Jorge Posada was 'hurt, confused' over demotion in final season

Former New York Yankees player Jorge Posada says he was “hurt” and “confused" at demotion as the team's starting catcher in his final season

Retired New York Yankees catcher Jorge Posada said he was “hurt" and “confused” when the team took him out of a starting role and moved him to designated hitter during his final MLB season in 2011.

Posada detailed his 17-year major league career in his new book The Journey Home: My Life in Pinstripes, a memoir written with Gary Brozek.

“I’ll put this as plainly as a I can,” Posada says in an excerpt from the book, published by the New York Daily News. “When you take me out from behind the plate, you’re taking away my heart and my passion. If I wasn’t even considered third-string, then what was I? How did I fit in?

“I felt like I wasn’t being treated right, that people weren’t always being as straightforward with me as I wanted them to be or treating me as I deserved to be treated, and I exploded."

He says he regretted causing a fuss when he was slotted to hit ninth as the DH in a 2011 game against the Boston Red Sox. Posada refused to play in the game saying he felt disrespected by the organization.

“To have even that taken away from me without adequate explanation, hurt me and confused me,” he writes.

• TAYLER: Pineda looks like an ace with 16 strikeouts against Orioles

Posada also talked about his feud with former Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martinez.

Martinez told the New York Daily News earlier this year that Posada had insulted his mother sometime during Game 3 of the American League Championship Series in 2003. 

Martinez then hit Yankees batter Karim Garcia in the back, which ignited a bench-clearing brawl that culminated with Martinez throwing then 72-year-old Yankees bench coach Don Zimmer to the ground after Zimmer charged him.

“You don’t f--- with a man’s career. You don’t throw behind a man’s head,” Posada said. “You do that and you’re not a man, in my opinion.”

He says Martinez, who will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in July, is a “great athlete but a lousy human being.”

Posada retired after the 2011 season with four World Series rings, a .273 career batting average, 275 home runs and 1,065 RBIs.

• Book excerpt: Pedro Martinez talks 2003 season, rivalry with Yankees

- Scooby Axson