Tino & Damon Support Jeter

Via George King -

A byproduct of this process is the perception that Jeter has gotten greedy. That bothers Tino Martinez, a close friend of Jeter and a special assistant to Cashman.

“It’s making it seem like he is greedy, Martinez said of the public opinion. “He is not being greedy. He is going through a baseball negotiation like everybody else. It’s made him look like he doesn’t know what’s happening in the real world, and he is not like that.

“This guy gives millions to charity. He is only going through a baseball negotiation and for people to think he is greedy, that bothers me. Derek is my friend, and I would say the same thing about Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera. They all are quality people.

Johnny Damon knows about the business side of baseball. He left the Red Sox for the Yankees as a free agent and went through a testy free agent dance with the Yankees last offseason that landed him in Detroit. He is a free agent again.

“There is no way around it, older players are being looked at differently,” he said. “But what a lot of people forget is that guys like me and Jeter, we came out at the same time and we are special players. If things need to get done on a baseball field, we get it done.”

Damon doesn’t put much stock in Jeter, who will be 37 in August, hitting a career-low .270 last year.

“He is still a guy who puts fear into other pitchers,” Damon said. “You may get him out, but it’s a grind because he keeps competing, and you can’t say that about everybody.”

I suspect that we’ll see a lot of players, soon, come up in support of Jeter. But, that’s expected…