Pedro

by Pedro Martinez

  I passed my physical. Some funky reports that came out of Boston and ESPN intimated that I had refused to take an MRI and that I had failed the physical, but neither report was the truth—somebody leaked out damaging information.

  At the press conference, the New York media had their fun with my return, with George King’s newspaper, the New York Post, hiring a little person to make fun of Nelson de la Rosa from the year before.

  Cute.

  I looked ahead.

  “This is a team that needs a little help. I can supply some of that help,” I told the media. “Boston didn’t win for 86 years that seemed like forever. I was proud to be part of that, and I hope to do the same here and pull one out.”

  I wrapped up the interviews and the staged pictures in my new black jersey top and black cap. I signed the contract and flew straight home to more starry nights and sunny days at la finca until it was time to report to Port St. Lucie for the 2005 season.

  28

  Fresh Start for an Old Goat

  JUST BEFORE MY first one, I glanced over at Guy, a glint in my eye.

  “How many, Guy?”

  “Pedro, it’s 33. It’s been 33 for 16 years. Every time you ask me, it’s still 33.”

  Guy Conti, my old white daddy, was only pretending to be put out. Guy was my new bullpen coach, and he and Rick Petersen, my new pitching coach, stood side by side as I warmed up before the Mets’ season opener, my first start as a Met, at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati on April 4, 2005.

  Thirty-three pitches—that’s how many pitches I threw in my warm-ups when Guy had me in Great Falls, Montana, in 1990, and that’s how many pitches I stayed at before all 480 of my professional starts.

  Start in the windup, switch to the stretch, mix my pitches, throw to glove side, then arm side, back again, gain the feel for which pitches have the best bite, which pitches feel the most free and natural coming out of my hand, and then finish with five final pitches from the windup.

  Thirty-three pitches. What worked for me as an 18-year-old in Montana still did the trick for me at age 33.

  Fifteen seasons later, I had put a couple more pounds of mostly muscle on my skinny, slight frame, which had survived and thrived far longer than the rosiest scenario the Dodgers’ brain trust had ever imagined possible. After years of hurdling obstacles and waging battles, I had reached the pinnacle of my career with a world championship. I was a veteran who had long since proven he belonged. I had left Boston on an emotional high, but mentally drained. As the 2005 season started, though, I felt in spirit closer to the 18-year-old who would start a fight if he had to in order to prove to the world he belonged at the top of the heap.

  I felt like the old Pedro that day. After pitch number 33, I stepped through the bullpen door in right-center field and strode slowly through the outfield, across the infield, and then directly over the mound, lifting my head to stare into the Reds dugout and grab the eye of anyone who saw me.

  Guy saw my look.

  “These guys are in trouble,” he told Rick.

  I despised Cincinnati. In 1997, when I went there with the Expos, Ray Knight, their manager, complained to the umpire that my gamer shirt was too much of a distraction for his poor hitters—too raggedy, too dirty. They made me change my shirt, and then they watched me throw a one-hit shutout against them. I never wanted anything to do with Cincinnati after that day, I only wanted to beat them up. The Reds and the Phillies were the two teams in the National League I hated the most—Philadelphia because of the Mike Williams game.

  This was my first game back in the National League, and back in Cincinnati, since I left the Expos.

  Time to show that I was in charge again.

  I needed a second to establish myself—the three-run home run I allowed in the first did not make anyone want to check my sleeves—but then it was three-up and three-down in four of my next five innings. I had 12 strikeouts, three hits, two walks, and the three runs and left with a 6–3 lead.

  We were on our way—until the ninth.

  With a two-run lead, closer Braden Looper gave up three hits to the three batters he faced: single, homer, homer.

  Ball game. Blown save for Looper, first of eight he had that season. Three were on my watch. Roberto Hernandez blew two saves in two of my starts that season, and I got no-decisions in the two games I left with the score tied. Somewhere in that mix, I think I could have scrounged together five more wins that would have lifted me to another 20-win season, but that was typical for the whole Mets team that year.

