Pedro Martinez is greatness beyond greatness

Pedro Martinez was by far the best thing going during the Great Boston Sports Depression between Larry Bird and Tom Brady. Before Boston teams won Super Bowls and World Series, all we fans could be proud of was a skinny, cocky, unbelievably dominant Dominican pitcher.

It can be difficult to remember the mindset we had in the late '90s and very early 2000s, before the Patriots won the Super Bowl, before the Curse was Reversed, before Boston teams claimed 9 titles in 14 years. And with the abundance of Boston sports heroes in this young century (Brady, Ortiz, Garnett, Thomas, and so on), we kind of forget how special Pedro Martinez actually was, and how for a few years he provided us with that feeling of joy and sense of superiority once every 5 days. So let's remind ourselves of his greatness beyond greatness.

From 1997 to 2000, he was perhaps the best pitcher of all-time
At the height of the most offensive era in MLB history, Pedro Martinez was by far the best pitcher. From '97 to 2000 he won 77 games (19.25 per season). He struck out 1,153 (288.25 per season) and had a 2.12 ERA. In those 4 homerun heavy seasons, he only allowed 68 balls to leave the park. He allowed an impossibly low 9 homeruns in 1999, only 0.34% of the total homeruns hit by AL batters.

He won 3 Cy Youngs in this stretch, and probably should have won an MVP. But we'll get to that later.

In 2000 he struck out almost 9 times as many batters (8.88) as he walked. In 1999 he allowed 0.4 HR per every 9 IP. In '97 the barely 170 pound Pedro threw 241.1 innings. In 2000 his WHIP of 0.737 set the record for the lowest of all time, 0.032 lower than Guy Hecker's WHIP in 1882. Yes, Pedro broke a 118-year-old record. And he did that in the steroid era, in a league with a DH.

While sluggers were smashing Roger Maris' single-season HR record, Pedro was challenging Bob Gibson's ERA record (which was set on a higher mound, and with pitchers batting). Pedro Martinez did more to limit offense in the steroid era than mandatory PED testing eventually did.

His playoff performances were legendary
In Game 5 of the 1999 ALDS against Cleveland, Pedro Martinez pitched 6 no-hit innings of relief in the deciding game of the series. Despite his arm being worn out and his fastball considerably slowed, he held an offense that had scored 1,000+ runs that season, to zero hits. Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, the Alomars, Kenny Lofton, all of them failed to get hits off Pedro. He entered the game when it was 8-8, the Sox won 12-8, and claimed their first playoff series since 1986.

Then in Game 3 of the '99 ALCS, Pedro beat the Yankees with 7 scoreless innings. He only allowed 2 hits and struck out 12. It was New York's only loss of the post-season.

He could have been the winner of Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS if not for poor management. Had Grady Little gone to the bullpen to finish the game, few people in Boston would know who Aaron Boone was. Pedro was brilliant for 7 innings, then began to falter in the 8th. Had he been removed, the Red Sox probably would have gone to the World Series, and had a good chance against the Marlins.

He was a big part of the Red Sox winning the 2004 World Series
Since we tend to associate Pedro so much with the pre-2004 era of Red Sox history, we forget how vital he was to the Sox winning the World Series in '04. Not only with his pitching, but just with his presence. His presence on the team made the Sox a contender, and the new ownership parlayed that in their pursuit of players like Curt Schilling. Pedro was also part of that team's loose yet confident attitude.

He wasn't that great in the 2004 regular season. And in the ALCS against the Yankees, he struggled. However in Game 3 of the World Series he threw 7 scoreless innings, allowing only 3 hits. This was a great post-season start in the most important series in Red Sox history this side of 1920, and Pedro's pitching was a major contribution.

He should have won the MVP in 1999
Apart from Pedro and Nomar, the 1999 Red Sox weren't very good. Jose Offerman, Wilton Veras, Damon Buford, Darren Lewis, Reggie Jefferson, Ed Sprague. The #2 pitcher was Bret Saberhagen, when he was healthy. Then there was Mark Portugal, Pat Rapp, and Brian Rose. John "Way Back" Wasdin was still out in the bullpen. It wasn't a very good team. Yet they won 94 games. They were 25-5 (.833) when Pedro started, and 69-63 (.523) when he didn't. I'd say he was quite valuable to that team's success.

