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New York Post
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Beyoncé's ‘Cowboy Carter' Tour has city folks going country at MetLife Stadium: concert review
'This ain't Texas,' Beyoncé declares at the beginning of 'Texas Hold 'Em,' her hoedown hit that topped both the pop and country charts last year. But it sure did feel like it at the first of the superstar's five 'Cowboy Carter' Tour shows at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ on Thursday night. Beyoncé may have not been able to change the weather on a rainy, unseasonably cold night, but the power of the pop goddess was on display in the sea of cowboy hats, boots and other Western wear that the Beyhive giddied on up in — even with their rain ponchos. 5 Beyoncé's 'Cowboy Carter' Tour will return to MetLife Stadium on Saturday, Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday. Mason Poole via PictureGroup/Shutterstock Surely, Kenny Chesney, Luke Combs or Morgan Wallen never made it look so country so close to the big city at MetLife. But this was a different, more diverse kind of country — the kind that Beyoncé frontiered with her groundbreaking 'Cowboy Carter' LP that finally won her that Album of the Year Grammy in February. And while it may have been hard to imagine Country Bey rocking a stadium like she did on the 'Renaissance' Tour in 2023 or the 'Formation' Tour in 2016, she was still the Queen B. And she immediately established that she was not going to be roped in by any genre with the 'Cowboy Carter' opener 'American Requiem.' 'They used to say I spoke 'too country'/And the rejection came, said I wasn't 'country 'nough,'' the Houston-born diva sang with snarl in her twang. Of course, that was a reference to Beyoncé apparently not being 'welcomed' when she performed 'Daddy Lessons' with the Chicks at the 2016 Country Music Association Awards. That experience inspired 'Cowboy Carter,' and when she performed that country ditty from her 'Lemonade' album on Thursday night, she had reclaimed country on her own terms. 5 Beyoncé performed songs from her Grammy-winning 'Cowboy Carter' album at MetLife Stadium. Mason Poole via PictureGroup/Shutterstock And as an African-American woman taking the genre back to its black roots, she made a powerful early statement when she went from her 'Cowboy Carter' cover of The Beatles' 'Blackbird' to 'The Star-Spangled Banner' to 'Freedom.' This was Beyoncé's America. And the flag that has been a motif throughout the 'Cowboy Carter' era let you know. The 43-year-old singer made the stadium feel like a saloon on intimate 'CC' numbers such as 'Alligator Tears' and 'Just for Fun,' and 'Flamenco' took some Destiny's Child-esque harmonies to folky territory, complete with a flamenco dancer. 5 Beyoncé took MetLife Stadium to the rodeo on Thursday night in the first of five shows on her 'Cowboy Carter' Tour. Mason Poole via PictureGroup/Shutterstock But there was also spectacle when Beyoncé rode a mechanical bull on 'Tyrant' and a giant horseshoe through the air on her remake of Dolly Parton's 'Jolene.' And the visuals that the Beyhive has been clamoring for? Well, they were here on video screens during interludes. The New York crowd especially loved it when Beyoncé lit a cigar with the Statue of Liberty. While the nearly three-hour show was heavy on 'Cowboy Carter,' Beyoncé also delivered chart-topping classics such as 'Crazy in Love' and 'Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)).' And she revisited other early solo hits that have been missing from her recent tour, including 'Irreplaceable,' which took the crowd back with a stadium singalong, and 'If I Were a Boy,' which inspired one of her best vocals of the night. 5 Beyoncé featured both of her daughters — Blue Ivy, 13, and Rumi, 7 — during her 'Cowboy Carter' concert. Mason Poole via PictureGroup/Shutterstock 5 Beyoncé performed for nearly three hours, from early hits such as 'Crazy in Love' and 'Irreplaceable' to 'Texas Hold 'Em.' Julian Dakdouk via PictureGroup/Shutterstock Another vocal highlight was 'Daughter,' which showcased Beyoncé's classical chops when she took on the Italian aria 'Caro Mio Ben.' Her crystalline voice soared through the cold night air. Naturally, there was also dancing in a 'Renaissance' section that took it from the barnyard back to the ballroom and featured Bey's 13-year-old daughter Blue Ivy re-creating her mom's 'Deja Vu' dance break. But 7-year-old daughter Rumi was the star on 'Protector,' taking the stage to a big applause in a white fur coat — matching the one that Beyoncé wore to keep warm in temps that were in the 40s. She may be country, but she's still a diva.
