On Sunday mornings before games at Yankee Stadium, a brief Mass is celebrated for players. Back in 1996, when Constantino “Tino” Martinez began playing with the team, he said to the presiding priest, “I’m struggling, Father, can you put in a call to God for me?”

“Tino,” responded Edward J. McMahon, S.J., “every time I call God and mention your name, he hangs up on me.”

Martinez, a two-time All-Star first baseman and key contributor to four New York Yankees World Series wins, was the keynote speaker and a recipient of an honorary doctorate of humane letters at Fordham University’s 169th Commencement, held May 17 at the Rose Hill campus.

The day before the ceremony, Martinez visited Father McMahon at Murray-Weigel Hall, the Jesuit retirement home on Fordham’s campus. He and the priest, who Martinez said reminds him of “Mickey, Rocky Balboa’s trainer,” shared laughs and memories of a tough time for Martinez.

“At this point in my career I could’ve folded, but I didn’t want that,” he said. “I was determined to make it with this team, in this city, and with these fans.”

Martinez spoke of baseball as “my business” and his life experience as his “résumé.”
“Your life in many ways is the creation of one big resume,” he said.

He noted that his journey was a humbling one that began with a “big break” with a “real big company” that was “ranked one of the lowest, least profitable in our business.” Through the efforts of “a couple of young guys like myself” that business, the Seattle Mariners, would break into the top five of the league in as many years.

After the business “shut down for a few months,” Martinez said, referring to the 1994–1995 Major League Baseball strike, he was transferred to another city, where he was greeted with a bevy of “Bronx cheers.”

In threading together the language of business with his career in baseball, Martinez set out to universalize his singular experience. He told graduates that no matter life’s disappointments, more doors will open to them and that they should persevere.

“If your dream job is in New York, Boston, or L.A., you may have to go through Williamsport, Calgary, or some other small town to get there. It’s not always going to be a direct path, it’s not always going to be easy or go as planned, but stick to your plan and … love what you do,” he said.

Martinez ended his speech by congratulating his daughter, Olivia Martinez, FCRH ’14. “I promised I wouldn’t say her name, but as the proud father of a 2014 Fordham graduate, I want my daughter to know how proud I am of her and how much I love her,” he said.

In conclusion, he told the Class of 2014, “Good luck and swing for the fences.”

Fordham conferred honorary degrees on seven others, including Stephen E. Bepler, FCRH ’64, a longtime supporter of the University who recently retired as senior vice president with Capital Research Global Investors, where he had worked since 1972; Mary Alice Hannan, O.P., former executive director of Part of the Solution, a social service agency in the Bronx; Reynold Levy, former president of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts; and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who received a rousing ovation on entering Edwards Parade.

Sotomayor grew up in the housing projects of the Bronx, the daughter of a nurse and a factory worker, and forged a path to the highest court in the United States.

On presenting her with an honorary doctorate in laws, Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, told her that as a “daughter of the Bronx we will also present you with an autographed baseball from Tino Martinez.” Martinez, in turn, recieved a signed copy of Sotomayor’s memoir, My Beloved World (Vintage, 2013).

Thanking Martinez for his speech, Father McShane said that his only quibble was that Martinez did not mention the sacred name: “Yankees.” He then thanked the graduates’ parents “for sharing your sons and daughters with Fordham.” Finally, he thanked the facilities staff that worked through the night to ready the grounds after torrential rains.

Father McShane quoted poet Seamus Heaney, describing the day as a “time of ‘floodtide in the heart.’” He told the graduates to develop and deepen their capacity for “reflection, gratitude, and generosity.”

And then he delivered instructions familiar to the Fordham community: “Respond to the gifts and graces in your lives with bold and daring love. Be conspicuous in compassion. Be bothered by injustice. Embrace the suffering. Champion the poor. If you do, you will be men and women of Fordham. You will be men and women for others who can and will transform the world with love.”

Three honorary degree recipients were not at Rose Hill, but spoke at various school diploma ceremonies: Nemir Kirdar, GBA ’72, the founder, executive chairman and CEO of the global investment group Investcorp, who spoke at the Graduate School of Business Administration ceremony on May 19; Denny Chin, LAW ’78, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, who spoke speak at the Law School diploma ceremony on May 19; and Yvonne Cagle, M.D., a retired U.S. Air Force colonel and NASA senior astronaut physician and researcher, who spoke at the Graduate School of Social Services ceremony on May 22.

Constantino “Tino” Martinez, two-time All-Star first baseman and key contributor to four New York Yankees World Series wins, will deliver the keynote address to the Class of 2014 and receive an honorary doctorate of humane letters at Fordham University’s 169th Commencement, to be held Saturday, May 17, at the Rose Hill campus.

At the ceremony Fordham will award honorary degrees to seven others who have made outstanding contributions in business, law, philanthropy, social service, and the sciences.

