Apparently There IS Crying In Baseball

In "A League of Their Own" Tom Hanks playing a manager of a WW II girls Baseball team speaks rather harshly to one of his star players and she starts to cry and he says in a rather startled manner , There's no crying in Baseball!". That took place about the year of 1944 when there was NO crying in baseball even if this was a girls team and the major leagues had old players and some young ones, young as sixteen. Back then men were men even if they were only boys.

Tino Martinez quits as hitting coach

Flash forward to the year 2013 and we find a batting coach who had spent 15 years as a major league player with a great reputation as a player with talent and as a human being. He did everything he had to do in major league baseball and now wanted to give back to the game, getting paid of course, as a hitting coach, by imparting his knowledge gained by his many successful years in the game and this knowledge wasn't only about hitting but also how a major leaguer conducts himself on and off the field.

He had a confrontation with three ballplayers, rookies I believe or one maybe a journeyman, and maybe one or two other players. He tried to exert his authority when they refused to follow his orders and he used expletives when he reprimanded them. In fact he grabbed one by the jersey and maybe neck chain. And these guys, complained sometime after the incidents and the press played it up and Tino Martinez had to resign because the team lacked the guts to back him up.  Now understand this Tino Martinez is a well respected ballplayer held in high esteem by some great ballplayers like Derek Jeter and the likes like him. He is a fan favorite so much so that when he returned to Yankee stadium on the St. Louis Cardinals after being traded he was greeted by the fans with a standing ovation. To top it all he hit two homers off Andy Pettitte and an unheard thing happened, he had to come out and acknowledge a standing ovation, that is how much he was loved by the fans, and I might add the ex-teammates, although the Yanks really would have liked it better if they won the game.

Going back to the beginning of baseball Managers like John MacGraw, Wilbert Robinson, Billy Martin, Leo Durocher and teams like The Gashouse Gang (St. Louis Cardinals in the 1930's), Yanks and Cubs in the 1920's and 30's led by Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, all used expletives and treated rookies they way they were treated and that is with disdain. Using four letter words was as apart of base ball as is peanuts, hot dogs and crackerjacks. This was supposed to be a man's game and one had to be a "man" in order to survive.

But what do we have in this case, a great ballplayer now a coach cursed at his players, maybe grabbed one or pushed another, maybe looked angry when this player wanted a smile instead of a frown and Tino Martinez had to apologize and ultimately resign because we don't have men in the game anymore and apparently the IS crying in baseball. Tom Hanks character would be so disappointed for our young men have become babies and now run to mama because the big bad man yelled at me.