The Guardian
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Maren Morris: ‘I never said I'm leaving country music'
The year 2023 was a tough one for Maren Morris. The country singer, then 33, reached the end of her tour for her third studio album, Humble Quest, and the end of her rope with the conservative politics of country music industry. Her marriage to fellow country singer-songwriter Ryan Hurd, with whom she shares a young son, fell apart. That summer, her future professional life in question and her personal life imploding, she found herself in the UK touring with the Chicks – three fellow trailblazing, outspoken female artists in a male-oriented music scene who, 20 years earlier, got infamously blacklisted from country radio for daring to criticize George W Bush during a concert at Shepherd's Bush. 'It couldn't have been a better musical hero backdrop for everything in my life crumbling,' Morris, a five-time Country Music Association Awards winner for such hits as The Bones, tells me in early April. The Chicks, of course, spun the hard-earned wisdom of the outsider's high road into Grammy gold with 2006's Taking the Long Way, an album of righteous anger burned to peace. 'Any woman who has faced any sort of professional adversity or feeling that betrayal from a community – they just have the perfect album and attitude for it,' says Morris, with typical forthrightness. Morris, too, went her own way that summer. By September, the Texas native – one of the few big country stars willing to call out peers for, say, anti-trans comments, excusing away a video of Morgan Wallen saying the N-word, or general refusal to reckon with racism, homophobia and sexism in Nashville – publicly distanced herself from the industry where she started a decade earlier as a scrappy songwriter. 'I thought I'd like to burn it to the ground and start over,' she told the Los Angeles Times. 'But it's burning itself down without my help.' She released the two-track EP The Bridge, signifying her move to Columbia from the label's Nashville division, with a music video that seemed to call out the racial vigilantism suggested by country star Jason Aldean's Try That in a Small Town. A month later, she filed for divorce from Hurd after five years of marriage. Two years of turmoil later, at 35, Morris can see a clearer picture. 'I tried everything I could to make that part of myself work,' she says of her marriage. 'I tried everything I could to make the part of myself within mainstream country work. And I think I was just growing apart from all of it.' Things are much brighter these days, though we have escaped the scorching afternoon sun at Coachella's record-hot first weekend for an air-conditioned trailer to discuss what emerged from the ashes: Dreamsicle, a honey-hued album of reckoning and healing, out this week. In person, Morris is poised and thoughtful, more circumspect than her past burn-it-down comments would suggest. True to her decade-plus career blurring the line between country and pop, she is dressed somewhere between Nashville and California – crochet halter top, denim cut-offs, cowboy boots, multicolor silk headscarf set. She's in town for some coveted Coachella guest spots – revisiting her breakout country hit My Church with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, performing her feature on Zedd's inescapable 2018 party staple The Middle. And also, of course, to take in some wide-ranging sets, from Clairo to Charli xcx – with whom she shares, if nothing else, a career-long interest in the catharsis that is being loud while driving fast; her Grammy-winning single My Church, released in 2016, likened belting in the car to a religious experience, neatly twisting Nashville's penchant for nostalgic faith into secular gospel. As a debut, My Church evinced Morris's independent streak, though she came up through the country music system. Raised on 90s female country-pop stars such as Shania Twain, the Chicks and LeAnn Rimes, she had no other plan than to become a singer. Relentless touring as a teen around the state, plus failed auditions for nearly every talent show – American Idol, The Voice, America's Got Talent, Nashville Star – cemented her country-pop sensibility and vocal chops, if not a route out of Texas. On the advice of Kacey Musgraves, a friend from the Texas honky-tonk circuit, Morris moved to Nashville in 2013 to work as a songwriter for the likes of Kelly Clarkson; she met Hurd the same year, when they co-wrote Last Turn Home for Tim McGraw. This was the height of so-called 'bro country', the prevalent sound of Solo cups, tailgates, cut-off jeans and nameless girls, almost all performed by white male artists occasionally inflected by hip-hop. As an aspiring solo artist, Morris was 'deeply respectful to the machine' of Nashville, she told the New York Times Popcast in 2023. Her 2016 debut, Hero, emerged out of a period of questioning who she was writing for, then penning tracks for herself and posting them on Spotify, where she gained enough traction that country's gatekeepers