On July 20, 2018, Yoenis Cespedes serves as the Mets DH in a game against the Yankees. Despite not having played in a Major League game in over two months, he homered.

Roughly two weeks later, Cespedes underwent the first of two surgeries required to not just remove calcifications, but to also save his career.

This was a surgery necessary because he was in so much pain/discomfort he actually had to alter the way he ran in order to play. In essence, Cespedes did what he could do to keep playing even if it arguably led to other injuries.

Seeing what he went through just to play, you could not question his heart, drive, or commitment. That is unless you work for SNY, which is owned by the Wilpons.

Carlos Beltran has been a mentor to many challenging players over the years, and one person who knows him well suggests he’s the guy to motivate the quixotic Yoenis Cespedes from the ranch to the batters box

— Andy Martino (@martinonyc) October 19, 2019

Imagine covering Cespedes and learning of all he went through and still finding a way to say the Mets need to hire Carlos Beltran to motivate Cespedes to play baseball again.

It’s purposely oblivious to overlook Cespedes’ double heel injury and his subsequent broken ankle to say the needed motivation to play the game. After all, it’s not like we have seen Cespedes play through excruciating pain and just find ways to get onto the field.

No, his only problem was motivation.

Andy Martino just called a player who needed double heel surgery and suffered a broken ankle lazy. A Hispanic player at that. Given what he just said, it’s surprising he didn’t go further by invoking other negative stereotypes.

What Andy Martino said about Yoenis Cespedes was wrong. Plain wrong. And he owes Cespedes an apology.