Theo was careful with every word he chose. He was being respectful, but the message he was delivering was not at all what I wanted to hear.
I was going to be 33 years old in 2005, and Theo’s computer showed the direction that 33-year-old pitchers went when they weren’t using steroids. They knew that I wanted a three-year guaranteed deal, but that chart showed only where I was then and where they thought I was going to go.
It left out where I had been.
My arm angle had dropped, he told me. I knew that it had, but I hadn’t been hurting. There was also talk about Schilling and me. I knew I didn’t have as good a season in 2004 as Schilling did, but that made little impression on me when it came to talking money. Schilling was five years older than me and making $12.5 million on an average annual basis. The Red Sox were at $11 million a year for me with both their initial one-year and then their two-year offer.
I wasn’t going to drag down the pitchers’ market by taking far less than what the older and less accomplished Schilling was making. That was unacceptable. As Theo continued to unveil his vision of my professional future, I began to get a little snippy.
“Theo, do you know what drives a man to put his career in jeopardy like I did in 1999 when I pitched hurt in the playoffs? Do you know what drives a man to fight another man way bigger than he is and to pitch in pain? Does your computer tell you those things? Can your computer pitch?”
Theo wasn’t surprised at all that I balked at his proposal.
He knew me, and he saw it coming.
“I think there’s tremendous depth to Pedro’s personality—I give him credit for being as smart and sensitive as he was and still managing to be that warrior he was,” said Theo. “He didn’t just trick himself into being one—he took the mound with no fear, and that’s a hard thing for a sensitive guy to do, and that’s the essence of him in my opinion. Obviously, that leads to difficulties in contract negotiations: ‘No, you’re not that guy anymore, we have to factor in injury, we have to factor in risk, we have to factor in building the rest of the roster too.’ Of course there’s going to be conflict, and that’s going to butt up against the prideful warrior side of him. But I wouldn’t really expect it to be any other way.”
I just wanted Theo to value what he knew about me as a person and a competitor.
Talk baseball to me, don’t rely on numbers from a computer.
But he kept going back to his computer, which is why I told him where he could shove it.
John Henry, meanwhile, kept goading us into working things out.
He had some kids from the neighborhood drop by, one with a placard reading, PLEASE STAY WITH THE SOX, PEDRO, and another a five-year-old yelling, “Please, God, stay, Pedro!”
“We all wanted him to stay but wanted a short-term deal,” said John. “Larry was the most convinced in every negotiation with Pedro that we had to do everything in our power to retain Pedro. After all, Pedro was, in our minds, the best pitcher in baseball. It’s hard to compare eras, but he was a right-handed Sandy Koufax. Pedro was one of the best pitchers ever to step onto a mound. He had every tool imaginable. He was brilliant—a brilliance that is evident whenever he speaks.”
I didn’t know that Theo had been against having this meeting with me present. For the same reasons he avoided going to arbitration meetings with players, he didn’t want to have to be the one to tell a player directly about all his flaws and explain why the team was resistant to giving him what he wanted.
He knew me, and he knew that I would probably start to take it personally, which is exactly what happened.
“In essence, Pedro told us, with a smile on his face, ‘Go fuck yourself, I’m Pedro Martinez,’ and he was right,” said Theo. “I couldn’t blame him. That’s why it wasn’t going to work, that’s why we were never going to give him a deal that made him happy, and that’s why he was probably going somewhere else.”
Theo couldn’t prove a thing to me with his computer, but I had no idea then how little desire he and his baseball operations staff had to bring me back for anything longer than a two-year deal. They believed in those charts, and they saw how in the last three seasons my OPS against had risen (.557, .586, .700), as well as my batting average against (.191, .215, .238) and WHIP (0.923, 1.039, 1.171). My ERA and home runs allowed were way up, and my strikeouts per nine innings were headed down. If I signed elsewhere, the Red Sox would get an extra supplemental draft pick (which turned out to be Clay Buchholz) in a 2005 draft that the team thought was very deep.
They wanted a couple of bites at that draft apple. Given their bearish outlook on me and bullish outlook on young talent, they didn’t see a downside in me signing elsewhere.
That they didn’t have a viable plan B didn’t seem to be a deterrent.
“As much as I admired Pedro, the bottom line was that at that point in his career it was better for the Red Sox to have the money to spend elsewhere and the draft picks than to have Pedro signed to the contract he was looking for,” said Theo. “We thought he would stay healthy for another year or two, and he ended up pitching another year and a half. I tried to be diplomatic and respectful and acknowledge what he’d done and his brilliant résumé and treat him the way he deserved to be treated, which was like gold. But we weren’t going to get anywhere on years and dollars unless we got some recognition that we should pay for the expected performance in this phase of his career.”
The meeting, said Theo, “didn’t go very well. The entire negotiation was destined to fail.”
The first meeting I had with another team was on Thanksgiving, when Mets general manager Omar Minaya and I had dinner in Santo Domingo. Omar and I knew each other dating back to my days at Campo Las Palmas, when he worked for the Rangers and had watched me pitch there. When I got to the Expos, he and I spoke in Montreal, where he had come to scout the Expos. We had a mutual admiration for each other: two Dominicans making steady advancement in baseball.
