Pedro Martinez responds to Colin Cowherd
Colin Cowherd made some controversial remarks about Dominican baseball players last week, and the ESPN radio host is still facing backlash because of it.
Pedro Martinez, one of the best pitchers to ever come out of the Dominican Republic, was asked over the weekend about Cowherd’s comments. He seemed very prepared to answer the question.
“It’s only going to be an insult to anyone that falls to that level. I’m not at that level, I’m sorry,” Martinez said, per Tim Britton of The Providence Journal. “I’m dealing here with educated people, polite people, people that understand human rights, who understand who we are. These are the people I’m paying attention to. That person, I don’t even know, I never heard of him, I don’t want to know him. I want to know the people that represent something, that mean something to us, the people that understand how we can get better.
“Yes we are a third-world country, yes we don’t have the resources to be more educated. But you know what? Every once in a while you’re going to get one like me that’s not afraid to face you guys, to tell you how educated or uneducated I am, to tell you how proud I am of who I became. We’re not going to stop and go back to probably the third-world country that we were 30 years ago. We want to go forward. I want to look up to the guys, the voters, the seniors who are here, the Hall of Famers who are here and hopefully set the bar high like Roberto Clemente did.”
Pedro didn’t seem quite as upset as this MLB slugger, but the overall point was the same.
Cowherd, who is leaving ESPN for FOX, has been pulled off ESPN shows a week early because of the controversy. He stopped short of issuing an apology and instead tried to clarify his stance.