Pablo Sandoval loves food. He also apparently doesn’t like to say no. That makes trips back to his native country of Venezuela particularly dangerous for him, where family and friends enjoy connecting with him through the food he can’t refuse.
That inability to say no — along with no one looking out for his best interests and a stubborn sense of entitlement after signing a big contract — is at the center of his problems, according to Sandoval’s former trainer Ethan Banning.
Banning told the Boston Herald‘s Evan Drellich he believes that Sandoval needs a food babysitter. That’s right, someone needs to babysit the plus-sized former All-Star when he is around food because he can’t say no to it. The trainer speaks from experience, having helped Sandoval shed weight before the 2011 and 2012 seasons.
“You need the babysitter,” said Banning, who said he has not spoken to the Sox. “Hey, that’s a pretty harsh statement. At the end of the day, I’m speaking truth. … I love the guy.”
According to Banning, Sandoval has many of the same traits as an alcoholic… just with food.
“It’s like the alcoholic that won’t admit he’s an alcoholic: well, you can’t address that you’re an alcoholic if you don’t ever admit there’s a problem. He’s got to address that.
“He’s proven to me and shown consistently that he’s got to have somebody like me holding his hand doing that. And it’s not an exercise thing, it’s an eating thing. Obviously exercise is an important factor in it, a very important factor, but eating is going to be the component that needs to be managed and monitored. We had a chef on staff that cooked all his meals.”
Banning shared a story about Sandoval returning from Venezuela after Christmas in 2011 and showing up for their training sessions having gained 21 pounds in 21 days. Knowing that a new contract was at stake, the trainer hid Sandoval from the Giants, claiming he had the flu, and put him on a program in which he worked out three times a day for six days of the week and twice on Sunday.
Clearly, Sandoval had some major issues when he returned to his home country. Banning even took to traveling with him on a five-day trip back to Venezuela, making sure that Sandoval didn’t overeat and keeping friends and family from bringing him food he shouldn’t have. Just having someone around who could say no for him and turn people away who were pushing food on him resulted in Sandoval losing five pounds during the trip.
It probably shouldn’t be a surprise that with someone pushing him and an intense effort in the training room, Sandoval followed through with the only two All-Star seasons of his MLB career.
Given his poor start to the 2016 season, in which he lost his starting job, broke his belt in mid-swing and is now serving a stint on the disabled list with a supposed injury, Banning’s suggestion that Sandoval needs a babysitter, someone who can tell him what he doesn’t want to hear, doesn’t sound so crazy.