I could tell right away that Omar was serious about the Mets’ interest. For one, he skipped a holiday dinner with his family to eat with me, and second, he laid out a rebuilding and rebranding effort by the Mets, who were starting up their own TV network, SNY, and needed stars around whom to build it. He made a convincing case, and I immediately felt that the Mets were sincere about their interest in me.
I could tell from his questions that he was feeling me out about whether or not I was using the meeting to drive up my price with the Red Sox. Because he knew me already, he could tell my questions about the Mets’ plans were real. I had left that meeting at John Henry’s house open-minded about playing elsewhere. Even though I still wanted to return to Boston, I knew then it wasn’t going to be easy.
Fern had been telling Omar, “Don’t assume Pedro’s going to come back to the Red Sox.” Omar could tell I wasn’t 100 percent happy with the Red Sox, and he sensed that I was looking for a new challenge. He knew that I liked New York and that returning to the National League appealed to me.
Omar went back to Fred and Jeff Wilpon, the father-and-son Mets owners, and they presented me with a solid three-year offer. Omar informed Fernando that I had become their top priority and that the Mets wanted to meet with Fernando at the winter meetings in Anaheim.
The next stop on my winter caravan tour was Legends Field in Tampa, Florida, home of the New York Yankees and Georgie Porgie.
I was apprehensive about meeting George.
You can’t play for the Red Sox for seven seasons and be in the center of two of the most hyper-intense, ultra-competitive postseason series in history and all of a sudden decide to go play for the other side. I don’t think the other side entered it lightly either, which is why George had to speak with me himself to gauge how serious I was.
Fern and another agent, Pat Rooney, and I walked into a suite right outside Steinbrenner’s office. George sat at the head of the table, flanked by Randy Levine—the Larry Lucchino of the Yankees—and George’s two right-hand men in Tampa, Billy Connors and Mark Newman.
George started off.
“Pedro, I’ve got to tell you something, son. You’re one of the most competitive athletes I’ve ever seen. You’re an unbelievable performer, you leave it all on the field. And my God, the more I saw you the more I respected you, but also the more I hated seeing you on the mound—you gave me so many headaches,” he said.
I smiled when I heard I had given him headaches. I thanked him. I thought the meeting was going well.
Then he surprised me by bringing up my “Georgie Porgie” comment from 2003, when he had disrespected my professionalism for hitting Jeter and Soriano.
“You know, there were some comments that I made about you, and you gave me an answer that I have never forgotten. I didn’t forget it, and I have never been able to come up with an answer back to it.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. He was being so nice.
“I really appreciate you coming in, and I’d really like to see if we can work something out, see if we can make you a Yankee.”
I nodded.
“Would you play for the Yankees?”
I said, “Boss, if I don’t have a job and you give me a job, I’ll take it and I’ll be an employee.”
“Well, money is not going to be the issue to stop this from getting done, because the price is right. It’s what you deserve. I’ve got pitchers with lesser numbers than you who are making pretty much what you’re asking for. The salary is not what’s going to stand between you and the Yankees. There’s only one thing that could.” And here George paused for a beat. “You’ve got to cut those damn fucking curls and all that shit off you because I ain’t going to tolerate that shit on my club.”
I had to laugh.
“No problem, Boss.”
“Okay, great, great, my God, that’s great. I would love to have you be a Yankee.”
George had one more card to play.
Just then, who else but Derek Jeter, wearing street clothes, just happened to pass by the open door of the suite.
He poked his head in.
“Hey, Pedro, what’s up, man?”
“What’s up, Jeet?”
“We going to get you? Boss, sign him!”
George just smiled, and Jeter looked at me.
“I would love to play with you, Pedro.”
“Same thing here, Jeet.”
Jeet left and our meeting broke up.
When we left that meeting, I admitted to my agents that George had impressed me. I’d had very little respect for him before I walked into that room, but just from talking to him, I saw and heard how determined he was to try to win and put the best players he could out there. There was a passion there, more like the passion of a fan than an owner. I liked that—a lot—and it left me feeling some regret for how the “Georgie Porgie” comment had sounded. It was disrespectful to him. He was a great man for baseball, and I was privileged to meet members of his family years later when they came down to the Dominican Republic.
As well as the meeting went, Fern never got a formal three-year offer from George. The general manager, Brian Cashman, was not there. I heard later that Cashman would not have let the bad blood between me and some of his players stop him from signing me. But when he saw that the Red Sox were acting lukewarm toward re-signing me, and after he saw my medical reports, he convinced George to stop their pursuit.
After the Yankees meeting, I felt momentum starting to build. We had no new talks scheduled with the Red Sox, but visits with the Cardinals and Angels were still on tap.
Fernando was flying into Santo Domingo to come pick me up on our Lear 55 jet when we both got word that John Henry and Larry Lucchino were headed to the DR as well. They had the World Series trophy with them and wanted to show it off at the Red Sox academy: would Fern and I please meet with them?