He had an ERA of 2.07, struck out 313 batters, had a WHIP of 0.923, was AL Pitcher of the Month 4 times, and led the AL in WAR. He only allowed 9 homeruns in 213.1 innings (1 per 23.7 innings). He came in 2nd in MVP voting, behind Ivan Rodriguez. Why? Because some people didn't think a pitcher should be eligible for the MVP because they're not "every day players." Pedro got one more 1st place vote than Rodriguez did. But some voters felt that the Cy Young was for pitchers, the MVP was for positional players, and left Pedro off their ballot. So I-Rod won.

He threw a perfect game, but not really, but really
In 1995, Pedro retired every batter he faced for 9 innings. However, after 9 innings the Expos and Padres were still tied 0-0. The Expos scored in the 10th, but Pedro allowed a double in the bottom of the inning and was relieved. So he didn't even get credit for a shutout, let alone a perfect game.

Nevertheless, he still pitched 9 perfect innings, still retired 27 straight batters from 1st to 9th. And a ball from the game is in Cooperstown with other balls from no-hitters.

Pedro was often on teams that didn't support him very much. We can only imagine how much higher his winning percentage would be if he had more help.

The abundance of absurd but true Pedro stories
Remember his performance in the '99 All-Star Game? He struck out Hall of Famer and 12 time All-Star Barry Larkin. Then Larry Walker, who was hitting .382 at the time. Pedro then punched out Sosa and McGwire, who had combined for 136 homeruns the year before and hit 128 in '99. After Matt Williams reached on an error, Pedro struck out Jeff Bagwell and I-Rod threw Williams out trying to steal second. The most impressive 2 innings pitched of all time.

2,222. That's how many homeruns were hit by guys Pedro struck out in the 1999 All-Star Game

Remember the 17 strikeout one-hitter against the Yankees?

Remember the no-hit bid against the Devil Rays after he hit Gerald Williams with a pitch?

Remember when the Red Sox played a 19 inning game in Seattle in 2000, then Pedro saved the bullpen the next day with an efficient complete game? It was one of his most impressive demonstrations as a pitcher. He only struck out 7 (he was averaging 11.8 K/9 that year), instead pitching to contact and inducing 14 groundballs (including 2 GIDP) to keep his pitch count low. He won the game, and saved the beleaguered bullpen.

His stuff was amazing. And when his fastball gradually lost its ferocity, his accuracy and pitching acumen allowed him to remain elite. He was an artist. He was one of the smartest players in the game and one of the goofiest. He had a small body but big balls. He dominated, he enraged, he impressed, he intimidated, the game revolved around him when he was pitching.

You absolutely had to watch his starts. You coveted tickets to see him pitch in person at Fenway. Each start had a realistic chance to be a no-hitter or a 20 strikeout game. You learned Spanish because of him. Pedro didn't just dominate the game, he dominated the lives of Boston sports fans.

When the Red Sox Won the World Series in 2004...

A Wednesday night in late October 2004, in a dorm's common room in Ithaca, NY, about 18 college students all focused on a low-def TV attached to a wall. On the screen, a ground ball bounced lazily up the middle to Red Sox closer Keith Foulke. After collecting the ball, he trotted a few steps toward first. As the ball left Foulke's hand and spun toward the waiting glove of Doug Mientkiewicz, time froze in my mind. It was happening. It was actually happening.

Until that moment, I feared the Red Sox would blow it somehow. That they'd find a way to lose Game 4, then the series, completing the worst collapse in the history of sports, because that's what I was convinced they had to do. In the years leading up to this moment, I had read and heard about Buckner in '86, and Dent in '78, and Enos Slaughter in '46. Aaron Boone's homerun the year prior was my generation's firsthand experience of The Curse. They must lose. That was the way of things.

Mientkiewicz would drop the ball, the Cardinals would rally in the 9th and win the game. The Sox would lose 4 straight, mirroring the 3-0 collapse of the Yankees in the ALCS, making the choke even more spectacularly painful. All that late-inning magic, all those stressful games, all of it a buildup to the biggest disappointment in sports history.

