Posts Tagged ‘Pedro Martinez’
Classic Pedro/Nomar photo by Kuni Takahashi
So I wrote this as one of the two pieces I needed to write for the WEEI blogger contest (I was looking for the original piece I wrote that got me into the contest and can’t find it. It’s floating around here somewhere!). My final entry had photos for each item but I’m not posting them this time. I enjoy these kinds of entries and need to get back to writing more of them! (And, once again, a long entry awaits you. It seems MY personal favorite entries are usually of the long-winded kind!)
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An off night is a great time to reflect on the sports moments of the past. So, because I’m nothing if not specific, I give you five favorite moments and five least favorite moments in New England sports history and how they affected me. Moments that I was alive (and old enough) to witness (not necessarily in person). What this means is no Fisk’s home run (which I was alive for but, alas, have no memory of), no Impossible Dream team of 1967 (predates me), no Ted Williams. You get the point.
Also, I’m purposely leaving out the 2004 and 2007 post-seasons of the Red Sox. Because, truly, I could write a book about them both and we really don’t have that kind of space right now.
Let’s start with the good and countdown since that’s so darned popular these days:
Why thank you!
Once I got home on Monday my television was set on nothing but baseball. I think I’ve heard “God Bless America” at least ten times today. So my concentration on actually watching baseball took me away from coming back here and writing about Opening Night.
Now that baseball is winding down for the night (although in writing this at 12:51am ET, I’m still flipping between the Twins/Angels game and the Mariners/A’s game. Note to Yankees fans: Hideki Matsui? Not really done just yet.) I can sit back and see if I can make sense of the night I had at Fenway! Does it go without saying that this will be a long one? Not only long, but as I continue writing I realize I should break it up into at least two parts…pregame and game game – so this is only part one!
We lost Greg Montalbano in 2009. Kelly O'Connor took this photo of him at the Lowell Spinner's Alumni Dinner in January 2009 (Used with permission)
Just a note of warning: This entry is long and although I want it to be all-encompassing, I’m sure I’ve missed few things. But this is pretty much how I remember 2009!
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2009 was a fairly eventful year for me personally in both the good and bad categories. Sadly more bad than good which is probably why I initially avoided writing any kind of recap for the blog. But while I was writing my recap of the Red Sox decade (and I’ll have that up as soon as I finish it!) I realized I should probably write something about the final year of the decade as well. So here goes.
January: I started blogging at WEEI.com. Looking back on my entries for this month, I’m genuinely surprised I found so much to write about (it didn’t stop new readers from complaining that I was writing “drivel” though. Should have been a sign!). Personal highlights in January: The ongoing Jason Varitek saga, the signing of Rocco Baldelli, Kyle Snyder getting picked up by the Mets, the beginning of the MLB Network and Jim Rice finally gets voted into the Hall of Fame!
February: Bombshell of bombshells for MLB. Selena Roberts exposes Alex Rodriguez as a steroid user. The MLB Network cuts its teeth on this one and, unlike Peter Gammons and ESPN, doesn’t disappoint with their coverage. Unafraid of losing access to the players (again, unlike Peter Gammons or ESPN), they go full throttle on this story and introduce us to their newest addition to the network: Bob Costas. I wrote a lot about MLBN in 2009 and a bit about Sl*ppy. I would have written much less about the two, most likely, had this story not broken. Personal highlights in February: The Caribbean World Series on MLBN (I was genuinely surprised at how much I enjoyed it!), Truck Day, pitchers and catchers reporting and Joe Torre’s book about the Yankees.
Chapter 10: The End of the Curse. When asked by Regis Philbin the other day what happened to the Yankees over the past 7 years, Joe responded “The Red Sox happened”. That will go down as possibly my favorite Red Sox/Yankee-related quote ever.
March: I spent a lot of March writing ‘rants’ and pointing folks toward baseball-related Twitter accounts. Must have been resting up for April! Personal highlight in March: The WBC. I spent a lot of time ranting about players getting hurt and how I didn’t care who won only to be totally sucked into it by the end.
