person,” he said. 

“When I left college, I was ready for the challenges ahead of me.”

The Seattle Mariners selected Tino Martinez 14th overall in the 1988 MLB Draft, and he spent two years in the minors before getting his first taste of big league action.

But during his cup of coffee with the major league club in 1990, he hit just .221 with zero homers.

“I try to stay on an even keel, the same mentality, even if I go 0-for-3 and strike out three times…instead of thinking bad things, you think you’ve got another chance and another four at-bats to get it together. If you don’t, that’s how slumps can begin – in your head,” he said back then.

“I’m not a natural athlete…I’ve always been a good hitter, but I’ve got to work hard to stay on top of my game. There are millions of kids out there who would love to have my job.”

He went back down to Triple A in 1991, where he crushed it to the tune of a .326/.428/.548 slash line with 18 homers.

But when he got called up again, he hit only .205 in 36 MLB games.

Was he the dreaded ‘Quad-A’ guy?  A player who dominates in Triple-A but folds against big league competition?

Many players have been stuck with that label.  And once you’ve got it, it’s hard to shake off.

“You have to grind it out and be mentally prepared,” Tino said.

“What you really realize in those times is who wants to make the big leagues? You’d see all these different guys that may have more talent than I had start to fade.”

The work ethic that began at his family’s cigar factory and in his parents’ backyard is what helped him break through.

“I could tell that Tino had a lot of fire in him,” said his Seattle teammate, Edgar Martinez.

One particular anecdote paints the picture well.

In the minors, Tino once forgot about a shoot for a TV commercial.

Team execs were frustrated until they found out where he’d gone instead.

So, where was he?  Did he oversleep?  Forget to set an alarm?

Nope.

He was in the gym, hitting the weights and working to get stronger.

1992 was Tino’s first full year in the big leagues, and his stat line got a little better each year.

After hitting .293 and clubbing a career-high 31 homers in 1995, he was traded to the New York Yankees.

“My head is spinning,” he said then. “It's probably one of the greatest days of my life.”

But when he touched down in the Bronx, he had some big shoes to fill.

He’d be replacing their long-time star first baseman, Don Mattingly.

“[Mattingly] was one of the greatest and most popular Yankees of all time, so that was nerve-wracking as far as replacing a legend,” Tino told MLB.com.

“And media-wise, I had to answer questions every day about my performance because everybody was disappointed that Donnie retired.”

He put enormous pressure on himself to perform right out of the gate.

Instead, he got off to one of the slowest starts of his career.

Before long, Yankee fans were booing him.

"I swung too hard. I was overanxious…I wanted to show my teammates what I could do and live up to the contract.”

Then one evening in late April, Tino’s phone rang.  It was Don Mattingly.

“Hey, hang in there,” Donnie Baseball said. “It's the New York media, you know, they're going to be tough on you until you play well."

"It's just 10 days at a time. You play bad for 10 days, they'll be on you; you play good for 10 days, you're the best person in the world. So just learn to deal with it.”

Easier said than done.  But in early May, one at-bat changed everything.

Tino hit a go-ahead grand slam in extra innings against the Orioles.

“I just felt like this burden was lifted off my shoulders,” Tino said. “Like, ‘Thank God, I did something positive.’”

Things took off from there.

He turned it around at the plate, leading the team with 117 RBIs, and won over the Yankee faithful.

That October, he helped the team reach its first World Series since 1981.

But the lights were too bright, and he struggled with the bat.

“I had a horrible entire postseason,” Tino said.

Manager Joe Torre ended up benching him for three World Series games, and the team went on to win their first championship in 18 years.

Sure, he was a World Champion, but that experience left a chip on his shoulder.

“I was hurt. Deeply hurt,” he said. “I had busted my butt day in and day out and never asked for a day off all year. I was definitely mad. But I kept it to myself.”

When the team made it back to the Fall Classic two years later, Tino was in the midst of another postseason slump, hitting just .166 through the ALDS and ALCS.

But with the bases loaded in the 7th inning of Game One, he had a shot at redemption.

“He was just so due, and he wanted it so bad,” teammate Paul O'Neill said.

In a 3-2 count, Tino slammed the next pitch into the right-field stands for a go-ahead grand slam.

It was exactly what the Yankees needed, and it carried them to a sweep of the Padres to win the 1998 World Series.

That momentum continued through the new millennium.

Altogether, Tino Martinez helped the Yankees win the World Series four times in five seasons.

After spending time with the Cardinals and Rays, he returned home to the Bronx before calling it a career in February 2006.

“If you’re a young guy coming up,” teammate David Cone said, “handle yourself like this guy did. No matter what happens, you’re gonna be OK.  And that’s why Tino is adored by Yankee fans.”

In retirement, Martinez became a part-time analyst on ESPN’s Baseball Tonight.

To most, it’d be the ideal setup.  Talk baseball, cash checks, and ride off into the sunset.

But Tino still had unfinished business.

He was 19 credit hours short of his bachelor’s degree.  And, after all, college was the reason he turned down that first MLB contract out of high school.

So while working for ESPN, he used his spare time to resume his studies at the University of Tampa.

In 2011, he officially completed his degree and joined over 1,200 students at the school’s commencement ceremony.

As he accepted his diploma, Tino’s thoughts turned to his father, who didn’t live long enough to see his son step onto a major league ballfield.

The man who taught him that education and persistence mattered just as much as talent – and who, in the end, was right all along.

"I've always believed that the answer to your problems is working harder," Tino said.

"In the end, even if the numbers aren't there, at least I'll know I worked hard. It's a lesson I learned from my father. No one worked harder than he did."

🐶 

Tino Martinez is doing an autograph signing with Powers Sports Memorabilia. Orders are due soon – don’t miss out!

Today’s story was written by yours truly. If you enjoyed it, hit reply and let me know.

Thanks for reading!

Til next time,
Tyler

Extra Innings…

🌟 Trivia Answer: A) Terry Francona. He last won it all in 2007 with the Boston Red Sox. His latest World Series appearance was in 2016, where his Indians fell to the Cubs in a memorable Game 7.

💪 Strong granny: This 95-year-old woman set a world powerlifting record.

⚾️ Here’s a wild baseball fact that you’ve got to see to believe.

🍿 Get your popcorn ready and subscribe to my YouTube channel for more mini-flicks in the future.