No Better Show Than Pedro in Bronx

NEW YORK -- Set the clock, nudge awake the kids. There might not be a more fascinating evening in sports this year than Thursday night, when Pedro Martinez takes the mound at Yankee Stadium and flips the World Series on its rump.

Most anything Pedro does is must-watch theater. He turned a routine press conference before Wednesday's Game 1 into an astonishing revival session that included Martinez proclaiming he "at times [is] the most influential player that ever stepped in Yankee Stadium" and featured his first in-depth, blow-by-blow look back at his 2003 tussle with Don Zimmer. It was almost as if Martinez was craftily writing his own prelude to whatever might happen in Game 2, when he attempts to lift Philadelphia to a 2-0 Series lead.

Will Pedro's first World Series pitch since 2004 (a year that still makes Yankee fans' skin crawl) serve as a reminder to Derek Jeter that some things never change? More delicious, how will Pedro treat Alex Rodriguez? With deference owed a man who has finally (we think) proven October no longer makes him flinch? Or will Pedro buzz them both, buzz them all, and quickly silence the crowd's mocking chants?

Who's your daddy? Who's your daddy? It's no longer original, this sing-song tease invented many seasons ago by the always creative Yankee fans, and it's been awhile since they've had reason to use it, what with its inspiration making such infrequent appearances in the Bronx. It seemed as if all of New York was oiling its lungs in practice early Wednesday, before Cliff Lee's masterpiece; the news of Martinez drawing the Game 2 start dominated all the other juicy angles in this Turnpike Series. Even Jimmy "Phillies in five" Rollins melted in Pedro's shadow.

Charlie Manuel, the Phillies manager, said his reason for entrusting the second game of Philadelphia's repeat championship bid to the just-turned 38-year-old Martinez is fairly simple. Manuel wants to split up his two lefties -- Lee started and dominated Wednesday's 6-1 Philadelphia win; Cole Hamels, last year's World Series MVP, is more comfortable pitching at home, according to Manuel, and will get the ball in Saturday's Game 3. But what really nudged him to make this rotation decision, said Manuel, was Pedro's affection for the big stage. It's akin to a lion tamer loving the circus.

"I don't know if you realize this, but because of [the New York media] in some ways, I might be at times the most influential player that ever stepped in Yankee Stadium. I can honestly say that."
-- Pedro Martinez Manuel has no idea he's just given tens of millions of New York fans an early holiday gift. Yankee fans adore this move because they are obsessed with Martinez. Some despise him, most grudgingly admire him, almost all hope to see him end up on the back pages of Friday's tabloids with horns and a tail crudely attached to his body. (Don't even get Pedro started on this caricature, which he understandably thinks is beyond offensive.) Mets fans can't wait to see what Pedro does in Thursday's game because watching him succeed with the Phillies, in a World Series, against the Yankees, will at least give them a reprieve from gouging their eyes out.

"I don't believe in damn curses. Wake up the damn Bambino and have me face him. Maybe I'll drill him in the ass, pardon me the word." -- Martinez, then a Red Sox, said in the months before Boston wiped away 86 years of futility and tears. While maturity has taught him to stop barking obvious headlines, Martinez can still wow a crowd.

In the playoffs, the next day's pitcher is required to sit at a podium in front of the press and field a few questions. The answers generally are about as riveting as a lecture on tax preparation. Martinez waited until the third question Wednesday to cause a room full of jaws to hit the floor. Pedro might as well have knocked us on our heels with a bucket full of fastballs, that's how stunning his answers were.

"I don't know if you realize this, but because of you guys in some ways, I might be at times the most influential player that ever stepped in Yankee Stadium. I can honestly say that," Martinez said, when someone asked him to elaborate on his unique relationship with fans in the Bronx.

He later clarified his meaning of "most influential player," saying, "I think in every aspect, the way you guys have used me and abused me since I've been coming to Dodger Stadium" -- a slip, he meant Yankee Stadium -- "just because I wore actually a red uniform just like this one while playing for Boston. I remember quotes in the paper, 'Here comes the man that New York loves to hate.' Man? None of you have probably ever eaten steak with me or rice and beans with me to understand what the man is about. You might say the player, the competitor, but the man? You guys have abused my name. You guys have said so many things, have written so many things.

"There was one time I remember when I was a free agent, there was talk that I might meet with [George] Steinbrenner. One of your colleagues had me in the papers with horns and a tail, red horns and a tail. That's a sign of the devil. I'm a Christian man. I don't like those things. I take those things very serious."

(It should be noted that the tabloid cartoonist responsible for the drawing was not in the press room, but many blocks south, where presumably he and his editors were deciding how to playfully mock that night's goat.)