scrambled to sign her. Hero immediately shot to No 1 on the country charts and solidified Morris's precarious outsider-insider status as a new type of Nashville artist – musically voracious, open-minded and social media-literate, where she was unwilling to mince words on racial justice, abortion rights or respect for queer people. With a chameleonic and expansive voice, able to sustain torrential belt, delicate falsetto and a sharp turn of phrase, Morris moved seamlessly between genres and savvy collaborations, duetting with Taylor Swift, Alicia Keys, Hozier, Brothers Osborne and EDM artist Zedd – not to mention the Highwomen, a supergroup with Brandi Carlile, Amanda Shires and Natalie Hemby that served as a triumphant, rootsy rebuttal to the country manosphere. Dreamsicle has that all in the rearview, instead preoccupied with present-tense mess given a rose-gold tint familiar to Morris's ouevre. The album, named for the 'perfectly fickle' sweet treat that definitionally cannot last, builds on her longstanding pop-lite sensibilities and stable of collaborators – Greg Kurstin, Jack Antonoff and Julia Michaels, among others – with the roving focus and intensity of someone in the thick of a breakup, broadly construed. 'I'm not shying away from the elements of divorce on the record, but I think it's so much bigger than that,' she says, lightly buffeted by the bass of Coachella's early sets. 'That's a part of me and will be forever, but it's not a defining characteristic of me. It's how you put yourself back together.' Dreamsicle skips through those stops and starts – there is getting by with the help of your friends (grand bouquet), the awkwardness of the morning after with someone new (bed no breakfast), the moment of devastating clarity (this is how a woman leaves), the horniness of the newly liberated (push me over), and the overwhelmed freak-out (cut!). What there is not is any direct jab at Hurd, with whom she co-parents their five-year-old son, Hayes, in Nashville. 'We had this amazing love and we do in a different way now,' she says with the tranquility of the therapized. 'Now we're partners in a different sense. We have to be really good, on the same page as much as we can, as co-parents.' Morris also seems intent on distancing herself from the story distancing herself from country music, describing the initial LA Times headline – 'Maren Morris is getting the hell out of country music: 'I've said everything I can say'' – as 'really unfortunate'. 'I never said I'm leaving country music, because that's not really how I feel at all,' she explains calmly. 'You hear country music on this album. You can't just intentionally take the parts away. There would be nothing left of the sound of me. Because it's just there. It's in my bones and it's in the way I write.' The story 'caused a ton of unnecessary drama for me from that community because I was already sort of on the outs. I'm not backtracking what I said, I just never said that,' she adds, noting that she's lived in Nashville for 12 years – 'it's not going to be some tussle that's going to make me change my address.' Yes, she moved label divisions, no longer does the country radio circuit, nor submits her music to the CMA or ACM awards, but 'I live in Nashville and I work with all my same friends,' she says. 'It would be strange to be like: 'This music isn't me anymore.' That makes me feel like I'm shitting on the music I've already put out, and that's not how I feel at all.' 'The fans that I've made and the communities those fans have made through being a fan of my music is so important to me,' she continues, 'so to ever come out of my mouth saying: 'I'm leaving you behind' – I'd never be so reckless and stupid.' When I ask what she wished the conversation would have been, a representative interjects – the focus, it's clear, is onwards and upwards. But Morris clarifies that that was just two years ago, 'very much inside the storm that was still brewing' v the 'more zoomed-out, healed phase' now. 'If you dive deep enough, or if you just listen to the album, it's very clear that I haven't left anything behind.' Morris may not be up for directly challenging Nashville today, but she is clear on the values it should have, and what history is remembered. We're in the Cowboy Carter era, where pre-existing mainstream stars from Beyoncé to Chappell Roan, Lana Del Rey to Post Malone, are taking on steel guitars and banjos. 'It's great when people come in and obviously have such a deep respect for the lore and the roots of country music, which people of color started,' Morris says. 'Beyoncé telling the history of that in a correct way was so important.' Cowboy Carter's collaborators, including Shaboozey, Rhiannon Giddens, Linda Martell, Brittney Spencer, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson and others, 'felt like this amazing melting pot of country music', she adds. 'That's what it should be.' For a genre, and a country, often so focused on invoking a fictional past, Morris offers a different tradition – the many collaborations between Ray Charles and Nelson, a favorite of hers growing up in Texas and evidence of country music's multi-racial, genre-porous past. 