Ketel Marte frustrating Diamondbacks by opting to take days off with trade deadline looming: report
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Arizona Diamondbacks All-Star second baseman Ketel Marte has reportedly been frustrating people within the organization with the MLB trade deadline looming.
Marte, a switch-hitter with power from both sides of the plate, is someone Arizona has tried to trade this past winter despite his talent and six-year extension that kicked in this season.
But USA TODAY reported Marte continues to frustrate segments of the organization by opting to take days off.
Most recently, Marte decided to sit for last weeks game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, where superstar Shohei Ohtani was pitching, and he then proceeded to hit a walk-off home run the next day for the D-Backs.
The reason for Marte missing the game last Wednesday was a mixture of his decision as well as the second baseman dealing with lower-back and hamstring ailments, per Arizona Sports.
Marte didnt want to risk any further injury.
Were all human, and we all need a day here and there, Marte said through a translator following the walk-off homer he hit on Thursdays game.
KETEL MARTE RECEIVES STANDING OVATION FROM DIAMONDBACKS FANS IN FIRST HOME GAME SINCE CONTROVERSIAL HECKLING This also isnt new for Marte, who created some tension in the clubhouse due to absences and off-day requests near the All-Star break.
It was reported that Martes teammates didnt appreciate trying to time his off-days, leading to an apology later on.
With Marte being involved in trade rumors in the past, they will certainly pick up with MLBs trade deadline scheduled for Aug.
3 this year.
Its later than usual, but with teams dealing with injuries as well as trying to bolster their lineups, rotations and bullpens, players with Martes talent will surely lead to calls to those in the Arizona front office.
Marte should be sold at a high price, if at all, given he is under contract through the 2030 campaign at a relatively low price after signing his six-year, $116.5 million contract.
He also has a player option for the 2031 season, where he will be age 37.
While second base is his usual spot on the field, Marte has played shortstop as well as center field in his 12-year career.
The Dominican Republic product has earned three All-Star nods, including each of the past two seasons.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP This year, Marte is slashing .250/.304/.450 with a .754 OPS the lowest mark since his 2022 campaign in Arizona (.727).
He has hit 11 homers, driven in 37 runs and scored 37 times across 60 games.
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Katie Stith, the softball coach at JSerra High, can finally take a bow and become the most famous Stith in the family at least for a couple weeks.
Imagine being the daughter of legendary club softball coach Mike Stith (OC Batbusters), then going into coaching.
Katie did just that and has earned the spotlight after guiding JSerra to its first Southern Section Division 1 championship.
She has been selected The Times coach of the year for 2026.
It was her eighth season, and if you want to play in Division 1 in Southern California, you have to go through the gauntlet of powerhouses, from Norco to Orange Lutheran to Murrieta Mesa.
JSerra navigated a difficult regular-season schedule, then avoided upsets in the playoffs.
The team finished 25-8 and had wins over Norco, La Mirada, Oaks Christian, Orange Lutheran and Garden Grove Pacifica all prominent programs.
She was able to rely on pitcher Liliana Escobar and catcher Annabel Raftery in those pressure-packed moments from the first game to the last.
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Denmarks Christian Eriksen collapsed during his teams international friendly match against Ukraine on Sunday.
Eriksen, who has a history of collapsing on the pitch, did so again as help rushed out to meet him near midfield.
Thankfully, the Danish Football Union said in a statement that he was conscious and feeling well under the circumstances.
The 34-year-olds incident led to the game being abandoned.
Denmark was up, 2-1, on Ukraine in the 61st minute at the time of Eriksens collapse.
Eriksen previously starred for Tottenham and Manchester United in the English Premier League.
He currently plays for VfL Wolfsburg in 2.
Bundesliga.
SOCCER PLAYER DIES AT 21 AFTER COLLISION WITH OPPONENT DURING MATCH During the European Championship between Denmark and Finland in June 2021, play was suspended after a terrifying scene where Eriksen suffered a cardiac arrest on the pitch in the first half of the game.
Play immediately came to a halt at Parken Stadium in Copenhagen, where Eriksen was lying on the grass unresponsive.
CPR was needed to resuscitate him, as medical staff and teammates made a circle around his body in clear distress, hoping for the best.
Eriksen received 10 minutes of medical care and was later taken off the pitch on a stretcher with an oxygen mask around his mouth.
Images began to circulate on social media at the time, showing Eriksen awake and having a hand on his forehead.
Eriksen was later transferred to a hospital and was stabilized.
Since that moment, Eriksen was fitted with a heart-starting device called an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator.
Denmarks team doctor Morten Boesen released a statement via multiple outlets, stating Eriksens pacemaker is responding as it should.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP He was briefly unconscious, but regained consciousness very quickly, and we were quickly in contact with him, Boesens statement read.
He will not undergo further examinations at the hospital to determine what caused the incident.
We are in ongoing contact with him and the doctors at the hospital.
But Christian is doing well, and he asked me to send his regards to all the players and tell them that he was okay.
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Commentary: Dodgers show courage by permanently honoring LGBTQ+ pioneers Glenn Burke and Billy Bean Lets go Dodgers.
High fives all around.
