"Always, it seems, you hear the Victor Martinez story told as if his assets are inseparable.

The good hitter is supposedly a greater guy. A slugger for whom the Tigers paid $50 million to bat behind Miguel Cabrera for the next four years is, according to just about everyone, a clubhouse version of Mother Teresa who doubles as a classic middle-of-the-order basher.

His virtues are supposedly intertwined. And so you examine the evidence.

Hitting : Martinez has a .300 batting average spanning his nine seasons in the big leagues, which were spent with the Indians and Red Sox. He's a switch-hitter who is so accomplished and so consistent from either side that he has batted .298 as a right-handed hitter against left-handed pitchers and .301 as a left-handed batter against right-handers.

Citizenship : Two weeks ago, Martinez hatched the idea of joining with Alex Avila to take a half-dozen young Tigers catchers to dinner. And so they headed off to a swank place in Orlando, Texas de Brazil, one of those red-meat paradises where eight men polished off a good portion of someone's beef herd as they talked baseball, catching and anything that might further bond men who play the toughest position on a diamond.

Tigers manager Jim Leyland was asked Sunday about the two spheres Martinez occupies. Wasn't signing Martinez purely a matter of securing a reliable, run-producing switch-hitter who might give pitchers something to think about other than walking Miguel Cabrera as they saw Martinez swinging a bat in the on-deck circle?

And what, if anything, did a man's reputed clubhouse charisma have to do with the Tigers and their $50 million purchase price when he made his way into free agency last autumn?"