Pedro
Page 33
Around la finca are plenty of trees that I’ve planted or that have been here as long as the original mango tree.
Other mango trees, taller and with a broader canopy than the one outside where my shack once stood, have staked out their territory on the hillside. I take leisurely walks around the property and check up on the mango trees as well as my guava, papaya, breadfruit, higuereta, yucca, guanabana, plantain, jagua, golden apple, palm, eucalyptus, and moringa trees.
I planted a kapas tree too close to my cottage. One day its roots are going to crack the foundation, but I wanted it close because its fruit attracts beautiful Haitian birds, with their gray feathers and cream-colored chests with black stripes.
We don’t have winter in the Dominican, so there’s seldom a week out of the year when some tree or flower is not in bloom. All these plants, flowers, and trees are within my reach or just a few steps away. When I stroll around la finca, I’m surrounded all day long by living, breathing green plants, many of which I planted and all of which I care for and can name. Any time of day and deep into the night, when my brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces, nephews, stepbrothers, stepsisters, aunts, uncles, and lifelong friends and neighbors flit in and out of la finca on foot, on their scooters, or in their cars to drop by and say hello, they’ll find me on my porch, under my trees, enveloped by nature.
This remains my headquarters. It’s not all that different than it was when I went to the Dodgers’ academy after I first signed, when I came home between stints with the Dodgers, Expos, Red Sox, Mets, and Phillies, and after I hung up my cleats and glove and stepped into the next phase of my life.
Right beside my induction—along with Roger, Nomar, and my good friend, Red Sox radio announcer Joe Castiglione—into the Red Sox Hall of Fame in 2014, the highlight from my first five years after being retired came in the spring of 2011, when my portrait was unveiled at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC.
My friend Susan Miller-Havens was an artist from Cambridge, Massachusetts, who in 2000 painted three portraits of me, one of which Gloria Gammons, Peter Gammons’s wife, bought as a present for Peter. Depicting me with a blue Red Sox cap and a Dominican Republic flag patched to my sleeve, it stands nearly five feet high. I’m wearing my whites and standing on the back of the mound, my right leg raised slightly, the resin bag at my feet, my stare fixed on an unseen batter. My glove is tucked under my right arm, and I’m using both hands to rub the ball. Most of the light in the painting is focused on my hands and fingers, the feature of my body that Susan and I had discussed in detail. I would spend time in her studio in Cambridge and listen to her explain her craft. The more we discussed painting, the more we felt an affinity and mutual appreciation for how much our respective talents flowed from our fingers. I loved the painting, which is entitled El Orgullo y la Determinación (“Pride and Determination”).
Susan had another painting in the National Portrait Gallery, of Red Sox catcher Carlton Fisk, and when she went back for a visit in 2009 she noticed how few Hispanics were in the collection. She learned that one reason for the paucity of Hispanics was that some of the deserving were not American citizens, a gallery prerequisite. I had become a naturalized citizen in 2006. The Gallery decided that my story and Susan’s painting were a fit, and the Gammonses donated their painting to the gallery.
Nearly everyone in my family came for the ceremony: Carolina, my mother, Ramon and Jesus, Luz Maria and Anadelia, a couple of cousins, Angel and Franklin, and two of my sons, Pedro and Jerito. Nayla, my daughter, wasn’t allowed out of school for the day. Also there were Juan Marichal, Dave Wallace, Ralph Avila, and Fernando Cuza. When I got up on the stage to say a few words, I got much more emotional than I had planned. Looking out at my family, I felt keenly the absence of my father. I started to get weepy, but I held it together for the most part.
I leaned hard into the podium as I spoke.
“I cannot really express with words how much joy I feel right now,” I said. “I’ve been in tough games—really, really tough games—but never felt this much emotion in any of the games as I’m feeling right now. I’m not a person that gets nervous or anything, but I’m a little shaky, and it’s all because of what I think I’m representing.”
Susan’s painting holds a secret, one that by now I don’t think will surprise anyone who has read this deeply into the book.
Before Susan gave the mound its final layer of deep dioxide purple paint, she painted a cluster of bougainvillea flowers, known as trinitaria in the Dominican Republic, on the ground. Each bougainvillea has a small white flower in the center, and it is surrounded by paper-thin petals, which Susan painted orange, magenta, and purple, with sap green for the leaves.