Because this time, with the newest historical exhibit at Dodger Stadium, the team got it right.
Amid all the historical installations and tributes in the open-air museum that is the Centerfield Plaza, and just a few feet from a Fernando Valenzuela mural, a new display honors Glenn Burke and Billy Bean, two former Dodgers outfielders who were the first and second professional baseball players to come out as gay.
Its not a fleeting mention on Pride night, its a permanent record.
A static reminder of progress made and still to be made.
And a much-deserved thank-you.
Itll be here tomorrow, itll be here on the weekend and if you come next month, itll be here, said the Dodgers team historian Mark Langill, who pointed to a spot just down the hall where in 1976 he was an 11-year-old getting Burkes autograph.
Baseball is steeped in such history.
The personal, the statistical, the societal.
And the Dodgers is incomplete without their stories Burkes and Beans.
But the Dodgers have not, of course, always gotten this stuff right.
In 1978, they did Burke wrong, trading him he believed after management learned he was gay.
In his three seasons in L.A., Burke had proved himself a capable reserve outfielder who was popular with his teammates.
As far as we know, in 1977, he was the first guy to initiate a high five spontaneously reaching above his head to slap hands with Dusty Baker after the home run that made Baker the fourth Dodger, along with Ron Cey, Steve Garvey and Reggie Smith, to hit at least 30 home runs that season, a MLB first.
Theres a fantastic photo of the historic high five included in the tribute to Burke and Bean, which is situated on a hallway wall beneath the left-field bleachers, beside the Dodger Dugout augmented reality photo booth.
Burke was also the first guy in that Dodgers clubhouse to crack a joke when the team needed it, his former teammate Rick Monday said.
When called upon, he could play really well, Monday said before the Dodgers took the field against the Angels on Friday, when the Dodgers and many of their rainbow-sporting fans celebrated the teams 13th annual LGBTQ+ Pride Night.
And when we needed a moment of levity, Glenn was not afraid to come forward and put a smile on peoples face.
But shortly before he died of AIDS in 1995 at 42, Burke published an autobiography, Out at Home, in which he described the teams management being afraid of my sexual orientation, even though I never flaunted it.
To this day, the Dodgers deny trading me because I was gay.
But it was painfully obvious.
Oh, what he had to deal with and keep it hid, said Joyce Burke-Henderson, one of Glenns sisters at Fridays pregame unveiling, where family members of both players gasped and cried and cheered the installations reveal.
But as time went on, people did know.
And then I think he came to the point where he just didnt care and he just told it like it was.
Burke came out in 1982, three years after playing his 225th and final big league game, in an Inside Sports article, The Double Life of a Gay Dodger.
We just appreciate that now people are opening their eyes and just trusting in the Lord, Burke-Henderson said Friday, that things will go forward and work out and everybody will be loved regardless of their situation.
The Dodgers first honored Burke in 2022, at their ninth Pride Night.
The next season, they made a mess of the Pride festivities, inviting and uninviting and then reinviting the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group known for its work in support of AIDS patients and whose members dress in drag, as nuns.
In 2023, the Dodgers also invited Bean who was MLBs senior vice president for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
He appeared in a pregame ceremony on the field while protesters gathered outside the stadium.
Bean died the next year, at 60, 11 months after being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.
Once a Northeast Santa Ana Little Leaguer, Bean became valedictorian at Santa Ana High, played for Loyola Marymount and went on to appear in 272 big-league games including 51 for the Dodgers in 1989 before abruptly walking away from baseball in 1995.
It got to be too much, hed explain later, continuing to hustle to keep his baseball career afloat while keeping his sexuality secret, acutely aware of the blowback hed get if it got out.
For nine years, he told the New York Times, I felt as though I had one foot in the major leagues and one on a banana peel.
When he left baseball suddenly, I knew something was wrong, Beans mother, Linda Kovac, said Friday, pausing to wipe away tears.
He was playing very well, it wasnt like he was kicked out or anything.
And it just didnt make any sense.
When Bean finally told his family he was gay, in 1996 three years before clueing in an unsuspecting public via a Miami Herald article none of his loved ones blinked.
That included his stepfather, Ed Kovac, the homicide cop and former Marine whod had a partner on the force who was gay.
He worked with someone that he respected, side by side, on criminal cases, Linda said.
Were still friends with that guy.
Knowing someone or of someone who is gay or lesbian has long tended to dispel falsehoods and quell fears that might exist.
One of the most important things any one of us can do in our community is be out, to be proud, said Greg Baker, Beans husband.
The fact that someone can be out in a world that typically doesnt have a lot of role models of the same ilk, its a brave thing to stick your neck out.
Its also very important.
And its not a surprise, Baker said, that more athletes arent out in sports like baseball.
Not with Gallup polling released last week telling us that with public acceptance of same-sex marriage and relationships in the U.S.
has flattened after two-plus decades of growing support down from 71% to about 65%.
I want to thank the Dodgers organization, Baker said.
Its brave of them in this day and age to spotlight someone in our community when other organizations are trying to erase us.
The Dodgers have done the opposite, putting up a permanent marker.
A long time coming, a tribute to last.
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