Pedro sounds off!!

[Guest]

Martinez brushes back ESPN on Sosa

ESPN.com news services

PITTSBURGH -- Pedro Martinez swore up a pro-Sammy Sosa, anti-ESPN storm Thursday in the clubhouse.

Upset at two days of "Outside the Lines" coverage that he said portrayed the Chicago Cubs slugger as a cheater, Martinez wants the network to dedicate equal time to exonerating his Dominican countryman after X-rays revealed that no other Sosa bats contained cork.

"I want to see two nights in a row on 'Outside the Lines' say close to 100 bats were checked and nothing was found," the Boston Red Sox ace told the Hartford Courant. "I want to see something positive go on now."

Martinez said if Mark McGwire got caught using a corked bat, "it would still be a big deal but not like this."

"We may be Latin, a minority, but we're not dumb," Martinez told the Courant.

Martinez's bitter litany continued.

For one thing, he is still unhappy about losing the 1999 American League MVP when two writers left him off their ballots because he is a pitcher.

"They should have had it on 'Outside the Lines' -- Why Pedro got robbed," he told the Courant.

Losing the AL Cy Young Award last season to Oakland's Barry Zito also still stings.

"Last year, the first one standing up against me because he wanted a new face in baseball was [ESPN's] Peter Gammons," Martinez told the Courant. "[He was] standing up and saying, 'No, I'm going with Zito because we need a new face in baseball. We're tired of seeing the same Pedro on the team, the same face as Pedro all the time. We need a fresh face, a guy that plays guitar, is cute, a white Caucasian. We don't want the Latin [expletive] to be in front of the TV all the time.'

"They campaigned against me for the Cy Young. It's the same [expletive] they're doing with Sammy."

That's not how Gammons remembers it.

"First, I never said anything like that," Gammons told the Courant. "I took several statistical categories and said that between [Derek] Lowe, Zito and Pedro it was too close to call. I did say that if this were a Most Valuable Pitcher, Zito would win because of his record against potential postseason teams, quality starts, number of starts on four days rest and total number of starts, but that it was so close that I refused to call one until the season was over. He misquoted and misrepresented every aspect of the comments about Zito.

"I did say that I thought Zito would win because he was a new face."

Thursday, Martinez's face was all frowns"

I believe Pedro.Now don't get me wrong,Barry Zito is

a hellva player....However,he's a better marketing

tool than Pedro is.But then again,Pedro also probably

is mad that Barry Zito won....

[chillzatl]

It's been a while since a player has been busted corking a bat. It's been an even longer time since a player of Sosa's caliber has been busted. Mark Mcqwire took nearly as much heat over the whole Andro issue and that wasn't even an illegal substance. Sosa got busted cheating! That's a pretty damned big deal if you ask me. Especially for one of, if not THE, most popular players in the game, worldwide. Any player at the absolute top of the sport who gets caught cheating is going to get murdered in the press. pedro needs to sit down and shut up.

It's not like this is washed up Ken Caminiti coming out saying he did roids. This is a guy that worldwide is associated with baseball. It's a huge damned deal if you ask me.

I don't think he's a career cheater either. I think he may have done it once or twice before. Maybe it's something he's always done when he was in a bit of a slump. Physically a corked bat does nothing. But maybe it's something that worked for him when he slumped. He just happened to break one now, or break it so that it was visable, and got busted.

He should get equal punishment as other cheaters (7-9 games) and just get on iwth his career. But he's going to have to suffer heat of being the first player in the Information Age to be caught for cheating in baseball. His career will be fine though.

[cyman3]

he thinks his LATINO buddies arent gettin the same treatment.

All i gotta say is this...

1)"LIFE ISINT FAIR" - Last year, NBA fans wanted Jason Kidd to be MVP... but instead- Tim Duncan got it. 2 very good players that were MVP-caliber guys... but there can only be 1 winner.

2)"PEOPLE DO TEND TO FAVOR THEIR OWN RACE" - its in our nature to do that.

my opinion about sammy... baseball loves him. Sure it brought up some criticism, but he'll be back and he'll still have his fans. Hes too good and a fan favorite to go down because of 1 mistake.