Pedro Martínez

Pedro Martínez was a small man who pitched bigger than anyone of his time, a 5-foot-11 Dominican who threw mid-90s heat with the best changeup in the game and the nerve of a heavyweight. At his peak with the Boston Red Sox in 1999 and 2000, he was as dominant as any starter has ever been, a pitcher so far ahead of a slugging era that he seemed to be playing a different sport. He won three Cy Young Awards and a World Series, and he did it with a chip on his shoulder the size of his fastball. The BBWAA elected him to the Hall of Fame in 2015, on the first ballot.

Manoguayabo

Martínez was born on October 25, 1971, in Manoguayabo, in the Dominican Republic, and grew up poor in a house with a tin roof and dirt floors. His father had been a pitcher who never got a chance, too poor to own a pair of cleats when a tryout came, and his older brother Ramón reached the major leagues first and showed the way. "Everything I am I learned from Ramón," Pedro said. The Dodgers signed him as a teenager throwing 80 miles an hour, then traded him away because scouts thought a body that slight could never hold up. They were wrong by a wide margin.

The Best Changeup in the Game

Martínez stood 5 feet 11 inches and weighed less than 170 pounds, undersized for a power pitcher, and he threw in the mid-90s with a changeup that vanished and a curveball that buckled knees. Asked how someone so small threw so hard, he gave the only answer he had. "Well," he said, "God gave me that." He won his first Cy Young Award with the Montreal Expos in 1997, the first Dominican-born pitcher to take it, then went to Boston and turned into something the modern game had not seen.

The Greatest Peak

The 1999 and 2000 seasons stand as the finest two years any starter has ever strung together. In 1999 he went 23-4 with a 2.07 earned run average and 313 strikeouts, the pitching Triple Crown. In 2000 he was better still, a 1.74 ERA in the middle of the steroid era, when the next-best mark in the league was nearly two runs higher, and he allowed fewer than one baserunner an inning across a full season, a feat no qualified pitcher had matched. By the measures that strip away his teammates and his ballpark, no one has ever pitched a better season.

The Pedro Game

The signature night came on September 10, 1999, at Yankee Stadium, where Martínez struck out 17 and gave up a single hit, a solo home run, and walked nobody, a one-man demolition that fans still call the Pedro Game. Two months earlier he had taken the All-Star Game at Fenway Park and struck out five of the six hitters he faced, Barry Larkin and Larry Walker and Sammy Sosa in a row, then Mark McGwire and Jeff Bagwell. In the deciding game of that fall's playoff series against Cleveland, with his back hurting and his fastball gone, he came out of the bullpen and threw six innings without allowing a hit.

Don Zimmer and the Yankees

Martínez pitched with a fearlessness that came from the inside corner, and his rivalry with the Yankees turned ugly in the 2003 playoffs. After tempers flared, the 72-year-old Yankees coach Don Zimmer charged the mound, and Martínez caught him by the head and put him on the ground, a moment Martínez later called the one regret of his career. A year later, worn down by years of losing to New York, he said the words a stadium full of fans would throw back at him. "I just tip my hat," he said, "and call the Yankees my daddy."

Breaking the Curse

In 2004 the Red Sox broke an 86-year drought and won the World Series, and Martínez did his part, throwing seven shutout innings in Game 3 of the sweep over St. Louis. It was his last great act in Boston, and he left for the Mets that winter. He pitched four years in New York and made a final run to the World Series with the 2009 Phillies before he was done. He finished with 219 wins against only 100 losses, a .687 winning percentage among the best in history, and a 2.93 earned run average earned in the hardest era a pitcher ever worked.

The Intimidator

For all the joy he pitched with, Martínez owned the plate and dared hitters to take it from him. He pitched inside without apology, small and unafraid, and after one bruising loss to the Yankees he went looking for Babe Ruth himself. "Wake up the Bambino," he said, "and have me face him. Maybe I'll drill him." The bravado came naturally, but it sat on top of a craft so precise that the swagger looked earned. He may have been the best pure pitcher of his generation, and he was certainly the most fun to watch.

Cooperstown

The BBWAA elected Martínez to the Hall of Fame in 2015, on the first ballot, and he went in with a Boston cap as the Red Sox retired his number 45. He never forgot where he started. "I know who I am and where I came from," he said, "and I will never forget." The kid from Manoguayabo who was traded for being too small finished as one of the greatest pitchers who ever lived.