St. Louis Cardinals reliever Carlos Martinez learned a hard lesson on Monday about the way Twitter works. When you “favorite” a tweet so you can easily access it in the future, that tweet is added to your public list of favorites. Prior to Monday afternoon, Martinez’s favorites were loaded with pornographic images.
On Tuesday, Cardinals manager Mike Matheny told reporters that the team reached out to Martinez on Monday evening to help him remove the photos.
“We’re embarrassed, and he’s embarrassed,” Matheny said, per Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I’m not trying to shove my morality down anybody’s throat. But I also need these guys to understand that it’s not just me that they need to be concerned about. There are a bunch of young guys that absolutely admire these guys and everything that they do. Realize – is this something you’d want your kids to see? Is this something that you want to be known for? Is this how you want to be remembered?”
The Cardinals organization has had several meetings with the players lately to discuss the use of social media, and Martinez’s embarrassing list was certainly a teaching moment.
“Anything that you do right now is one fraction of a second away from being all over the world,” Matheny said. “There has never been a time in history like this. That just heightens our message and heightens our urgency to make sure we are diligent and we are disciplined to educate and make aware that something like this happens it’s going to be an embarrassment to you. Something like this happens it’s going to be an embarrassment to us.”
While Matheny said the situation was a “distraction,” he also noted that Martinez acknowledged his mistake. At this point, there’s really nothing else he can do. Carlos likes porn, and unfortunately everyone knows about it.