'It's like, do people remember that that happened? That listen to mainstream country music now?' she wonders. 'We've been doing this for a very long time. Or at least, really badass artists have.' She offers others – Kris Kristofferson, an army man who advocated for veterans' aid; Johnny Cash, performing for incarcerated people; Parton's Imagination Library and status as a gay icon. 'These people are famous for this long and this globally for a reason, and it's not just because they're from the south,' she says. 'It's because they have an identity and they stand up for the marginalized. They were real outlaws. 'If there's any crisis [in country music], I think it's that the people that have an issue with any of that forget that their heroes were talking about that stuff before they were born.' And with that, along with one more nod to an album of past heartache – 'I hope [audiences] hear themselves in it, whether it's a past self or who they want to be,' she says – we're out of trailer, back into the light. Dreamsicle is out now
New York Times
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter Tour Remixes American History, and Her Own
The last time Beyoncé performed 'Daddy Lessons,' the stomping, biting number from her 2016 album, 'Lemonade,' was at that year's C.M.A. Awards, in a blistering rendition alongside the Dixie Chicks (now the Chicks). Not everyone in country music embraced Beyoncé's experimentation. 'I did not feel welcomed,' she wrote in album notes leading up to the release last year of 'Cowboy Carter,' her eighth solo album, an exploration of the many tendrils of American roots music and their connections to Black music of all stripes and generations. So it was meaningful, and pointed, that at the opening night of the Cowboy Carter Tour at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., on Monday, Beyoncé played 'Daddy Lessons' for the first time since that rejection. It came right after she sang her renovated version of Dolly Parton's 'Jolene' — approved by the country royal herself — while soaring over the rapturous crowd in a flying horseshoe. Full-circle moments don't just happen — they are the products of intention and diligence and allergy to loose threads. Throughout this roisterous and clever show, there were suggestions that loop-closing has been very much on Beyoncé's mind, along with culmination. 'Cowboy Carter' is proof of that writ large: It is album as historical remedy. And it was in part inspired by her chilly Nashville reception — if you can't join them, beat them. And beat them she did, all the way up through earning album of the year at the Grammys in February, ending a controversial career-long drought in the awards' top category (even though she is the most decorated Grammy winner of all time). That said, calling this the Cowboy Carter Tour was a mild headfake — even though Beyoncé performed most of the album's songs, it was as a purposeful reframing of this latest album as a kind of DNA-level source material that has been lurking beneath her music all along. At almost three hours long, her seventh solo headlining concert tour was a characteristic Beyoncé epic. It came alive during the second act, beginning with the sparkly 'Renaissance' flirtation 'America Has a Problem,' which she delivered from behind a Lucite lectern, followed by 'Spaghettii,' one of the most ferocious and fun songs on 'Cowboy Carter.' That led to 'Formation,' by now a crucial entry in her canon, and before long, 'Diva,' which made clear the connections between her politics and her physicality: Freedom reigns in both. By the time Beyoncé arrived at the fifth section, which began with 'Jolene' and 'Daddy Lessons,' she appeared to be, improbably, gaining strength. On 'Bodyguard,' her voice was ostentatious. Her ease of motion on 'Tyrant' and 'Thique' was luminous. She was well past the two-hour mark when she landed on the slick 'Texas Hold 'Em,' by far the most successful single on 'Cowboy Carter.' (Though that album had a gangbusters release week, it did not spawn many broad-impact singles, certainly not by comparison to earlier Beyoncé albums. ) This was the platonic ideal of a Beyoncé country song that might have feasibly been embraced by the country mainstream, but Beyoncé — performing from the hood of a semi truck — upended it here, blending it into the rollicking 'Crazy in Love.' That was one of several new-old partnerships in her set: 'II Most Wanted' and 'Blow'; 'Thique' and 'Bills, Bills, Bills'; 'Spaghettii' and 'Flawless.' The music on 'Cowboy Carter' she was underscoring wasn't just American roots music, but also Beyoncé roots music, dating all the way back to Destiny's Child. There were visual and sonic echoes of earlier tours and live shows, too: a red lip couch previously used on The Beyoncé Experience; her version of 'Before I Let Go,' the Maze featuring Frankie Beverly classic she revisited on 'Homecoming'; and wholesale set