None of that happened.

Mientkiewicz caught the ball. Once I unfroze time, only a second had passed but it felt like more than a minute. Jumping around in jubilation in the common room wasn't enough. We ran outside to the quad, yelling, screaming, hugging. Our yells drew Sox fans from the surrounding buildings, who poured out into the night to join us. As the crowd grew, someone suggested we run to the fountains on the other side of campus. There, other groups of Sox fans from other parts of campus seemed to somehow know to meet us. It must have been some psychic connection, or some notion of a central location to gather. It wasn't coordinated on social media. Twitter didn't yet exist. We wouldn't know what Facebook was for another 2 weeks, when it swept across Ithaca College's campus in early November 2004.

Hours later, after we'd all returned to our dorms and our rooms, at about 1:30 a.m., a friend from North Reading came to my room and said he couldn't sleep. Neither could I. We decided to drive to Boston, along with our RA from Newton. We drove 6 hours. My friends slept, I stayed awake and watched the sun rise over Massachusetts, shining down on the home of the World Series Champs for the first time in 86 years. That's 1,032 months, 4,472 weeks, 31,411 days, 754,000 hours, 45.2 million minutes, 2.7 billion seconds.

2.7 billion seconds, and I still clearly remember that last second, the one I froze, as the ball and landed in Mientkiewicz's oversized first-baseman's glove. That moment felt like it lasted a minute. The feeling lasted longer. I can still go back to that moment and relive it, and feel that feeling again. It's great. Pure joy.

So yeah, it was pretty cool seeing the 2004 Red Sox back at Fenway Wednesday night.

Photo Credit:
Jared Wickerham/Getty Images

2013 BBS Awards: Lifetime Achievement Award

This award goes to someone who has distinguished themselves for more than a year, for more than a few years. It belongs to those who have built a career of achievement. People who you can't stop talking about what they've done. People you tell stories about. Previous winners include Red Auerbach, Jerry York, and Cam Neeley.

This year, this most coveted of awards goes to Pedro Martinez.

Pedro was the most dominant pitcher of his era, an era that was dominated by juiced balls and juiced hitters.

And speaking of PEDs, I think it's safe to say Pedro didn't use them. His muscle mass was too low, he was slow to recover from injury, and his performance deteriorated with age in a natural way.

In the year 2000, in the American League with DHs, off a 10 inch mound, when the league ERA was 4.91, Pedro challenged Bob Gibson's modern era single-season ERA record of 1.12. Pedro finished with a 1.74 ERA.

Pedro won 3 Cy Youngs, and he probably should have won more. He finished second in the 1998 AL voting to Roger Clemens. This is around the time that Clemens had begun to use PEDs. In 2002 Pedro went 20-4, led the AL with a 2.22 ERA, and 239 strikeouts, yet lost the Cy Young to Barry Zito. Zito had 3 more wins than Pedro.

Pedro was also robbed of an MVP Award in 1999, when he finished second in the voting to Ivan Rodriguez. Pedro actually got one more first place vote than I-Rod. He went 23-4 with a 2.07 ERA and 313 strikeouts. But some voters thought a power hitting catcher was more valuable.

Pedro never threw a no-hitter. Technically. On June 3, 1995, pitching for the Expos he threw 9 perfect innings. But it was a 0-0 game after 9 so it went into extra innings. He gave up a hit in the 10th and was relieved. The Expos would win 1-0. He didn't even get credit for the 'W.'

In the 1999 All-Star Game at Fenway Park, Pedro stole the show from the steroid enhanced sluggers. Pedro struck out 5 of the 6 batters he faced: Barry Larkin, Larry Walker, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Jeff Bagwell. Those batters have a combined 2,222 career HRs, by the way.

He led his league in ERA 5 times, in complete games once in 1997, in strikeouts 3 times, in WHIP 6 times, in K/9 5 times, in K/BB 4 times. He was an 8-time All-Star, he has the 6th best win percentage of all-time, the 5th best WHIP of all-time, the 3rd best K/9 of all-time, the 13th most strikeouts, the 3rd best K/BB ratio of all-time.

He was a key part of the 2004 World Series winning Red Sox.

