Pedro

by Pedro Martinez

  That was my attitude from the start in Boston. It may not have won me many friends on the other side of the playing field, but it provided a new, clean-burning fuel for me, one that worked out well for the Red Sox too.

  Except for some bad salmon I ate in Seattle, my debut season with the Red Sox began on a high note on a West Coast swing. In Oakland, I had my first-ever Opening Day start. Honored, yes, but there wasn’t anything particularly nerve-wracking about the experience—even the Expos could sell out Olympic Stadium on Opening Day. Pitching in front of a sold-out crowd was nothing to get nervous about, plus I wasn’t unhappy at all to be pitching in the Coliseum in Oakland. I knew it was big, a pitcher’s park, and I was healthy and very much looking forward to getting off to a fast start.

  The Athletics started my old Dodgers teammate, the knuckleballer Tom Candiotti. The Dodgers used to like using me in relief of Candiotti back in 1992. They liked having a fireballer come in right after a knuckleballer, just as the Red Sox later on would start knuckleballer Tim Wakefield the day before or after my starts. Seeing Candiotti also reminded me how he was the starter who Tommy Lasorda decided to rest late in the 1992 season, when we were in Colorado and Tommy thought the Coors Field bandbox would be a good place to make my first major league start.

  The first batter I faced as a Red Sox was Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson. Rickey got ahead in the count, 2-0, before I got him to take my third pitch for a strike. He got a hold of the next pitch and hooked it pretty good, but left fielder Troy O’Leary settled in underneath it, and I had the first out of my Red Sox career.

  Next batter was Dave Magadan. He came out swinging and missing, and then watched me fall behind 3-1. He figured he was going to get a walk, but I found the strike zone, laid in two pitches for strikes, and had my first Red Sox strikeout.

  Just 1,682 to go.

  I went seven innings that first start, allowing no runs and three hits, all singles, for my first Red Sox win.

  We were off next to Seattle, where I didn’t pitch, but I did eat what I thought was a perfectly normal salmon lunch. By the time we got back to Boston, odd, sharp pains were starting to shoot across my stomach periodically throughout the day.

  I ignored them, overwhelmed by my first game at Fenway Park. I wasn’t pitching the home opener, so I had the luxury of soaking in my new home turf. I didn’t mistake all that green—the grass, the chalky-green paint color that coated the interior walls, especially the massive Green Monster—for the lush landscape in my finca and most of the DR, but green is a soothing color for me, and I thought the stadium was beautiful. Once the gates opened and these happy, chattering Bostonians filed in and took their seats, roaring and hollering at whatever the PA announcer had to say, I knew I wasn’t in Montreal anymore.

  Seattle’s “Big Unit,” Randy Johnson, pitched against us that day, and he destroyed us, striking out 15 Red Sox in eight innings. We both had a mullet, but we were seldom mistaken for each other. He was six-foot-ten, a foot taller than me, and threw with his left arm, but what I locked in on in that game was how he insisted on pitching inside. I knew how hard he had struggled with his delivery when he was with the Expos as a minor leaguer, and I knew from Bobby Cuellar how much work he had put in to overcome those issues.

  In the ninth inning, though, down by five runs, we stormed back. We scored three times, and then up came Mo Vaughn, bases loaded, no outs. Down 0-2 in the count, Vaughn jumped on a cookie from Paul Spoljaric and launched a grand slam into the right-field bleachers. I felt like I was standing on a runway and a jet plane had just taken off over my head. Fenway Park erupted. A swirling wall of sound, from 32,805 fans screaming their heads off and the opening guitar riffs from The Standells’ “Dirty Water” rolled right through me.

  So that’s what Juan Marichal and Dan Duquette were talking about when they talked about playing in Boston.

  The next day was my day to pitch. I wanted to be like Mo. A grand slam was not in my repertoire, but I had other tools. The moment I reached the top step of the dugout to head out to the outfield to begin my warm-ups and long-tossing, the crowd spotted me. The stadium was still filling up, but a chant, “Ped-ro, Ped-ro,” started up along with a wave of applause. And this was just for warming up?

  Okay, I thought. I like this. And I hear you—I’ll try not to let you down.

