If it weren't for the hot, sticky weather of late, I would probably have tried to get tix to tonight's game with the Diamondbacks. Pedro Martinez makes his home debut against Jon Garland. It's funny. When Martinez was with the Mets, I must have seen him pitch in person against the Phillies, but I can't recall any of those games. Instead, I remember a 1999 game late in the season in Yankee Stadium, against the Red Sox. I had got tix for the plumber, a big Yankee fan. By chance Pedro was pitching.
If anything, I had an anti-rooting interest in both teams, but was looking forward to seeing Pedro in person. A trio of excited young Latinos asked me directions to Yankee Stadium on the subway platform at 42nd Street. I told them to follow the crowd, then asked if they were going to see Pedro. Their faces lit up. Yes, of course, because he was Pedro and because he was a countryman.
It was a fabulous, unforgettable game. Pedro struck out 17 Yankees, including the last three he faced in the 9th. It was reminiscent of an electric interleague game a couple of years earlier at the old Vet, when Curt Schilling K'd 16 Yankees.
For the Pedro game, we had seats down the third base line. By the ninth, the many Red Sox fans in attendance were loudly feisty and many of the Yankee fans belligerently sour.
Pedro is unlikely to come anywhere near 17 K's tonight. I had to laugh, though, about what he said after his first start with the Phillies, last week in Chicago, about "trotting the Old Goat out there". He was referring to himself of course, but you had to wonder if it was a sly dig at Jamie Moyer, who had already expressed his displeasure about being bumped for this "new" Old Goat.
