Former Seattle Mariners Infielder Shares Great Story About How Special Edgar Martinez Is
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As a Baseball Hall of Famer, Seattle Mariners legend Edgar Martinez is one of the best players in baseball history. However, he's also giving back to the game - and the organization - by serving as the organization's Director of Hitting.
Speaking this week on the Refuse to Lose podcast, former M's infielder Jeff Schaefer recounted how special Martinez was as a player and what made him so good.
The greatest offensive brain I've ever been around at any level of the game. And what I mean by that is, Edgar Martinez could tell me what pitches were going to be thrown to me batting eighth and ninth in the lineup, in any situation, in any count. And he'd say, 'Schaef, you go look for this, you go look for that.' And he studied every single pitch. He never took his eyes off the pitcher the entire game. And he went up there with a plan.
He knew what his strengths were. You know, Edgar could have hit 20, 25 home runs, 30 home runs at some point. I really believe he had that kind of power. But he was such a good hitter and he recognized what was going to be what they were going to try to do to him. And he took advantage of what they were trying to do to him. And he played with the middle of the field. He played gap to gap. He didn't play banging fences, hitting home runs. He played to have productive, quality at-bats every time up. And it was just amazing.
At times, it looked like he was playing softball.... I don't know that I ever saw him take a bad swing. It was an amazing thing. And he was willing to talk the game with guys like myself.. But Edgar would take the time. Even in the cages underneath the Kingdome, we'd hit right behind the dugout. He was always right there and he was willing to talk hitting all the time. So he was a special mind.
Schaefer spent parts of five seasons in the big leagues, including three with the Mariners (1990-1992). He told many more stories and shared his experiences in Seattle in our full podcast episode, which you can hear below:
The Mariners are 41-37 and will play the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday at 4:40 p.m. PT.
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