Fordham will award honorary doctorates of laws to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Denny Chin, LAW ’78, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Also receiving doctorates of humane letters will be Fordham Trustee Fellow Stephen E. Bepler, FCRH ’64, a longtime supporter of the University who recently retired as senior vice president with Capital Research Global Investors, where he had worked since 1972; Yvonne Cagle, M.D., a retired U.S. Air Force colonel and NASA senior astronaut physician and researcher; Mary Alice Hannan, O.P., former executive director of Part of the Solution, a social service agency in the Bronx; Nemir Kirdar, GBA ’72, the founder, executive chairman and CEO of the global investment group Investcorp; and Reynold Levy, former president of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

Chin will give the keynote address at the Fordham Law School diploma ceremony and Kirdar will give the address at the Graduate School of Business Administration diploma ceremony, both of which will be held Monday, May 19, at the Theater at Madison Square Garden. Cagle will give the keynote address at the diploma ceremony for the Graduate School of Social Service, to be held Thursday, May 22, at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center.

Constantino “Tino” Martinez Constantino “Tino” Martinez was a four-time World Series champion with the New York Yankees from 1996 to 2001, the highlight of a distinguished Major League Baseball career. Martinez won the Silver Slugger Award in 1997, played on the gold-medal-winning U.S. baseball team at the Summer Olympics in 1988, and was inducted last year into the National College Baseball Hall of Fame. Since his retirement in 2005 he has been a special adviser and spring-training assistant for the Yankees, a hitting coach for the Miami Marlins, a sports broadcaster, and a volunteer assistant coach at the college level. In June, he will be honored with a plaque in Monument Park highlighting his career as a New York Yankee. Among the members of the Class of 2014 Martinez will be addressing is his daughter, Olivia, a senior at Fordham College at Rose Hill.
Martinez earned his own bachelor’s degree in 2011, from the University of Tampa, completing the educational journey he began in 1985, when he was drafted by the Boston Red Sox but chose to attend the university instead.

Stephen E. Bepler and his wife, Kim B. Bepler, are among the most generous supporters of Fordham in its history. They have created scholarships, supported science education and the Fordham Fund, and contributed to the restoration of the University Church and installation of the new Maior Dei Gloria church organ. In addition, their gifts established the Karl Rahner, S.J., Memorial Chair in Theology and the John D. Boyd, S.J., Chair in Poetic Imagination. In 2007, they were honored with the Fordham Founder’s Award, given to those whose lives reflect the highest aspirations of the University’s defining traditions.
Bepler has also served as a trustee at Cristo Rey New York High School, the Forman School in Litchfield, Conn., and other organizations and educational institutions.

Yvonne Cagle, M.D., has made many important contributions to research in the sciences, technology, and human health. Today she serves at NASA’s Ames Research Center as lead astronaut science liaison and strategic relationships manager for Google and other industry collaborations in Silicon Valley. According to NASA, she has performed “groundbreaking work” by “galvanizing NASA’s lead in global mapping, sustainable energies, green initiatives, and disaster preparedness.” She has also begun a partnership with Fordham—the Interdisciplinary Collaborative on Health, Environment, and Human Performance—to promote research involving NASA, Fordham’s faculty and students, and the University’s partner institutions.

Denny Chin has won numerous awards for judicial excellence and presided over many high-profile cases as a federal judge. Among them were the case of Bernard L. Madoff, to whom Chin gave a 150-year sentence, as well as cases involving the Million Youth March, the United Nations’ Oil-for-Food Program, and Google’s mass digitization of copyrighted books. He was a prosecutor, and later, a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York before President Barack Obama chose him for his current appellate post in 2009.
Chin is an advisory board member for Fordham’s Center on Law and Information Policy, and has been an adjunct professor in Fordham Law School’s Legal Writing Program for more than a quarter century.

Mary Alice Hannan, O.P., greatly expanded the services at Part of the Solution in the Bronx while working there from 1996 to 2011, when she retired as executive director. Under Sister Hannan’s leadership, Part of the Solution was transformed from a soup kitchen into an agency providing freshly prepared meals as well as legal counseling and other services. Today it is one of the largest emergency food programs in New York City and a place that affords the homeless a greater sense of dignity. Sister Hannan also founded Desda’s Grate, a shelter in New Rochelle, New York, for homeless women and their children.

Nemir Kirdar has earned a reputation as a brilliant and principled executive for his leadership of Investcorp, a firm that he founded in 1982 to link surplus funds in the Arabian Gulf and nontraditional investment opportunities in the United States and Western Europe. He is the recipient of numerous honorary degrees, a speaker at international forums, and the author of three books, including one focused on the restoration of his native Iraq. Kirdar is a member of the Council for Arab and International Relations, among his many affiliations.

Reynold Levy played a pivotal role in the transformation of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts during his 11 years as its president—not only leading the capital campaign in support of its $1.2 billion redevelopment, but also overseeing the revitalization of its programming, the expansion of its campus, and many other initiatives. He has also served as president of the International Rescue Committee, executive director of the 92nd Street Y, and staff director of the task force on the New York City Fiscal Crisis. He is a widely respected expert on philanthropy, fundraising, and management.

Sonia Sotomayor, the third woman and first Hispanic to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, grew up in the housing projects of the Bronx and attended Princeton University and Yale Law School. While serving as a prosecutor under former New York County district attorney Robert Morgenthau, she earned a reputation as being fair, ethical, and empathetic, and also willing to fight for the right conclusion in each case. She worked as a private litigator, a trial and appellate judge in the federal court system, and a law professor before President Barack Obama nominated her to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2009.