Someone else asked about that fateful night in the building across the street in 2004, Game 7 of the ALCS, the Red Sox creeping back after losing the first three games against the Yankees. Martinez turned the question back further, to the day he pushed 72-year-old Yankees bench coach Don Zimmer to the ground during an on-field brawl in the 2003 ALCS between Pedro's Red Sox and the Yankees.

"Actually, and I'm sorry I'm going to recall this because it was an ugly scene -- this is probably the first time I'm ever going to talk about it publicly. But when Zim came over to me, I thought he was going to just give me advice or something, just go, 'Pedro, you need to slow down,' or something, or try to make it look a little bit different.

"But at that time, I'm going to be honest right now, my shoulder was barking. I was pitching on three days' rest, I think. It was two men on. I loaded the bases with a hit-by-pitch that wasn't a hit-by-pitch. The ball hit the bat of Karim Garcia, and Zim charged me, and I think he's going to say something, but his reaction was totally the opposite, was trying to punch my mouth and told me a couple of bad words about my mom.

"I just had to react and defend myself kind of. But the tweak that it took made me look like a monster that just came in to play in Yankee Stadium. And you know what I did, go out there, compete, and nothing else. I remember getting back to my dugout and seeing middle fingers. My mom, poor mom. I'm glad she's blessed by God because all those curses were, I mean, unbelievable."

His answer was as unprovoked as it was unexpected, which is exactly why Pedro is still baseball's most compelling character. He pitches the way he talks and lives his life: without apology.


"Of course I [regret it]," Martinez added. "It's something ugly. I thought when I saw Zim down on the ground, I thought so much of my dad. I respect older people, I respect elders; I don't condone anything like that. But I've got no choice. I've got no choice but to just respond and get away.

"I never had any incidents in the streets, not here, not in the Dominican. When I was a kid, yes, I got a lot of punching. But after I've been a grown-up and knowing better, I never got in trouble in the States, in the Dominican, anywhere, except on the baseball field, and on the baseball field those things happen. That's part of baseball, actually. But with a coach, uh-uh, never. Teammate, no, never had any problem. I hope it never happens again. But it was something that we have to let go kind of, and forget about it, because it was a disgrace for baseball. Even though it wasn't my fault, I was involved in it, and it's one of the moments that I don't like to see. I don't like to see it because I'm not a violent man."

But he can't hide from the TV replays that appear any time there is a brawl in sports. He can't erase the image of an old man getting thrown to the ground, or the pictures of Pedro pointing to Posada in what many construed as a threatening invitation. (Posada, the Yankee catcher, has told people he initially interpreted Martinez's gesture to mean the pitcher was going to throw at his head, and later came to believe Pedro was mocking Posada's ears.) All of it -- from the crazy years with Boston when Pedro's high-and-tight pitches landed Jeter and Alfonso Soriano in the hospital, to his four seasons with the Mets that were both compelling and a torturous tease, to his mid-season signing with the Phillies – set Thursday's stage, when drama takes the mound.

"Who's your daddy?" It was Pedro who prompted the taunt when he infamously said, after a Red Sox loss to New York, "I just tip my hat and call the Yankees my daddy." Now he says, "You know, any time I hear that, 'Who's your daddy?' it really reminds me that God is my daddy. It gives me strength. It keeps me strong and healthy, and I believe I can do anything. And when you have -- I said it before, when you have 60,000 people chanting your name, waiting for you to throw the ball, you have to consider yourself someone special, someone that really has a purpose out there."

He left out the part about how, many years ago, he was sitting "under a mango tree without 50 cents to pay for a bus." That's another of Pedro's witticism, his mastery of the moment and fun with language combining as the whip cream and cherry to his Hall of Fame career.

On his way into the new Stadium Thursday, Martinez passed by an army of fans who were raw from the rain and more than a little impatient for the team's 27th championship to arrive. They hollered at Martinez, cursed him, yelled comments about his poor mom, and if Philadelphia security would have stepped aside, Pedro would have run over and high-fived each and every one of those Yankee fans.

"I have all the respect in the world for the way they enjoy being fans. Sometimes they might be giving you the middle finger, just like they will be cursing you and telling you what color underwear you're wearing," Martinez said. "But at the end of the day, they're just great fans that want to see the team win. I don't have any problem with that."

He might get introduced early to the short porch in right field, or strike out a slew of batters with inside fire (albeit, not as hot as it once was.) He threw 130 pitches in a late-season game against the Mets, just to prove his body was not falling apart, and was dazzling in Game 2 of the NLCS against the Dodgers, pitching seven scoreless innings in a Philadelphia loss. There might be other ways to spend Thursday night, but nothing will be more entertaining than watching Pedro Martinez say hello to 60,000 old friends.