  Adrenaline pushed aside the flashes of stomach pain I was still having when I took the mound. Joey Cora swung at the first pitch I threw at Fenway, popping it up for a harmless pop-up to Mo at first base. And I was off. Alex Rodriguez: fly ball to Damon Buford in center field. Ken Griffey Jr.: line-out to Nomar at shortstop. Glenallen Hill was my first Fenway “K” in the second inning, and I had 11 more to collect from the Mariners’ lineup that day.

  I wound up with a shutout, allowing just two hits, both singles, and two walks in a 5–0 win.

  Right after that start, I had to return to Montreal to wrap up some loose ends with my apartment, so I called Mark Routtenberg, who asked me if I wanted to come see the Expos while I was there. I figured, why not, so we headed over to Olympic Stadium. Mark wanted me to sit with him up in the owner’s box, but I said, “No, I want to go sit near the guys.” So we walked down to his two seats right near the Expos’ dugout. Everyone was there—Felipe, Vladdy Guerrero, Uggie, the security guard—and I instantly felt right at home. We were just chatting away, like we would during a game. I admit, even though I was still psyched from that first start at Fenway, I felt a strong tug from my Montreal family right then. Naturally, between innings, the TV cameras found me, and they flashed my picture on the scoreboard. The crowd gasped, and then started calling my name over and over. They gave me a standing ovation.

  Merci beaucoup.

  Still, au revoir.

  I was 5-0 with a 1.74 ERA after my first five Red Sox starts, so the stomach pains, while real enough, did not slow me down at first. But by the end of May, they had worsened and I started having trouble even mustering an appetite. The team began giving me protein shakes all the time. They wanted to keep my weight up, but it was not working. Besides feeling weak much of the time, I would double over from the sharp belly pains.

  My pitching coach in Boston was, once again, Joe Kerrigan. Before one May start, I remember Joe asking me, “Pedro, can you go? You need to really think if you’re going to pitch.” I said, “No, if I get in, I’m in and I’ll be fine.” He said, “Well, you’re better at 70 percent than the average healthy pitcher in the league.”

  Nothing like hearing about percentages from Joe to make me almost forget about my discomfort.

  My velocity started to drop along with my weight—I lost approximately 14 pounds, which for a small man like myself was way too much. My mom was extremely worried to the point where she believed I had an ulcer or a tumor. The team ran all sorts of tests on me to eliminate the worst fears. I had a tenacious and nasty stomach virus. Our team doctor, Dr. Arthur Pappas, told me that I was dropping weight too quickly and that the team wanted to put me on the DL. I would have to miss five to six weeks, Pappas told me, to recover.

  “Are you sure, five to six weeks?” I asked.

  “Yes, you’re getting weaker and weaker.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” I said.

  I kept pitching.

  As it turned out, I started to feel better soon after that, but not before I had some really tough games. One in particular morphed into the blackest moment of my career at Fenway Park.

  The Mets were in town for an interleague game on June 5. I had nothing, and the Mets took full advantage. I went only four innings, giving up eight hits, four of them home runs. It was almost a complete disaster, from beginning to end.

  Making matters worse was that my old friend Mike Piazza was now in the Mets lineup, and his presence was a reminder of the disrespect I was not going to tolerate.

  Back in March of that spring training in 1998, I had bought Ramon a Ferrari as a 30th birthday present. I flew in all the family, plus I flew in from Fort Myers
to Vero Beach—I took a single-engine plane that made me feel like I was riding on a sheet of paper—to hand him the keys. While I was in Vero, I heard about how after I had signed my Red Sox contract, Mike Piazza had said something to the effect of: “If that little shit got all that money, what would they have to pay me?” That’s what I heard. I never authorized a fact-checking team to verify, but what I heard sounded believable. That upset me, because we had been teammates and I thought we were okay. I was told that he was joking, but still, it pissed me off. I filed it away.

  Lo and behold, Mike got traded from the Dodgers to the Marlins and then the Mets in 1998, which meant he was in town on June 5, batting third. When I had gone over the Mets lineup before the game, I did not have to put much thought into how I could pitch to Mike, I just needed to make sure it was not too obvious. I got my chance right away, in the first inning. Bernard Gilkey had doubled with one out, and I reached a full count with Mike.