He was an idiot before the Red Sox were Idiots.

He threw at batters when he himself had to bat in the NL (yet another reason he's superior to Roger "shrunken attachments" Clemens).

The day he pitched was an event. It had anticipation to it. The ballpark had a buzz. The City had a buzz. Days Pedro pitched were the most coveted of Red Sox tickets. Before the 2004 World Series run, Pedro was the Red Sox.

I would argue that he's the best pitcher in Red Sox history. He's a certain Hall of Famer, and the number 45 should be immortalized on Fenway's right-field facade.

Red Sox Deja Vu

I keep checking my calendar. This is February of 2013, right? Because it feels eerily similar to February of 2012. At least the Red Sox of 2013 seem to be acting like the 2012 team..

Jon Lester is whining again, about not getting enough credit, about high expectations. He's reciting his stats and his record, and making excuses. He's become very annoying and very unlikable. He seems to care more about perception than performance. Just pitch, please.

David Ortiz is still making excuses and is still injured. He blames Bobby Valentine for last year's struggles. And he's still hobbled by an injury that a younger man (or a man taking HGH) would have healed from long ago. Ortiz, like a number of his teammates, made excuses in September of 2011, all throughout 2012, and they're starting off 2013 the same way. 2012 was all Bobby V's fault.

There is no sense of responsibility on this team.

Clay Buchholz remains fragile. Buchholz has always been an IHC (if he can...) type of pitcher. If he can stay healthy. If he can get off to a good start to a season. If he can pitch consistently. And in this Spring Training, many are still saying "If he can" about him, and still being optimistic. I've gotten to the point where it's "can he?" with Mr. Buchholz. Can he stay healthy? Can he pitch in April like he can pitch in June? I just don't know.

But there's a new manager in town, so things are different, right? We have a tough, no-nonsense, disciplinarian manager now. And he'll set the players straight.

Didn't people think that during February of 2012? Wasn't Valentine supposed to set the clubhouse straight, get rid of the alcohol, and stop pampering the players?

I like John Farrell much more than Bobby Valentine. As a Manager, however, what has Farrell accomplished that we here have so much allegiance and admiration for him? He was a decent pitching coach, and kept Beckett in line. At least for awhile. Why does that make us think he can solve all the problems this team has?

Farrell has already had to draw on his disciplinary tools in dealing with Alfredo Aceves. The versatile reliever was disinterested in participating. We have yet to see if Farrell's chat with Aceves will yield anything. At least Farrell didn't pull a Bobby V and embarrass the player in front of the whole team... for not properly doing a drill he was never instructed how to do.

And there's Pedro Martinez too. He can instill some discipline into these young men.

So not everything is the same as 2012.

Unfortunately, most things are. We still have an ownership with split attention between Fenway and Anfield. We still have spinster Larry Lucchino running things in Boston. We still have a puppet GM. We still have excuse making players. We still have whiny pitchers. We still have more "ifs" than "whens."

There is a new manager in town, and new special assistants to the GM. But how much influence does a special assistant to the GM wield over million dollar babies like Jon Lester?

There are new players in town. Role players and clubhouse character guys.

Though what does it say about a team if the most likable and respectable players are the new ones? What does it say if the likable and respectable guys are the middle-tier and bench players?

It's early. Change takes time. Maybe the Sox will change in 2013. But up to February 20th of this year, more has stayed the same than changed.

Pedro Martinez Is Coming Back, and I'm Not Happy About It

I love Pedro. He's my favorite athlete of all-time. I even have a Mets t-shirt because it says "Martinez" on the back. So you'd think the news that he's been appointed by the Red Sox as Special Assistant to the GM would thrill me. But it doesn't.

It reeks of a PR decision, a move to make fans happy. Give a popular former player from happier times a vague job, make all the fans smile, even have the news trend on Twitter.

Call me cynical, call me paranoid. But look at the timing. It's perfect. The Patriots have been eliminated from the NFL playoffs and the aftermath of that has settled down. And wasn't there just a book released recently that kind of made the Red Sox ownership look bad? It's the perfect time to throw a bone to the fans, and give them something to be happy about.