Nobody ever associated me with flowers while I was standing on a baseball mound with a ball in my hands. Staring down the batter with the cold eyes of an assassin and the unseen heart of a lion, I was ready to wreak the baseball equivalent of murder against the batter.
The softer side of me stayed hidden, like Susan’s flowers.
Behind every big-league pitcher stands the real person, each with his own story to tell of resilience and an offering of hope. Mine is the story of a young boy and then a man who overcame his demons, fought his battles, overcame the doubters, and ignored the taunts and jeers of the fans who acted as if they knew the man in front of them, the man who lived, loved, cried, and laughed his way from the humblest beginning to this blessed present.
From the mango tree to the top of the world.
A ball in my hand, flowers at my feet.
Acknowledgments
I WANT TO thank God for giving me the chance to share my life experiences on the baseball field through these chapters. Thanks to my wife Carolina and all my family for being part of this valuable project. Thanks to my agent Fernando Cuza as well as my assistants Cesar Sanchez and Jennifer Bautista. Thanks to all the coaches who trusted me and the friends and family that supported me during the minors and the major leagues. And a special gratitude, from my heart, to the one who was able to capture and put together the essence of who I was and who I became throughout this book, the writer, and my friend, Michael Silverman.
Thank you all for making this happen.
—Pedro Martinez
SINCEREST THANKS TO the following, whose interviews enriched Pedro:
Leopoldina Martinez, Ramon Martinez, Carolina Martinez, Eleodoro Arias, Guy Conti, Dave Wallace, Goose Gregson, Joe Vavra, Kevin Kennedy, Burt Hooton, Bobby Cuellar, Tommy Harper, the late Don Zimmer, Shelley Haffner, Tommy Lasorda, Felipe Alou, Jimy Williams, Grady Little, Terry Francona, Joe Torre, Jim Leyland;
Fred Claire, Dan Duquette, Kevin Malone, Bill Stoneman, Jim Beattie, Theo Epstein, Omar Minaya, Ruben Amaro Jr., Claude Brochu, Mark Routtenberg, John Henry, Larry Lucchino, Jim Duquette, Brian Cashman;
Dan Opperman, Cliff Floyd, Darrin Fletcher, Tim Wakefield, Curt Schilling, Bronson Arroyo, Derek Lowe, Jason Varitek, David Ortiz, Scott Hatteberg, Kevin Millar, Gabe Kapler, Lou Merloni, Paul O’Neill, Matt Williams, Dana LeVangie, Chris Correnti, Billy Broadbent;
Rich Griffin, Joe Castiglione, Peter Gammons, Dan Shaughnessy, Tony Massarotti, La Velle E. Neal III, George King, Steve Krasner, Dave Lennon, Adam Rubin, Lee Jenkins, Susan Miller-Havens, Eddie Dominguez, and Fernando Cuza.
I appreciate the loyalty, trust, cooperation, and friendship of Pedro Martinez. His hospitality, graciousness, and candor not only throughout this book-writing process but ever since he arrived in Boston in 1997 laid the foundation for a project that’s been incubating for more than a decade. From the beginning, the goal of this narrative was to capture the origins of Pedro’s abundant drive and pride, and then allow his story and legacy to unfold through his eyes and voice. Our talks near his mango tree at la finca in Manoguayabo, Dominican Republic, were our most fruitful, which is no surprise since Pedro’s roots run deepest there. Fueling our noble literary cause were Juanita’s arroz con pollo, El Presidente beer, muy frio, and the intro
duction of coffee with Sambuca. Que bueno.
Without Carolina Martinez’s faith, support, and follow-through on all things related to number 45, this project would never have been completed. Thank you for everything.
Susan Canavan, my editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, is a longtime believer in Pedro’s story and this book. Susan is equally adept with a machete as she is with a scalpel, and her single-minded devotion to clearing the truest path into the heart and guts of each tale was instrumental in shaping the final narrative. This first-time author is grateful, and potentially wiser, for her guidance.
I’m thankful to Hank Hryniewicz and Mark Murphy at the Boston Herald for helping me carve out enough time and space to work on this book.
