A Prodigal Returns to face Red Sox Nation

Disclaimer: This was not written by Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe, it is a parody column for the BSMW “Be Dan Shaughnessy” contest.
A Prodigal Returns to face Red Sox Nation

by Dahn Saughnessy

It has been many years, but not that many innings, since Pedro Martinez toed the rubber at Fenway Park.

Tonight he returns. Not as a despised Yankee, as his former teammate Johnny Damon did, but as another Golem of Gotham: a New York Met.

Pedro, you may recall, was the premier pitcher and premier diva of the Red Sox team that finally broke the legendary Curse. (And who among us ever believed there was an actual curse? The players never did, and they don’t think that now.) At his best – think 1999 – he was poetry on the mound, dazzling hitters with an assortment of speeds and deliveries. We ink-stained wretches were at a loss for words to describe him (though we tried mightily). A Pedro start was “appointment television” because there weren’t enough seats in “America’s Most Beloved Ballpark” to hold the throngs who wanted to catch Pedro Live! In these parts, he was the true American (League) Idol, even as he filled the bleachers with throngs waving the flag of his native Dominican Republic.

Tonight he returns. To the cheers and boos of a spurned Red Sox Nation. John Henry, Tom Werner (hey! maybe even Les Otten!) will be in their plush owners’ box, surveying the scene and having their Fenway Franks with Grey Poupon. Pedro probably won’t look up and freeze them with an icy stare as The Rocket so famously did to departed GM Dan Duquette. The Rocket despised Doucette, but Duquette brought – or is that bought? – Pedro to the Sox to fill the void that Cy Clemens left. And he did. Through seven roller-coaster seasons that culminated in the Sox’ sweeping the vaunted St. Louis Cardinals of Tony LaRussa and, more important to Red Sox Nation, the greatest comeback ever in post-season play in body-slamming the Yankees after being one game from elimination, Pedro was The Man. He was Pedro the Great, Petey, or just Pedro the Prima Donna (as some scribes have dubbed him) depending on your point of view. But one thing could not be disputed. He was the most mesmerizing Sox pitcher since Luis Tiant (who also left to go to New York, a fact often lost on those fans who stop by his Cuban sandwich stand on Yawkey Way these days).

Like Larry Bird, Pedro did it his way. Sometimes he would flash you a smile and sometimes he would slip in the knife. Ask He Who Must Not Be Named, who lost his job because he believed that his ace still had a few good pitches left in the biggest game of the year, but found out that he emphatically did not. (Luckily, he seems to have gotten his managerial career back on track with the assistance of some of his key players from the Sox who have turned their uniforms from Red to Blue.) Ask John Henry how much goodwill he bought by paying out the $17 million option on the distressed diva. Ask Bryce Florie, who started a game that Pedro arrived at after the appropriate time and eventually got hit in the eye with a batted ball for his trouble.

There will be controversy. There always is with Pedro. He’ll say something provocative or outrageous and then claim he was mis-quoted. He’ll decide not to talk to the dogged beat reporters and then chat away with NESN Golden Girl Tina Cervasio. He won’t, like former Cowboy Up teammate Kevin Millar, leave a bag of something we can’t say in a family newspaper on manager Terry Francona’s desk, but you can be certain that we won’t see Petey and Tito having a post-game repast like the one Manny had with Enrique Wilson.

So it begins. The Ghost of Bill Bucker will hover above this three game series; Bob Stanley may bust a beach ball just for old times’ sake. The Mets are leading the National League East while the Sox are struggling. Pedro will not get his long-desired matchup against Curt Schilling, the man whose heroics drove him from #1 in the fans’ hearts and put him on the highway to Willie Randolph and a different kind of adulation in The Big Apple. He now ignores Rick Peterson, not Joe Kerrigan. But a win is a win and Pedro has plenty of them. We’ve been Waiting for Pedro but the wait ends tonight.

– 30 –

Award-winning Globe sportswriter by Dahn Saughnessy can we reached at: untouchable@globe.com

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