April: The beginning of the season! Lots of liveblogging and picking up more WEEI readers (with mixed results!). Personal highlights in April: Going to both Sox/Mets exhibition games at CitiField, attending Opening Day at Fenway and high-fiving JD Drew and Hideki Okajima during their introductions, being at Fenway for the walk-off win against the Yankees, Jacoby Ellsbury stealing home on Andy Pettitte, Tim Wakefield taking a no-hitter into the 8th inning (thus setting the table for his All Star selection), watching Jonathan Van Every pitch while Javier Lopez floundered in right field then eventually getting DFA’d (watched on television, not in person), the Patriots Day game where Luke Scott got all pissy and some idiot fan threw a ball onto the field and “Toeing the Rubber” getting nominated for a New England Sports Blog Award in the category “Best Red Sox Blog”. Relatively speaking, a great month except for one thing that really hit the baseball world hard and made the month miserable: the death of Nick Adenhart.
But I don’t cry because of any personal connection I have to Nick. I don’t cry because a future baseball star is dead. I cry because parents lost a son today. Many people lost a friend. And the world lost someone who could have potentially been great. Not just at baseball but at life. No drunken ass has the right to take that away from us. This doesn’t “put things into perspective” for me. I hate when people say that. I’m forty years old for God’s sake, I’ve seen enough death and tragedy in my life to have proper perspective, thank you. I don’t watch baseball and think that what goes on down on that field is life or death and more important than anything else in my life. I’d argue that most sports fans, even if they act like they have no perspective, have exactly that. Baseball is an outlet to forget about the realities of life for a few hours.
May: Getting to see Daniel Bard’s first Major League appearance (after having seen him pitch in Pawtucket) was very special. Finding out that Jerry Remy was recovering from cancer was sad and a little frightening. Personal highlights in May: Seeing Kyle Snyder with the Bisons at Pawtucket, Javier Lopez signing Steve the Ferret’s “Lopez” jersey (also at Pawtucket), Aubrey Huff fistpumping to Joba Chamberlain, appearing on “The Baseball Show” on Comcast SportsNet, crying (literally crying) over Big Papi’s first home run of the season, getting to meet metsgrrl and “paloozaing” with a huge group of people I love during the Mets/Sox series at Fenway.
Yesterday was an amazing day spent with friends (most of whom I haven’t seen in quite a while or hadn’t met yet!). There are many amazing tales to tell (but not here!) – my favorite being when our friend Susan noted that we could start singing “O Canada” except no one knows the words past “O Canada!”. Standing up and singing loudly and proudly, a group of us proved her wrong. That our serenade didn’t get us thrown out still kind of surprises me.
June: This month brought us the end of interleague play, the end of Jonathan Van Every’s season (thanks to knee surgery), Tim Wakefield hitting ten victories with his torn labrum, John Smoltz making us all wonder why we were so excited to have him on the team while Dusty Brown makes his major league debut. Personal highlights for June: Derek Lowe returning to Fenway with the Braves, Nick Green’s walkoff against those same Braves, sitting in Fenway during a mind-numbing rain delayed game that turned into a loss for the Sox (okay, that one is a lowlight, really) and the Sox capping off 7 wins in a row against the Yankees with an eighth.
Photo of Cole Hamels taken by Kelly O'Connor/sittingstill.net and used with permission.
Well last night was pleasant enough, eh? Seeing Burnett leave before even getting three innings under his belt was sweet but seeing Chase Utley tie Reggie Jackson’s World Series home run record was sweeter. All Utley has to do is hit another home run before this series is over and we can say goodbye to “Mr October”. I approve greatly of this.
EDIT: Well, I have to take back the whole Brett Myers being an asshole rant since the story is coming out that it didn’t happen. Of course that could be spin so’s not to make Myers look like the ass I believe him to be (regardless of whether the confrontation happened)…oh well. It was fun typing out “Brett Myers is an asshole” a few times, anyway!
In spite of the assholiness of Myers, I’m still holding out hope that the Phillies can pull out two more wins. They need to just take them one game at a time and focus on the game at hand, right? No getting ahead of yourself and thinking about game 7. Game 6, with Pedro pitching again at Yankee Stadium against a short-rested Andy Pettitte is quite enough to focus on right now.
I know it’s a long shot but I still think they can do it. And, because baseball keeps pulling me back in, I’ll definitely be watching tomorrow night!
Pedro reminds Yankees fans who his "daddy? is. (Photo lifted from Getty Images/MLB.com and used with no permissions.)