  We couldn’t buy a win until the sixth and final game of the season-opening road trip, when I went all nine against John Smoltz and the Braves. The 1-5 road trip sent the exact opposite message about the high expectations that Carlos Beltran and I, the two newcomers Omar had brought in, had tried to inject.

  I got the jolt I needed from being with a new team. I also didn’t feel like a stranger. I knew the Mets’ complex well from my extended spring training days with the Dodgers, plus I was back with Guy.

  After all I had been through since Great Falls, having Guy back by my side made me feel both nostalgic and appreciative. I walked in on a coaches’ meeting one day and handed him a gift bag. He didn’t open it right away, and when Carolina saw him later and said, “Did you see your gift?” Guy realized he had forgotten about it. He looked in the bag and saw a watch box. He opened it, expecting to find a Rolex, but instead there was a key to a 2005 Denali SUV. He and Janet still have it.

  The Mets had a new manager, Willie Randolph, who was in his first job as a manager at any level. Willie had been with the Yankees, as a player first and then as the third-base coach from 1993 until 2004, when he was Joe Torre’s bench coach. Given that the Yankees and I had had more than a few squabbles through the years, and given that Willie had stood pretty close to me in the third-base coach’s box while I was out there, there had been a few times we exchanged some not-so-fond looks through the years.

  I only remember once when we said anything to each other. I had hit some Yankee, and Willie shouted at me, “We’re going to get your ass,” and I said, “Yeah, why don’t you try?” Pretty standard smack talk, nothing out of the ordinary.

  We had done a winter caravan together in January after I signed, heading down to Wall Street to open up the New York Stock Exchange, and everything was hunky-dory then. I was a little surprised when he told us all in our first pitchers’ and catchers’ meeting in February in Port St. Lucie that facial hair wouldn’t be allowed. I thought that it might have been a good time to mention this a month earlier, but I just blurted out, more as a joke than anything else, “Why, Willie? We’re not the Yankees, we’re the Mets.”

  “Because I have a set of rules, we have things that we do,” he said, and I said okay. I didn’t think it was a big deal, so I shaved off my little mustache. Kept the hair long, though.

  I don’t think Willie—I called him “Willow”—took my question the wrong way, considering it was the first meeting, but we got along fine the rest of the way. Lots of “Whazzzup, whazzup, Peteys” from him, and I would just yell “Willow” all the time to him. He learned to trust me when it came time to deciding if I should come out of the game or not.

  He could be a little sensitive, which is probably one of the reasons he finally lost his job. He wasn’t as mellow as Joe Torre, plus he was put in a tough spot at times. There were some people in the front office and on the coaching staff who never gave Willie the support he could have used. Maybe if they had, he and the Mets would have been together longer.

  Spring training was relaxed, and everyone was in good spirits. Sandy Koufax, who grew up with our owner, Fred Wilpon, in Brooklyn, would drop by every now and then, and it was always nice to get reacquainted. He’d watch me pitch and toss me a few compliments. He never made suggestions, he just kept an eye on me.

  I felt good. Chris Correnti and I had had a good winter, focusing on flexibility much more than weight work and throwing. I had pitched all those innings
with the Red Sox the year before, so what we strived for was to come to camp with a strong shoulder and be as loose and flexible as possible.

  After I signed, the Mets asked me to switch regimens: leave Chris, and get on their program. I had been on essentially the same routine since my 2001 injury with the Red Sox, and it had worked for me. My only injuries were little ones, the kind that every pitcher goes through. Not wanting to take any chances, I told the Mets, “No thanks.” That turned into a pretty good argument. I remember our trainer, Ray Ramirez, wanted to have more say in what I did, but I kept doing my own thing.

  My arm slot, which Theo kept telling me had lowered so much in my later years in Boston, was higher in 2005. That prompted Theo to joke to our assistant GM, Jim Duquette, that he would have guaranteed that third year more quickly if he’d known how I was going to look in 2005.

  The Red Sox invited me to come to their home opener in 2005, when they would receive their World Series rings. I considered it, but it was the same day as the Mets’ opener at home. I thought it made no sense for me, one of the team’s newest stars, to skip our home opener to go visit my old team, even if it was for the best reason imaginable.