Jason Varitek is already a "Special Assistant" to the GM. How many more Special Assistants from the 2004 Red Sox will be hired? Will Bill Mueller be named Head Groundskeeper? Will Trot Nixon become the team bus driver?

Perhaps they were always going to hire Pedro and they announced it at the best time to maximize good publicity. And that's fine.

However, this ownership has, over the last 5 years, earned nothing but mistrust and skepticism. They acquire players for PR reasons, spend money for the sake of spending it, trash departing players in the media, lie about sellouts, and prioritize appearance over all else. So can you blame me for being skeptical?

I'm glad Pedro is part of the organization. I just wish the organization didn't make me question every single move they make.

Give Pedro Martinez and Kevin Millar a TV Show

After watching Pedro Martinez and Kevin Millar on NESN's broadcast of the game last night, and being thoroughly entertained by it, I want to see these two guys on my TV more. They should have their own show. Maybe even their own network.

We could be obvious and give them a baseball or sports talk show. But that's not taking full advantage of how much range these guys have. Here are pitches for some show ideas:

Hunting and Fishing show
Millar can shoot deer, Pedro can chase chickens. And I think if you put these two guys on a high speed powerboat in the middle of a lake, provide them with a few liters of rum, you're going to get an entertaining fishing segment.

Cooking show
Millar seems like a guy very familiar with Chef Boyardee and microwave cooking. Mix that with some spicy Dominican cuisine. Spaghetti and meatballs in salsa.

Soap opera
Spanish language soap operas are awesome. The women are gorgeous and all the actors are so obvious with their emotions that you don't need to speak Spanish to grasp what's going on. Just imagine a typical Spanish soap opera... with Kevin Millar as a character.

Dating show
Get a guy, get a girl, send them on a date, have Pedro and Millar each coach a date and give them advice. Then viewers vote on who did the best job coaching their date.

Detective show
Millar plays an old school, shoot from the hip, wild west sheriff. Pedro plays a nerdy, by-the-book, desk-job officer from the suburbs. Together they have to solve animal related crimes. Manny can play the street smart veterinarian.

Comparing the 2004 and 2012 Red Sox

Last night the 2004 World Series winning Red Sox team was honored at Fenway Park. For some reason, the Sox chose to commemorate the 8th anniversary of this event. Whatever. Must sell tickets. Must continue streak.

Compare the 2004 and 2012 Red Sox and the differences are extreme, top to bottom, on the field, in the clubhouse, inside the Front Office.

The pitching was better in 2004. They had two potential Hall of Famers in Pedro Martinez and Curt Schilling. Then solidity after that with Wakefield, Lowe, and Arroyo. 933 combined career wins from those five guys.

The hitting was also better. Assisted by PEDs, David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez were the best 3-4 combo since Ruth/Gehrig. The Sox led the AL in runs, OBP, and SLG. The 2012 Sox offense is inconsistent, 4th in runs, 7th in OBP, 6th in SLG.

The 2004 Sox had a better attitude. The players were laid-back. They had a Manager that allowed that easygoing attitude. Kevin Millar, Johnny Damon, Manny Ramirez, and David Ortiz were entertaining characters. Quieter guys like Bill Mueller and Derek Lowe seemed to enjoy the Millar/Manny sideshows drawing all the attention.

The Manager also balanced a pair of prima donnas (Pedro and Schilling). Both of them remained focused on the same goal: winning. Terry Francona got the most out of those two just like General Eisenhower got the most out of Patton and Montgomery in World War II. Francona kept everything low key.

In 2012, Bobby Valentine goes out of his way to keep players on edge. He criticizes them in the media, and he doesn't move on and let things go.

The GM is different too. In 2004, Theo Epstein had the balls and the authority to trade Nomar. Could you imagine, in a pennant race, Ben Cherington being allowed to trade a star player?

Players, managers, and GMs change. But the ownership is still the same. Or is it?

In 2004 the owners owned just the Red Sox. They had no other concerns. And their only goal was to win the World Series, at all costs.

Now they own a struggling soccer team in Liverpool. And the aims of the Red Sox is scattered and out of order. It's tough to figure out which objectives are the most important for them. They have to sell tickets, use the media to besmirch ex-players, lie about sellout streaks, market the ballpark, overspend on free agents, and somewhere in this mess of priorities is trying to win ballgames.