  I didn’t want Mike to hurt us with his bat, so I decided he belonged on first base and I would try to get a double-play ball from the next batter, John Olerud. I hated walking batters and was not going to waste one on Piazza. There just had to be a better way to get that little shit to first base.

  Hmmm.

  Eureka!

  I uncorked a fastball that hit his left hand.

  Knocked him out of that game and the next couple of games too, but he was fine, no broken bones.

  He and I got into it in the papers after that. He chirped, “It shows you that all that money can’t buy you class. Maybe he should invest in some lessons on etiquette.”

  I shot back with, “He wants to talk about class, well, he was a millionaire since he was a kid. He’s not a better person than me.”

  That was just one sideshow from June 5, the type of reality show that I was by then becoming accustomed to. A worse one occurred when I walked off the field for the last time after that start. It was only the fourth inning, and I had just let up my third and fourth home runs. My pride stung as badly as my stomach. This was my first poor showing in front of my new fan base, and I was stewing as I made that slow and brutally naked walk off the mound to the dugout, staring intently at the tips of my cleats. Then I had to look up, because I heard a loud, shrill voice. Standing behind the dugout was an old man with tufts of white, unkempt hair, scowling at me with a beet-red face.

  “Is this the kind of shit we’re getting for $75 million?”

  I said nothing. I didn’t gesture or react in any way, but that was the very last time I ever took a close look at anybody in the stands anywhere during a game. That old guy wasn’t alone. Fans from every section were booing the shit out of me.

  Before that game, I was 6-1 with a 2.63 ERA after my first 12 starts. I remember thinking, Wow. This is harsh. I knew I wasn’t performing at the level I was capable of because I wasn’t healthy. I also knew that Boston was quick to boo when you didn’t deliver.

  I have to admit, it did more than catch me off guard.

  From that day forward, I would never tip my hat at Fenway. I didn’t care if it was after a good start or a bad one—the respect had not been there, so there could not be a mutual respect.

  When I wasn’t pitching, I could be my goofy self with the fans, yap with them and toss them bubblegum. But since that day, I never looked up to acknowledge anybody. I would walk straight into the dugout. Lift my hand at some cheers? Sure, but tip my hat in reverence? No. Because the next time I had a bad game I might be booed, and I wasn’t going to tip my hat at boos. I didn’t want to be inconsistent. Be one way one day, and another way another day? That wasn’t me. I couldn’t understand or respect those who booed.

  When you boo me, I’m your enemy, and when you love me, I’m your friend? I’m going to be consistent. I loved the fans, mostly respected them, and always felt that if they didn’t see me give max effort out there, they could boo me—that was okay. But I never gave less than max effort, so I didn’t deserve any boos.

  Over the years I did very little to disappoint those fans. I won 58 games and lost only 19 times in 96 games—95 starts and one relief appearance—at Fenway Park. Batters mustered only a .212 batting average against me there. I had a 2.74 ERA, struck out 801 batters in 660⅔ innings, and gave up 52 home runs. Four of those home runs came on June 5, 1998. Can’t a guy have a bad day at the office? In Boston, that was not tolerated. Not everyone held me to impossible standards, but there were always one or two miserable people who did.

  That was the worst day I ever had in Boston, and it came just two months into my stay there. Someone told me once that Ted Williams had “rabbit ears,” meaning he could pick out a single boo from among a thousand cheers. Ted Williams and I had something in common, but I basically put earplugs in my rabbit ears as soon as that game ended on June 5. I heard plenty of boos for teammates after that game, but for the rest of my days in Boston I don’t remember any of them directed at me again.

  I would never forget what they sounded like.

  Never.

  Being with the Red Sox meant being reunited with Joe Kerrigan as my pitching coach. He insisted that I throw bullpens like everyone else, and he always wanted me to be at every team meeting with the pitchers. “I’m not going to the meeting—we just played this team last week, why would I go to the meeting?” I would ask. I always thought it was because he didn’t know shit about how to approach hitters and he would ask me direct questions about them. Now, I had my routine by then, and I would have to interrupt it in order to go to the meeting and hear Joe ask me, “Pedro, how would you approach this hitter?”