pieces from the Renaissance World Tour, down to the stars of vogueing working the stage. (Kudos especially to Honey Balenciaga.) She'd sprinkle in bits of hip-hop songs — David Banner's 'Like a Pimp,' Goodie Mob's 'Cell Therapy,' BigXthaPlug's 'The Largest' — making even more plain the threads she's stitching between genres and generations. Even though the musicology lessons dominated her performance, Beyoncé's true subject was the mutability of American iconography, and how to put it to work in her favor. That began with wardrobe — she played various stripes of cowgirl throughout the night, from regal to down-home. The crowd dressed for the occasion, of course: fringed leather chaps, silver cowboy boots, denim dusters, neckerchiefs, sashes that read 'Cowboy Carter' or, in some cases, ones that replaced Beyoncé's surname with the wearer's. Outside the stadium, vendors were selling cowboy hats and folding fans: 'Got that good snap,' one promised, spreading it out to read 'Bey-Haw.' At the merchandise stands, you could buy, for $75, a T-shirt depicting Beyoncé sitting side saddle and pointing a shotgun, next to the phrase 'Never ask permission for something that already belongs to you.' That phrase flashed onstage when she was singing 'The Star-Spangled Banner' early in the night. She wore an American flag dress for the night's finale, 'Amen,' and just before that, she was hoisted around the stadium in a red car, with a flag at her side. Reverence was just one of her postures, but not one she wore for long. At the end of the show, a huge bust of the Statue of Liberty appeared onstage with a bandanna covering its mouth, as if protecting itself. One video sketch found a giant Beyoncé stomping past the White House — wonder who's hanging out in there? — then drawing a wink from the Lincoln Memorial. Beyoncé has long been friskier than she gets credit for, but now, she appears looser than ever: At various points in the interstitial videos, she was smoking a cigarette, a cigar, a joint. She played along with the memes and mash-ups that trickle up to her from the Beyoncé-stan internet. Like she was on her Renaissance World Tour — a stadium show she mounted just two years ago — she was joined onstage for several songs by her daughter Blue Ivy, who serves as a backup dancer for her mother as well as a narrative foil and fan magnet. (Rumi, Beyoncé's other daughter, appeared onstage during 'Protector.' Her mother, Tina, was in the audience as well.) That was part of a family through line during this show that extended in both directions, past and future. Toward the end of the night, the huge screens onstage filled with childhood photos, old rehearsal videos, the clip where Beyoncé revealed her baby bump on MTV, singing at Barack Obama's inauguration, and so on. This, too, felt like the closing of a loop. A valedictory address. For more than two decades, Beyoncé has worked to redefine the boundaries of what a pop star can achieve, and how. She set bars, then leaped over them. But what do you when you run out of goals, win all the accolades, become one of one? Accept that your future may well be a remix of your past — and that's a whole new gift.
USA Today
24-04-2025
- Business
- USA Today
Coffee shop announces closure in 'bittersweet update' amid Buc-ee's copyright lawsuit
A pup-friendly Missouri business is closing its doors and starting anew after gas station and convenience store chain Buc-ee's sued the company for copyright infringement. Barc-ee's announced the closure on April 17 on Facebook, calling it a 'bittersweet update' and a 'new beginning.' According to the company, a new business will be opening its doors and selling bubble tea, coffee, lemonade, and sweets. 'They will be popping up over the next 90 days,' the company wrote. 'Right from the drive-thru at the place formerly known as Barc-ee's … The fight's not over. Our journey has just begun.' Barc-ee's is based in Marshfield, about 26 miles northeast of Springfield. The company, which sells hot and iced coffee, tea, shakes, as well as burritos and tacos, also hosts classes to teach dogs tricks. The closure comes after Buc-ee's filed a lawsuit in mid-March against the company, citing trademark infringement, per court documents obtained by USA TODAY. Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle. In the lawsuit, lawyers for Buc-ee's argue that the Barc-ee's trademark copies parts of the convenience store and gas station chain's font and logo. Lawyers for Barc-ee's and Buc-ee's did not immediately respond to requests for comment on April 24. Lawsuit: Barc-ee's name and logo were a 'playful nod' to Buc-ee's Lawyers argued in the lawsuit that Barc-ee's used the same 'curving word style' that Buc-ee's uses, in addition to a logo similar to the chain's well-known cartoon beaver logo. Regarding the logo, lawyers for Buc-ee's said the pup-friendly company has adopted a 'colorable imitation of the Buc-ee's Logo.' Lawyers for Buc-ee's state in the lawsuit that Barc-ee's publicly admitted to getting its inspiration from the chain. According