For going above and beyond with their skills, support, and insights during this process, special thanks go out to Nancy Levy-Konesky, Susan Miller-Havens, Fernando Cuza, Cesar Sanchez, Jonah Keri, Tony Massarotti, Nick Cafardo, Dan Shaughnessy, and Kerri Moore.
All of the following played an important part in helping this book become a reality, even if they didn’t know it. First, mints on the pillow for Tom Bledsoe and Lexi Turner, proprietors of the Northeast Kingdom’s finest writing retreat. My gratitude also goes out to the extended Martinez family and circle of friends; to Mariano Schwed, Jerry O’Connor, Eric Brown, Chesalon Piccione, Cindy Buck, Beth Burleigh Fuller, and David Eber at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; to Pat Purcell and Joe Sciacca at the Boston Herald; to Relativity, Chef Nick Calias, Eileen Costello and Matthew Gillman, Jason Mastrodonato, Jim Duquette, Dan Evans, Bob Sales, Mark Torpey, Joe Giuliotti, Jeff Horrigan, Sean McAdam, Scott Lauber, John Tomase, Steve Buckley, the Boston Herald sports desk, Gayle Fee, Jimmy Golen, Gordon Edes, Bob Hohler, Rob Bradford, Alex Speier, Ian Browne, Brian Macpherson, Tim Britton, Bill Ballou, Steve Krasner, Joe McDonald, Dan Barbarisi, Evan Drellich, Peter Abraham, Enrique Rojas, Dionisio Soldevila, Joe Amorisino, Dan Roche, Joe Castiglione, Dave O’Brien, Jerry Trupiano, Don Orsillo, Jerry Remy, Howard Bryant, Seth Mnookin, James Hirsch, Lonnie Wheeler, Joe Cochran, Tom McLaughlin, Jack McCormick, Bill Kenney, Kevin Shea, Pam Kenn, Kevin Gregg, Jon Shestakofsky, Abby Carmela Deciccio, ASAPSports.com, and Baseball-reference.com. If I omitted someone, my sincere apologies.
A warm embrace to my parents and brother, Steve, and all my close and extended family and friends, with an extra dollop of thanks for putting up with any and all thinly veiled hints and speculation about the existence of this book, which is finally more real than Sasquatch.
All my love to my daughters Rose Hannah, Julia Sage, and Rachel Bella—you keep me going, and smiling.
And lastly, my love and gratitude to Laura—for your sacrifices, support, and patience throughout the thick and thin times of this consuming and fulfilling project. Coco.
—Michael Silverman
Career Statistics
Pedro Martinez
BORN: October 25, 1971, Manoguayabo, Dominican Republic
SIGNED: June 18, 1988 by Los Angeles Dodgers
WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONSHIPS: Red Sox, 2004
CY YOUNG AWARDS: National League, Expos, 1997; American League, Red Sox (both unanimous), 1999, 2000.
ALL-STAR SELECTIONS: 1996–2000, 2002, 2005–2006
ERA LEADER, LEAGUE: 1997, 1999–2000, 2002–2003
ERA LEADER, MAJORS: 1997, 1999–2000, 2002–2003
STRIKEOUT LEADER, LEAGUE: 1999, 2000, 2002
WHIP LEADER, LEAGUE: 1997, 1999–2000, 2002–2003, 2005
THROUGH 2014 SEASON: All-time major-league single-season leader in WHIP (0.7373, 2000); 2nd all-time single-season leader in SO/9 (13.2047, 1999) and ERA+ (291, 2000).
SPORTING NEWS MINOR LEAGUE PLAYER OF THE YEAR: 1991
Pitched for Dominican Republic in 2009 World Baseball Classic
About the Authors
Pedro Martinez is a former Major League Baseball pitcher. An eight-time All-star, three-time Cy Young Award winner, and 2004 World Series champion, Martinez was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2015, his first year of eligibility. He currently serves as a special consultant for the Boston Red Sox.
Michael Silverman is a baseball columnist for the Boston Herald and has covered the sport since 1995. He has voted for the Baseball Hall of Fame since 2007. Silverman is a graduate of the University of Michigan and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.