  Later in the season, Red Sox principal owner Tom Werner dropped by our clubhouse to present me with my ring.

  The new-look Mets rolled out to that slow start, but the team itself jelled quickly. Not that I necessarily tried to be a clown, but I fell into the role pretty easily. I was teammates for the third time with Cliff Floyd, whose head was as big as David Ortiz, which meant he deserved the “Papaya Head” nickname. My penchant, noted by Cliff, for wearing as little clothing as possible, which had peaked in Montreal, had its second run in Queens.

  One day I was walking around the clubhouse naked, minding my own business, when I noticed that a couple of reporters were having an argument. The dispute seemed more serious than a disagreement—they were arguing about the best uses of stockpiled Marriott points—and looked as if it might turn into a fight. I ran to my locker to grab a pair of giant, oversized blue boxing gloves I had snagged from some promotional event at Shea and ran back to the writers. I handed a glove to each of them.

  “Hey, guys, hold it, hold it—you guys are going to fight right here. Get your gloves on, I’m going to be the referee, but I’ll be a naked referee, so none of you are going to want to get together because I’ll have to get in there and separate you.”

  My au naturel homage to Kofi Annan stopped the fight, and both the writers laid down their glove.

  Sometimes I would wear only high socks, or high socks with a gigantic foam hat atop my head. I’d put on anything that was lying around. Jay Horowitz, our lovable PR director, had some gigantic suit made up in that bright fluorescent orange color the Mets use. I looked so sharp in that suit, it wouldn’t have been fair to my teammates to wear it every day.

  In an early June game, I was pitching when the sprinkler system at Shea decided to turn itself on right after Luis Gonzalez fouled off a ball. Ker-chersh-hhhh. At first, I was so locked in that I just wanted a new ball from the umpire. I walked toward the umpire with my glove out, dipping my head to let the water spray me in the face. By the time I finally got a ball tossed to me, I realized that I might not be able to throw it right away. We were in a sprinkler delay. That’s when I saw the humor in it. Only with the Mets. They have that wild, sometimes messy side to them, and this was another instance of it. If a sprinkler delay had happened at Yankee Stadium, heads would have rolled. I also reveled in it. Water and rain have always been a blessing to me. That’s what this felt like.

  Another Willow rule was that nobody could be late, which is pretty common, if not universal, in baseball. We had that same rule in Boston. I was late a lot there because I would do my work at home, but at least I remembered to call, usually. With the Mets, I got the message quickly that I had to call every time. No problem. I had a nice house with a big garden not far from the White Plains airport, and I always made sure to allow myself at least two hours to get to Queens. I’d call Jay and say, “Jay, I’m leaving now,” and hang up. That way he knew, whenever something happened, it was out of my hands.

  In the middle of the season, I made my first start against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. I had a new driver that day, and we not only got totally lost but also wound up in a massive traffic jam near the stadium because a truck had flipped over. The Mets sent a police escort to pull us out of there. What should have been a half-hour drive turned into a three-hour crawl, and I got to the stadium an hour before first pitch.

  Having had no time to relax, I did all right for the first time back on the mound at Yankee Stadium since Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS: eight innings, two runs, and the win. Rumor had it that the crowd was chanting “Who’s your daddy?” early in the game. If true, I didn’t notice.

  My catchers were split right down the middle in 2005: 16 starts with Mike Piazza, 16 with Ramon Castro.

  I liked Castro more as a catcher. He knew how to catch me and was just a very good defensive catcher—more agile and better at working with me on pitch sequences. Veteran pitchers like myself and Tom Glavine wanted a catcher who was on the same page as us. When Glavine got wise to Castro, it became tricky, I think, for Willow to make sure Piazza played enough so that we could keep his offense in play. Not that Piazza was all that bad—he just couldn’t throw anybody out.

