After pitching eight shutout innings (with 13 strikeouts) against the New York on May 30, 2001, he launched into a famous tirade about the then one-sided Yankees-Red Sox rivalry.
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On the surface, it was just a white circle with a red No. 45 that was uncovered during the Red Sox’s pregame ceremony for Martinez.
The Summer of Love, Pedro style, continued unabated Tuesday night in Fenway Park, where the Red Sox honored newly minted Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez by retiring his number. He is the second Dominican to be inducted to the Hall of Fame – Juan Marichal is the first – and spent the first 20 minutes of the conference answering questions from Spanish-speaking media.
He was emotional when Martinez gave his Hall of Fame induction speech Sunday, sitting in front of the television for three and a half hours so he wouldn’t miss a thing. He encouraged all of us to be not only better as a player but better as a human being, too. So I want to represent hope instead of greatness and achievement.
“I think [Ellis] did an outstanding job describing me, and describing the intensity in my eyes”. That, however, made him a more expensive commodity than the impecunious Expos could afford; and so to Boston and into the hearts and minds of New Englanders. “I can be very telling by the way I turn my eyes.” said Martinez.
Martinez was joined in the 2015 Hall of Fame class by Randy Johnson, John Smoltz and Craig Biggio.
Martinez contains no claims with all the Corridor of Popularity electorate in its selectivity in selecting gamers from his birthplace to this point and foresees a Dominican Hallway of Famers in the coming decades.
“There’s nothing I can do with the way voters handle who did what, ” Martinez said. “I don’t know if he was doing it just to see if he could”.
With a slight frame – officially listed as 5-foot-11 and 170 pounds – for a power pitcher, he augmented his fastball with a devastating curveball and off-speed pitch. “I know when I was a kid, the jerseys were too small in the sleeves, so I cut my sleeve underneath just like he used to. His best moment was nearly every time he took the mound”.
In Martinez’s seven years with the Red Sox, Varitek said he gained baseball knowledge working in tandem with him because of how special he was as a pitcher and how well he could read and react to a game. I don’t want to know him. Both teams have really surprised me with how they’ve played and how consistent they are.
CARAPEZZA: Our group never missed one of Pedro’s home starts.
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“If you look at our histories, there’s something linked between me and Bob Gibson”. I kept saying no, no, they’re going to land. I enjoyed nothing more than pitching, so of course I watched him intently. They also have the 2004 World Series trophy Martinez helped the team win, ending an 86-year title drought.