They gave us little notice, and since we were about to fly out, we asked if we could just meet at the main airport outside of Santo Domingo. The owners were fine with that, and soon their huge Falcon jet was taxiing to a stop right beside our more modest jet.
Larry and John walked off their jet with big grins, carrying the bright and shiny trophy. We posed for a few pictures with some airport workers, who were pretty wowed at their first glimpse of a World Series trophy.
It was broiling hot on the tarmac and noisy. Private jets park in an area just off the main runway, and jumbo jets were taking off and landing just a couple hundred feet from us. It didn’t really register with me that John, Larry, and Fern were all sweating bullets. It was a typical Dominican Republic day in the high 90s, low 100s. On the asphalt, you could tack on another 20 degrees.
John said, “C’mon, guys, let’s come up and talk on my plane, there’s air conditioning.”
But I didn’t like air conditioning. I always wanted to be outside.
“Nah,” I said. “Let’s just sit out here and talk.”
The workers set up a tent, and the four of us sat in four lounge chairs, and John and Larry launched into an impassioned appeal about how much I meant to the future of the team.
“You’re a big part of bringing this trophy to Boston” and “we just wanted to thank you” and “we really want you to finish your career with the Red Sox” and those sorts of nice things.
I listened politely.
“How can we make it happen?” Larry asked me.
“You know, Larry, it’s not a secret. I want the third year guaranteed.”
“Yes, yes, we know you do. And do you have other offers like that?”
Before we met, Fernando had told me that we didn’t have a four-year offer yet, but that we would by the time the winter meetings ended. Fernando had told me that someone was going to give me a four-year deal.
“Larry, we’ve already met with other teams, and we will get a fourth year,” said Fernando.
“You really think you’re going to get four years?”
I leaned forward and slid my sunglasses down my nose and looked Larry directly in the eyes.
“Larry, I can assure you, I will get four years.”
“Nah, that’s bullshit.”
At this point, John spoke up and repeated what he had said back in Boca Raton: “C’mon, guys, get it done, just get it done.”
“Here’s how we get it done,” I said. “Tell the young buck”—meaning Theo—“that I’m going to get four years and that I want $14 million a year from the Red Sox. Not less than Schilling, more than him,” I said.
After coming all that way, I was surprised when Larry and John could not, and would not, change their last offer.
“Okay, we’re going to work on it, don’t give up on us yet,” said Larry.
“No, no, no—you’re the front-runners, don’t worry about it, just get it done.”
“Yeah, c’mon, let’s get it done. All right, Pedro, all right!” said John.
Fernando and I took off, but we made sure to let them know that we were going to meet with another team.
We all went our separate ways.
I spoke with Tony La Russa of the Cardinals, who impressed me as much as Steinbrenner did. Tony knew the parameters of what we were looking for, and he straight up told me, in Spanish, that the Cardinals were going to have a tough time making me happy with financial terms.
“When we sign a player in St. Louis, we’ll never be the highest-paying team, but we’ll give you an opportunity to play for the championship every year, we’ll give you a fighting chance and a great atmosphere to play baseball,” La Russa said. “We know what you’re looking for and what kind of offers you’ll get, but we’re not going to match that, Pedro. The max we can go is three years. If you’ve got four years and $50-plus million from somebody, that’s not even close to the $37 million we’ve got. That would be stupid for you to turn down and too much money for us. For your own good, take it. If you still want to go to dinner, we’d still love to do that.”
I automatically became a fan of Tony La Russa. He was honest and direct, and he spoke to me like a regular human being, like h
e was my friend.
In Anaheim at the winter meetings, the talks came to a head.
Fern was running back and forth between the Red Sox and Mets suites for much of the time, while all kinds of erroneous media reports flew around. The Mets knew by then that I was not happy with where the Red Sox were at, so it was up to them to go to the fourth year. Omar called the Wilpons, who said yes to year number four, so Omar called Fern.
“We got movement from ownership, and we’re able to get you the fourth year, but only on one condition—if we go to the fourth year, we want to make sure you guys will accept it. We don’t want you to use it and take this offer to the Red Sox.”
Fern agreed. He called me at la finca, and then he let Theo know that he had a four-year offer.
When he called Theo, Theo said, “Listen, we’ll go to the third year now, we’ll guarantee the third year.”
“Theo, it’s too late. He has four years. I wish you could have been at three years earlier.”
Larry Lucchino had pushed hard on guaranteeing the third year. When Theo told Fern that the Red Sox were ready to guarantee year number three, Theo thought I would accept.
“I remember being resigned to that, and then he surprised the heck out of us,” said Theo. “We thought he was going to take it. They surprised us the next morning when Fern said, ‘Hey, we appreciate you going to three years, but Pedro’s really thought this over, he’s going to sign with the Mets.’ I said, ‘Really.’ ‘Yes. He feels like they want him more, and that’s what he’s going to do.’
“It was a little bit of a ‘fuck you’ to us, and maybe we deserved it. If you’re going to go to three, do it and do it early. Don’t make him sweat through the whole winter before doing it. But I think that was a reflection of the fact we had mixed feelings. We were a bit of a divided camp on it. Admittedly, we were concerned about the health, and I had real reservations about going beyond two years.”
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