  That season my friend Neifi Perez was on the Cubs, and one day he let down his guard and told me what the word was around the league: “Pedro, mi compadre, I’m sorry for you, but we can see Piazza [from the corner of the batter’s eye] when he sets up away [for an outside pitch].” Piazza was too big and too wide. If the batter could see him, the batter could expect a pitch on the outer half. That’s a huge help. Unless I made a perfect pitch, I was going to give it up if the batter could eliminate 50 percent of the target.

  Glavine and I were so similar. We both loved analyzing a game. We’d sit down on the bench together, and even though I might be laughing and goofing off more than Tom, I would be watching the game closely. I’d see everything that went on.

  “Did you see that, Tomas? I wouldn’t throw him that pitch again, I would probably go changeup there.”

  “Me too, Pedro.”

  Two old goats, picking apart a baseball game. I learned a lot by listening to and watching Tomas. Same with another old goat, Jamie Moyer, in 2009 with the Phillies. The way those two could pitch off their changeups amazed me.

  I lived up to my contract in 2005. With a 0.949 WHIP that led the league and a 2.82 ERA that was fourth-lowest, I made 31 starts and pitched 217 innings. I was happy in New York, but as the season wore on it became harder and harder for me to cover up two increasingly stressful topics: my health and the team’s health.

  In late May, I was in the middle of a start in Miami when the umpire told me my sleeves were illegal because there were holes at the elbows. Again with my sleeves. In my rush to get into the visitors’ clubhouse to change in between innings, I stepped on the floor with my cleats and—fwoop! Head over heels, and down, hard, squarely on my right hip. I went back out and finished, but my hip stiffened up and was never the same again. I needed a cortisone shot, and the injury set off a chain reaction in the tenuous kinetic link that all pitchers are continually trying to keep in alignment. The hip went, and then the right sesamoid bone in my foot started to go as well. The sesamoid bone is the floating bone that sits under the big toe—and directly above the cleat I put so much pressure on with the delivery of every pitch. I’d wrap up my toe and my foot before each game, thinking that would give it support, but by the end of my starts the whole toe would be engorged with blood and my nail would have darkened.

  After I threw a shutout for the win against the Braves at Shea in the middle of September, we were still three games under .500 and 11½ games out with two weeks left to go. I could still get results, but my toe was in bad shape. We had nothing to play for as far as the postseason was concerned, and I was already wondering how I could
get my toe to heal and how long it was going to take.

  Willie shut me down.

  “You’re not doing anything else, your season’s over, we’re out,” he told me.

  However, ownership did not receive the word. Florida’s Dontrelle Willis was having a great year in 2005, and he was due to start at Shea when I was pitching. There were tickets to be sold, Dontrelle versus Pedro—another heavyweight bout.

  Problem was, I had shut it down. I had stopped throwing on the side, stopped running, and started to rest.

  Word finally reached the front office that I thought I was shut down. Jeff Wilpon, son of the owner Fred, came down to the clubhouse and found me.

  “Guess what, Pedro? You’re pitching Thursday.”

  “What? Willie told me I’m shut down. Who did you talk to?”

  “Well, I’m the boss here, and we paid you your money so you could do what we want you to do,” he said.

  “Okay. I will sign my release right now and leave you with the rest of the money from my contract. I’m hurt, and it’s the end of the season, but I’ll become a free agent. You want to do that?”

  “While I’m the boss here, you’re going to have to do what I say.”

  I was still upset, but I wasn’t stupid.

  “No problem, you’re the boss—you want me to pitch, I’ll pitch.”

  No surprise, that was when things started to go south with me and Jeff. Willie got mad when he heard about this, but what could either of us do?

  I pitched. I went five innings and threw just 75 pitches, giving up two runs and six hits. We lost.

  The needless start only prolonged the time it took to clear up my toe problem. Once the season was over, I made three separate trips to toe specialists to figure out how they could treat it. One scared me, said that if I continued to get cortisone shots in it, I risked amputation. Another focused on getting a better shoe, an option I preferred. Using a computer to analyze the contours of my foot, a shoe company constructed an insole that would deflect the pressure away from the sesamoid bone and allow me to push off like normal.