In 2004, the Red Sox were John Henry's biggest concern, his main focus. Now, when the '04 Sox are honored at Fenway, the owners aren't even present.

The Sox were once Fenway Sports Group's entire empire. Now they're just a colony, and Larry Lucchino is the Imperial Governor, appointed by King John to run day-to-day operations.

But Larry Lucchino hasn't run the Sox, he's ruined them.

The way ownership operate this team is the biggest difference between 2004 and 2012.

Photo Credit:
AP Photo

So the Red Sox Will Be Below .500

For the first time since 1997, the Red Sox will finish below .500. 1997 doesn't seem like very long ago, but remember that was the year Pedro Martinez won the Cy Young, for the Expos. The Orioles won the AL East. Nomar Garciaparra won Rookie of the Year. Derek Jeter had 385 career hits. Tom Gordon was a starting pitcher. The Marlins won the World Series.

That's how long it's been since the Red Sox lost more games than they won.

Back then, Dan Duqeutte made a trade for an Ace (Pedro), and the Sox became contenders in 1998 and 1999. The Sox could use another transaction like that.

Daisuke Matsuzaka laid another egg last night. The good news was he only walked 1. The bad news was he allowed 9 hits in 3 innings. Alfredo Aceves looked just as bad, Daniel Bard looked even worse.

I sincerely hope the Sox don't keep Matsuzaka. He's slow, and he isn't very good. If the rest of the rotation had more certainty, I wouldn't mind him as a #5 starter. But with the top of the rotation in flux, Daisuke is too much of an unknown variable.

Photo Credit:
AP Photo

Tim Wakefield Day at Fenway

Yesterday was Tim Wakefield Day at Fenway Park. And like all ceremonies at Fenway these days, I get mixed feelings. Sentimentality swells in me. Then I remember that I'm witnessing a show, made to pull on my heartstrings and convince me to spend money on a product that I don't really enjoy watching anymore.

One nice moment was when Doug Mirabelli was introduced. He was chauffeured into Fenway Park in a Boston Police cruiser, an allusion back to 2006, when Mirabelli was escorted by Massachusetts State Police from Logan Airport to Fenway Park in order to reach Fenway in time to catch for Wakefield in a game against the Yankees.

I wonder if the State Police are a little upset that the BPD got recognized in this ceremony. Then again, a Statie parking in centerfield at Fenway Park would probably lead to all sorts of jurisdictional tugs-of-war. "I'm in charge of this ceremony!" "Not anymore you're not." Et cetera.

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Anyway, throughout the game, pre-recorded messages of former Sox players were displayed on the jumbotron between innings. Pedro, Nomar, and others talked about how important Tim Wakefield was as a player and a teammate.

It was a nice touch. It wasn't just a token pre-game ceremony, it continued on throughout the game.

I liked Wakefield. I miss Wakefield. Not so much for his pitching, more for his character. He did whatever the Sox needed him to do. He started, he closed, he was a setup-guy. Right now the Sox lack character guys like Wakefield. There are a number of Anti-Wakefields currently pitching for the Sox. One is from Texas and is named Josh.

It was nice to see Wakefield honored yesterday, even if it was an orchestration of the Red Sox propaganda machine.

Fenway's 100th Birthday Party

Fenway Park turned 100 on Friday. You might have heard about it. It's crazy to think about a facility being used and abused each year by fans and players, and it's still standing. Fires have burnt down grandstands, floods have seeped in from the marshy Fens, and I once threw up in Section 14.

When Fenway Park opened, World War I was 4 years from starting. There was no TV, no radio broadcast of the game. People got their news from telegraph. The Civil War had only been over for 47 years.

Fenway was 28 years old when the US joined World War II. It was 57 when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon. It was 72 when I was born. And it will probably outlive me,

The ceremony on Friday was tasteful, emotional, well planned, and even moving at times. It brought back memories of childhood, and made me remember why I blindly loved Pedro Martinez and Mo Vaughn. It made me remember that the team we have here in Boston is an integral, inseparable part of life in this town. It made me remember how unreasonably sad I was in 2003 and how unreasonably happy I was in 2004.

