New York Yankees’ Mark Teixeira blew off comments this weekend after Boston Red Sox reliever Vicente Padilla accused him of prejudice against Latin players and then told him to go play in a “women’s game.”
Before Sunday night’s first half finale against the Red Sox Teixeira called the comments “completely erroneous.” Texeira then added:
“That’s just comedy. It’s funny. It really is.”
The comments are rather yawn inspiring considering the men have been at each others throats since 2005 when Teixeira faced Padilla for the first time and hit back-to-back home runs while claiming that the pitcher was known for “head hunting.”
NESN spoke with Padilla on Saturday who said of Mark’s complaints:
“In this sport, as competitive ball players, we get pretty fired up. So I think, maybe, [Teixeira] picked the wrong profession. I think he’d be better off playing a women’s sport.”
After that comment Padilla, who use to be teammates with his nemesis then claimed that Mark Teixeira hates Latinos:
“The problem is he talks about all the wrong things that others have done, but the things he’s done — against the Latinos [on the Rangers] — he doesn’t open his mouth about,” Padilla said. “He once threatened me and said he was going to hit me with a bat, and that’s when we were playing on the same team. “And then, he also had problems with Frank Francisco, our closer back then. But he doesn’t talk about that, does he? Then, of course, he goes on and makes those comments about me.”
In a tweet from Dan Barbarisi of the Wall Street Journal Teixeira responded:
Mark Teixeira calls Padilla’s comments “humorous”/erroneous”, challenges anyone to find a latin Yankee teammate who dislikes him
— Daniel Barbarisi (@DanBarbarisi) July 8, 2012
Padilla in the meantime isn’t winning over fans outside of the Red Sox organization, here’s a tweet from @bclemnyyfan
So Padilla played the race card on Teixera? Good to see Boston getting another character guy, damn I hate them!!
— Brian (@bclemnyyfan) July 8, 2012
What do you think of the Padilla, Teixeira rivalry?