The Quiet MC: Newly Acquired Outfielder Marty Cordova Does His Talking on the Field

Shortly after Marty Cordova arrived at the Orioles' spring training camp in Fort Lauderdale this February, a reporter from a Miami paper asked him for an interview. The new Orioles' left fielder readily agreed to sit down and talk with the writer, but he politely let her know that interviews were not his favorite pastime.

It's not that Cordova is either shy or surly, as some ballplayers are. In fact he is gracious and personable and quite forthcoming in interviews. It's just that for Cordova, the one and only aspect of being a major league baseball player that he really likes is playing baseball. The fame, the frills, the fanfare—that's for other players to sop up.

“I don't like media attention,” he says, pleasantly. “I just like to do my job. I don't care about fame or people knowing who I am or anything like that. I just like to enjoy my job, and I love being around the guys. But when I'm done, I like to be done, and I really couldn't care less about having a whole lot of media attention or things like that.”

The 32-year-old outfielder is a good fit for Baltimore. He's the kind of no-nonsense, blue collar athlete the city always has taken to. He just goes about his business, plays hard and doesn't expect much in return. The reward for him is playing major league baseball. And he feels very lucky to be wearing a big league uniform.

“It's definitely something I've wanted to do since I was a kid,” he explains. “As a kid, I looked up to major league players, so I guess you're expected to be a role model to kids, and that's fine. I don't mind that at all. I try to set a good example for kids. You play hard and have a good time. I love playing baseball. Hopefully, the kids look at us baseball players and see good role models, not a bad attitude and getting into trouble, but staying out of trouble and being good people.”

Many ballplayers take their jobs, their status and their immense salaries for granted. Not Cordova, who was born in Las Vegas and first played in the majors in 1995 with Minnesota. “I never thought I'd play this long in the major leagues and have some of the success I've had,” he says. “It's nothing that should go to a person's head. It's my job. I love it. I'm fortunate and lucky that I'm able to do this. And hopefully, I think everybody in [the Orioles'] clubhouse is happy and realizes that they're very lucky, and that not everyone can throw a baseball or hit a baseball and get paid for it.”

When Cordova was promoted by the Twins to the big league roster six years after being signed off the campus of Orange Coast Junior College, he hit a baseball very well. So well, in fact, that he was named the AL Rookie of the Year. He batted .277 with 24 home runs and 84 RBIs. (His first major league hit came off the Orioles' Ben McDonald on April 27, 1995.) Cordova also had 20 steals, tied for the AL lead in outfield assists with 12, and in one stretch hit home runs in five consecutive games. He parlayed his fine rookie season into another excellent year in 1996, hitting .309 with 16 home runs, 46 doubles and 111 RBIs. At 27, Cordova was poised on the doorstep of stardom. But baseball has a funny way of bringing great athletes quickly down to size, and Cordova's promising career suddenly went kaput—because of his foot. He developed plantar fascitis, an injury to the tendon running across the sole of his foot. It affects many professional athletes. Jeff Conine of the Orioles, for instance, currently has plantar fascitis. But not every athlete is impacted the same way. For Cordova it became difficult to run, a major liability for someone who relies on running to do his job. The injury can be treated in basically two ways—surgery and waiting for the tendon to tear by itself and then heal naturally. Cordova chose the latter route. He waited and waited and waited. But the tendon simply didn't tear. He went on the disabled list in 1997 for six weeks and was dispatched to Triple-A Salt Lake City for rehab. When he returned to the Twins' lineup, though, the injury really hadn't healed. He was still hurt but gamely tried to play on.

His baseball, though, suffered. Cordova's average in 1997 dropped 63 points to .246. He hit 15 home runs and had only 51 RBIs, less than half his previous year's total.

The plantar fascitis persisted throughout 1998 and 1999. His production decreased. Twins manager Tom Kelly, a man who could quickly sour on players who didn't produce, lost patience with Cordova, whose only sin was trying to play through an injury he didn't like talking about.