I didn’t have much time to write yesterday but I tried to get my reading in about Pedro. I’m still smiling. Sure he lost the game but he pitched well and his walking off that mound, smiling at the game…the fans…the situation…will be forever in my mind when I think about him.
Many if not most Red Sox fans consider themselves fortunate to have been able to see Pedro pitch in his prime. I know I do. During his time in Boston, I saw him pitch at Fenway more than any other pitcher. (Tim Wakefield has since taken over as “pitcher I’ve seen pitch the most in person”.) Every outing was an event. The atmosphere around Fenway was electric on any Pedro game day and the fans hung on his pitches like you don’t see them do with pitchers today. Standard procedure for fans of the home team is to make their bathroom/beer runs during the other team’s at-bat. Not many fans left their seats back when Pedro was pitching. I was sad when Pedro left and I was sad when he didn’t have any of the success with the Mets that he had with Boston. But Pedro’s two post-season appearances with the Phillies have shown that while he isn’t as fast, or as good, or as young as he once was – he’s still Pedro.
But when he’s not on the mound, as he stares at what is likely the end of his career, the last restraints on his personality seem to have snapped. As he exited the field Thursday night, Mr. Martinez took a moment to tell a heckler above the dugout that his behavior and language were inappropriate. “‘Your daughter is right beside you,” he said he told the fan. “‘It’s a little girl. It’s a shame you’re saying all these things.’ I had to stop and tell him because I’m a father myself, and God, how can you be so dumb to do those kind of things in front of your child? What kind of example are you setting?”
Matthew Futterman from the Wall Street Journal shares the above quoted passage. Can you imagine? Man’s a superstar, exciting the World Series after putting men on and already with his team behind and he stops to chastise a heckler? Vintage Pedro.
So I’m sorry Pedro didn’t get the win but I’m thrilled he got his chance in Yankee Stadium again and took as much advantage as he could. He struck out 8 (Jeter and Slappy both twice, plus Damon, Hairston, Jr, Cabrera and Teixeira) and he only walked 2. Unfortunately, giving up 6 hits in 6 innings – including 2 home runs – did him in. All in all, I think it was more than many expected from Pedro. And the “Who’s Your Daddy?” chants didn’t seem to have any affect on Pedro except to make him smile as he left the field.
Phillies leave the Bronx with a split – which is good enough to take away home field advantage for the time being – and they do it all over again tonight with Pettitte and Hamels on the mound. 7:57 ET on Halloween Night. Just in time for me to shut off the light and stop giving out candy to trick or treaters!
Wake at "Hot Stove, Cool Music" in 2005 (Taken by me)
Generally speaking, it shouldn’t be difficult to find something to write about on a baseball-themed blog during the playoffs, right? I mean, sure, I’m a Red Sox fan and the majority of my blog writing is dedicated to them but it’s the PLAYOFFS, I should get some joy out of them since I’m also just a straight-out baseball fan. I should be writing about game 2 of the NLCS and game 1 of the ALCS.
But, see, both games annoyed the crap out of me so what would I write about? I’d love to write about Pedro’s dominance (and, make no mistake, he DID dominate, just ask Manny Ramirez) but since it was capped by a Phillies meltdown it’s a bit bittersweet. (Shout out to Phillies fans who have had to deal with Charlie Manuel all this time. I’m sure he’s a wonderful manager – hell he got the team the World Series last year – but could he be MORE trigger happy when it comes to pulling pitchers? Chan Ho Park was a victim of bad defense and weird hops not his own pitching. He should have left him in. Speaking of Chan Ho, how is it that I never noticed how pretty his face is? Even with all that hair. The man is quite a handsome fella. )
There is some news out of Red Sox country…according to various sources, Tim Wakefield’s back surgery is set for next Wednesday at Mass General. Nick Green will also be evaluated next week with surgery being a possible option and the word on Jed Lowrie is that his wrist is doing well and he should be ready to play when Spring Training arrives. If Wake’s surgery goes well, the Red Sox plan on bringing him back for another season. So not only for his health but for the team I’m sending out positive vibes for Wake’s surgery next week. I want him back in the red socks. Ditto for Jed Lowrie. (Nick Green? Well, I wish him good health but will be okay if his road doesn’t lead to Ft Myers next year.)
Only one MLB game tonight and it comes from the Bronx. Let’s hope Saunders fares better than Lackey did!