to Buc-ee's, Bar-cee's linked to an article on its website that said the company's inspiration came from 'the well-known Buc-ee's,' calling it 'a playful nod to Buc-ee's.' Lawyers also argued that the pup-friendly business has misled customers into believing the two companies are related, and also created 'unfair competition.' The attorneys demanded a jury trial to resolve the matter. They also pushed for the company to cease operations using the Barc-ee's name and logo, as well as money to cover profits the owners made using the logo and name. Previous lawsuits filed by Buc-ee's Barc-ee's isn't the only company Buc-ee's has sued. The company has initiated legal action against at least four other companies. Previous lawsuits or threats of legal action include: March 2013 (Chicks in Texas) - Buc-ee's sued Texas-based convenience store Chicks and claimed the company's store design, website, product variety, and logo were similar. Chicks' lawyers tried to dismiss the complaint, but Chicks ultimately closed in 2014. 2018 (Choke Canyon in Texas) - Buc-ee's won a federal lawsuit against Choke Canyon, a travel center. A jury found that Choke Canyon's logo looked too much like Buc-ee's logo, per the Houston Chronicle. Choke Canyon changed its logo. July 2023 (Buk-II's Super Mercado in Mexico) - When an image of the Mexican convenience store went viral on social media, Buc-ee's found out about the company, and rumors swirled that the company would take legal action. Bucee's did not end up suing the store due to it changing its mascot, KABC-TV reported. January 2025 (Super Fuels in Texas) - Buc-ee's filed a lawsuit against Texas gas station Super Fuels and claimed the Super Fuels' logo is too similar to Buc-ee's. And in November 2024, the chain filed a federal lawsuit against Duckees, a liquor store in southwest Missouri. In the lawsuit, Buc-ee's claimed Duckees printed a similar logo on its products. The logo contains a yellow circle, and inside the shape is a sunglasses-wearing cartoon duck dressed in a green shirt and red bowtie. In response to the lawsuit, Duckees denied the allegations and said any alleged infringement was done "in good faith" and the owners had no idea about Buc-ee's trademarks, reported the Springfield News-Leader, part of the USA TODAY Network. The Duckees also said the logos were used in a "geographically remote area' where customers do not know much about Buc-ee's and its logos. The court was notified of a settlement between April 3 and April 17, the newspaper reported. Where are Buc-ee's convenience stores located? Buc-ee's has 51 locations in Texas, Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, South Carolina, and Tennessee. The company previously announced plans to expand, including: Amarillo, Texas: 2025 Brunswick, Georgia: 2025 Rockingham County, Virginia: 2026 Boerne, Texas: 2026 Contributing: James Powel, USA TODAY; Tony Madden and Susan Szuch, Springfield News-Leader Saleen Martin is a reporter on USA TODAY's NOW team. She is from Norfolk, Virginia – the 757. Email her at sdmartin@
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Chito Martinez, former Baltimore Orioles outfielder and Mid-South resident, dies at 59
Chito Martinez − the only Major League Baseball player from Belize − died April 20 in Lake Cormorant, Mississippi. He was 59 and died of a heart attack, according to Crescent City Sports. After being selected by the Kansas City Royals in the sixth round of the 1984 MLB draft, Martinez spent six seasons in the minor leagues − including two (1988-89) with the Memphis Chicks, then the Royals' Double A affiliate. Martinez, whose family emigrated to New Orleans when he was 2 years old, reached the big leagues in 1991 as an outfielder with the Baltimore Orioles. He got off to a hot start, belting 13 home runs following his midseason promotion. Advertisement Martinez also became the first player in Orioles history to hit safely in the first six games of his career. He spent parts of the next two seasons with Baltimore but finished his MLB career with 18 home runs and a .259 batting average in 158 games. Martinez played the first two seasons of his professional career with the Chicks in Memphis. He played in 268 games and hit 36 home runs, 36 doubles and had 127 RBIs. Among his teammates during his Chicks career were future MLB players Brian McRae, Tom Gordon and Kevin Appier. One of Martinez's sons, Drew, was a star player at Christian Brothers before suiting up for the University of Memphis. As a Tiger, Drew Martinez was a two-time All-Conference USA selection. He was a 23rd round pick of the San Francisco Giants in 2010. Drew Martinez was a member of the 2022 Memphis M-Club Hall of Fame class. He is currently a fundamentals coach for the Eugene Emeralds (the high-A affiliate for the Giants). Advertisement Reach sports writer Jason Munz at follow him @munzly on X, and sign up for the Memphis Basketball Insider text group. This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Chito Martinez death: Orioles OF from Belize, Mid-South resident, dies