After the 1999 season, the Twins showed no interest in keeping Cordova, and he signed with the Red Sox as a non-roster invitee to spring training. But Boston was so unimpressed that the Sox dropped him at the end of spring training. Cordova quickly was signed by Toronto but never was an impact player with the Blue Jays in 2000. He played in but 62 games, hitting .245 with just four home runs and 18 RBIs. The Jays had little interest in resigning Cordova, and what had been such a promising career just four years earlier was now on the skids.

Meanwhile, however, Cordova's plantar tendon had finally torn, and the injury that had hobbled him for three years finally was healing.

The Indians invited him to spring training, and suddenly Cordova began playing again like he had in 1995 and 1996. He had a fabulous exhibition season, hitting .442 with two home runs and 11 RBIs in 26 games. The Indians had little choice but to offer him a contract and place him on the roster. After making the team, he reignited his career during the 2001 season with Cleveland.

Cordova hit .301—his first .300 season in five years—and had 20 home runs and 69 RBIs in just 409 at-bats, about two-thirds of a full-time major league season. He started 105 games after beginning the season in a pinch-hitting role, winning an everyday job on the basis of an early hot skein. He had a 22-game hitting streak, the second longest of his career, through May 18, bating .393 with five home runs and 22 RBIs.

Cordova was relegated to the bench for five games in late September after diving to make a catch. But the good news was that his plantar fascitis was now only a memory. Cordova finally could play baseball again without constant pain in his foot.

But the Indians were interested in revamping their roster after the season, and Cordova—as well as an expected bump in his salary—did not fit into their plans. So the outfielder once again became a free agent, and the Orioles jumped first and highest, offering him $9.1 million over three years. He says he has no problem switching from a perennial contender like the Indians to a Baltimore team deemed likely to finish near the bottom of its division this year.

“I don't know why there's any reason this team can't compete,” he says optimistically. “There's a lot of good young pitching here. If they pitch like they're capable of, I think we can be better than people give us credit for.”

Cordova also was happy to be reunited with his former hitting coach from Minnesota, Terry Crowley, who now serves in that role for the Orioles. “He's one of the greatest guys I've ever been around,” Cordova says of Crowley. “I think everyone on the field just loves Crow. He brings a good aura to the game. He's always talking. He's happy. He's a good person. I've never heard anyone say a bad thing about Crow. When I played with him over in Minnesota, I'd always say I wish he were a player, we'd be best friends hanging out. He's a good guy, and it's good to have a person like that around. Everyone respects him and listens to what he says. And he usually can help you quite a bit.”

Cordova, who is a bachelor, might like to hang out with Crowley if they were the same age, but generally he is not the type to pal around with teammates. He believes in spending time with them off the field to help build team unity, but otherwise he's something of a lone wolf.

“I hang out occasionally,” he explains, “but I'm not a big partier. I don't like to go out, I don't drink much, and I kind of keep to myself. I'm with the guys all day. You want to have the team environment, so you don't always want to go your separate way and not have any kind of team unity. So I do like to get together with the guys at times and have a good time like anybody else. But I come to the park early, and I usually stay late, and that's how I've always been. I've always been single and have been dedicated to baseball, and there's not been much other time for much else.” Cordova also is by nature far from an extrovert.

“I'm pretty quiet,” he acknowledges. “I keep to myself. I'm not outspoken on a team. I just try to play hard, and hopefully that can maybe set an example for younger guys, so they can see a veteran player who runs balls out, who never loafs on the field, and who always gives 100%. I think that's all you can expect out of a person. I want to have some personality out on the field, but then I want to make sure that I stay focused and level and try not to be too happy when you do good and not to be too upset when you do bad.” It's that kind of attitude that should endear Cordova to Baltimore. That and his good bat.

“I like to be up there when the game is on the line,” Cordova says. “I like driving in runs. I love to hit. That's my favorite thing to do. Hopefully, I can drive in a lot of runs for this team, hit some home runs, and hit for a decent average. I also take pride in my defense. I don't try to do too much, though. I don't go up there and try to hit a 700-foot home run, or if we're down by five, I don't try to hit a homer with nobody on base. You've just got to do what you can to get on base and do what you can to help the team win.”