It was nice. The players came out, from different generations, from different classes of stardom in this town. Some players I'd never heard of. Some players I saw when I was a kid. Some players I've read about. Wilton Veras, Bill Monbouquette, Nomar, Millar, Lowell, Yaz, Doerr, Pesky, Petrocelli, even Jose Canseco. The obscure, the famous, the infamous.

Even the flyover gave me goosebumps. An F-16 flying wing-to-wing with a P-51. That's just cool. Although the P-51 flew in Europe and the Pacific when Fenway was already 30 years old. A formation of planes ranging from a WW I biplane might have been more appropriate. Or maybe a Marine Corps F4U Corsair and an F9F Panther (the planes Ted Williams flew in World War II and Korea, respectively). But only a history nerd like myself would make such specific suggestions.

I felt like a kid as I watched the proceedings. Then I realized that this was precisely how Larry Lucchino and John Henry wanted me to feel. This was how they got Sox fans to shell out hundreds of dollars to watch mediocre players blow 8 run leads and then be happy about it. They make us feel like we're in Disney World, then they pick our pockets. And we smile as they do it.

Lucchino and Henry didn't care about the Sox until they realized it was an asset they could build up, squeeze, then sell. They see Fenway Park as a tourist attraction, not a ballpark. I used to go to games to see the Sox play. People today go just to go, because it's cool. It's the trendiest bar in town with an obscene cover charge, overpriced beer, and lousy entertainment.

So while it was cool to see Pedro, Nomar, Millar, Lowell, Wakefield, and everyone else. Knowing that it was all part of the Lucchino-Henry money making master plan gave me a bad after taste. Fenway's 100th Anniversary wasn't a celebration of Boston, or the Sox, or Fenway. It was a marketing tool. It was exploitation of the team's most valuable resource. It was about image and money, and "growing the brand," as a business person would say.

And I wouldn't care if "growing the brand" included signing a frontline starting pitcher. But it doesn't.

PEDRO MARTINEZ: COCK FIGHT ENTHUSIAST

With the Patriots losing on Sunday, Kevin Garnett out for a few more games, Schilling's shoulder acting up, and the Bruins being the Bruins, it's time to look at a lighter side of the sports news.

A video came out on YouTube yesterday which featured Pedro Martinez and Juan Marichal as soltadores in a Dominican cock-fight. A soltador is the person who releases the rooster to go and fight. The video was eventually removed from YouTube (awwwwwww), and animal rights groups instantly began formulating a horribly constructed comparison.

Pedro Martinez = Michael Vick

I don't know if anyone knows who Vick is. Used to be an NFL quarterback; tiny, teeny, hardly covered story about him running a dog-fighting ring. Well PETA, and The Humane Society have already started their barking about Pedro.

But let's just have a short education of the differences between Pedro and Vick.

Cock-fighting is legal in the Dominican Republic. Dog fighting is illegal in the US.

Cock-fighting is an accepted part of Dominican culture, like bull fighting in Spain, or American Gladiators in the US. Dog fighting is not an accepted part of American culture.

Pedro's role in the cock-fight was similar to a celebrity throwing out the first pitch of a baseball game. Michael Vick actually ran the dog fighting ring.

People eat chickens! I just had some McNuggets. Very few people actually eat dogs.

Let's be honest with ourselves. If one of our friends - that sketchy friend we all have - invited us to an underground cock-fight; we'd go. We'd have some beer, smoke some cigars, bet on a cock, and enjoy ourselves.

We're all missing the big picture here: YouTube used to be cool. But since Google took it over, it's become legitimate. They took down all the highlights from the Super Bowl at the bequest of the NFL. Then the cock-fighting video with Pedro gets removed from the site. I didn't even get to see the video before they took it down.

All I can do is use my imagination to envision Pedro and Marichal, setting two roosters loose to peck at each other in El Coliseo Gallistico de Santo Domingo (Santo Domingo Cockfighting Coliseum), pictured below.



And who won the fight? Was it Pedro's bird, or Marichal's?

Source:
Associated Press/The Toronto Star article