  “Joe, nobody here is just like me. Are you going to try to tell Wakey to pitch this guy like I’m going to pitch him?” We’d go back and forth like that. I was not amused. I didn’t like the guy, and I sensed he still didn’t like me.

  By the middle of June I finally felt like myself, and I started pitching like it was 1997 all over again. In my last four starts before the All-Star break, I went 4-0 with a 0.93 ERA. My record was 11-2, the same as David Wells, while my ERA was 2.87, nearly a point lower than his. I also had 52 more strikeouts than him at the break, 142 to 88.

  I bring up Wells’s stats because by the time I was selected to the All-Star Game, I had a pretty good hunch that I was going to get the start for the American League. I flew to Colorado expecting that, but then the manager, Cleveland’s Mike Hargrove, told me that Wells was getting the start. The reason, said Hargrove, was that besides throwing a perfect game in the first half, Wells also “throws strikes. I felt that of all the guys, that he probably could handle the pressure of opening an All-Star Game as well as anybody. He gives us a chance to win it.”

  So I was leading in nearly every pitching category in the league, I had won a Cy Young the year before, and I was in the front of the pack heading into the All-Star break, and Wells gave the AL a better chance to win?

  Hargrove’s explanation didn’t cut it for me.

  I decided right then that I would not pitch. Uh, my arm didn’t feel right. I told Hargrove I could not go. “Too sore,” I said.

  I wasn’t sore. I was pissed. I felt disrespected, and I didn’t see any reason to pitch. If they had needed me, then yes, I would have pitched, but clearly there was no need for me to pitch if I couldn’t be the starter. Officials from the American League asked Dan Duquette to talk me into pitching anyway.

  “Why don’t you go talk to the manager and tell him he made a mistake? Don’t talk to me—this kid’s the best pitcher in the league, he deserves to start,” said Dan. I appreciated his support. He thought the decision to start Wells was “like putting a jackass in front of a racehorse.” When he checked up on me, I told him, “Danny, I don’t think I’m going to pitch.”

  “That’s your decision—I’m glad you came to the game.”

  Hargrove went with the straight story—that I had a “minor knot” in my shoulder—in explaining why I could not pitch. When I got asked about it, I said I was fine and that no, I wasn’t miffed at
all for being passed over, I just didn’t want to screw up my routine by coming in for only one inning of work.

  Three days after the All-Star Game, I pitched a complete game against the Orioles. My next two starts were against Hargrove’s Indians. I threw a shutout at Fenway for the first win, and then I won the second game in Cleveland. My arm, shoulder, elbow, and entire body felt great. And my pride recovered nicely as well.

  I pitched the second half pretty much like the first half, going 8-5 with a 2.91 ERA. There was one mini-incident in August when Matt Lawton of the Twins stepped out of the batter’s box when I was in the middle of my delivery. That didn’t sit well with me, so I hit him in the knee with a pitch. That didn’t sit well with Matt. Both benches and bullpens emptied, but nothing came of it.

  I thought overall that my second half of the season had gone pretty well, but then came a rocket. “The Rocket,” Roger Clemens, took off that second half. Clemens, who turned 36 years old that August, went 11-0 over his last 15 starts for the Blue Jays. He cut his 3.55 ERA in half, to 1.71, and he bumped up his strikeouts from 120 in 18 first-half starts to 151 in his last 15. I don’t know how that happened, I really don’t—it was like someone had performed a magic trick on the Rocket. I heard later that the trainer who accused him of using steroids said that it was in the middle of the 1998 season when he gave Roger his first shot in the butt.

  I wasn’t there, so I couldn’t tell you if that’s what really happened.

  I do know that the Rocket won the Cy Young that year. And I finished second.

  We had the same number of starts, and he pitched one more inning than I did. He had one more win, with 20. He had 20 more strikeouts. And his ERA was .24 points lower, 2.89 versus 2.65.

  I would have voted for the Rocket too that year.

  The numbers don’t lie, right?

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