Heartbreak Hotel
The Lyric Little Bandbox in the Back Bay will become the Heartbreak Hotel today for either the Olde Towne Team or Pedro Martinez, the wayward son who will try to show Theo Epstein who his daddy really is.
In the Gospel According to Elvis, the Heartbreak Hotel is “where broken hearted lovers do cry away their gloom.” And if we are to believe the revisionist history that the new King of Queens served up to Gordon Edes earlier this week, we would expect Pedro’s homecoming to be as sentimental as a Liz Taylor-Richard Burton reunion at that great big Caesar’s Palace in the Sky.
The Boston Pops don’t have enough violins to lay down the soundtrack for this gem: “The way they are in my heart,” Pedro said, “if they feel the same way that I feel, it should be a mutual respect and passion for each other. I had a lot of fun. My best memories in baseball are in Boston, so I hope they receive me the way I have them in my heart.”
But this is Red Sox Nation, where grudges last even longer than curses, and fellow New Yorker Johnny Damon can tell his old teammate how fruitful it is to appeal to nostalgia for “the 25” who broke the Curse, especially the ones who wormed their way into the Big Apple. Damon’s own homecoming was something akin to Dean Wormer trying to emcee a Delta House reunion, but Pedro is hoping he took the safer route than his old mate Johnny Nitro, who blew up any chance he had at reconciliation with the Nation by going over the the Dark Side..
Bill Buckner aside, Pedro went the safer route by passing by the Bronx for the less explosive confines of Queens. Of course, the warm-up reunion didn’t go so well for the ex-Red Sox ace when he met up with the West Coast Chapter of the Red Sox Alumni Club, when Nomar belted a homer and Derek Lowe dialed up some 2003 sinkers and Grady Little’s crew had their former diva singing the Dodger Blues.
So now Pedro is hedging his bets. “A loss has to go to one side or the other,” he explained to those who don’t understand the mathematics of a zero-sum game. “I’m a fan of the Red Sox, believe me. You have [Jason] Varitek, you have David [Ortiz], you have all those guys there. Manny [Ramírez], David, Varitek. I get along with a lot of the other guys that were brought to the team. Schill [Curt Schilling], all those guys. Those are my teammates, the ones that got me a championship.”
His new crew in the soulless cavern of soon-to-be-razed Shea Stadium hasn’t been so successful – so far. Although the Mets are now 9-1/2 games in front of a not-so-Amazin’ NL Eastern Division, Pedro only has a 6-3 record. At least they don’t have Brandon Looper to kick around any more.
But Pedro wasn’t looking for a championship when he rode a duck boat away from the big victory parade and waded ashore in the weedy march between JFK and Laguardia. No he was looking for “Respect” which he got plenty of from Omar “Aretha” Minaya.
So Pedro’s learning to live without you now, but he misses you sometimes. And tonight we get down to the heart of the matter, and Pedro can only hope the Fenway Faithful see it the way Don Henley did when he left his old team the Eagles, for more millions in a solo career:
‘I’ve been tryin’ to get down to the Heart of the Matter
But my will gets weak
And my thoughts seem to scatter
But I think it’s about forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, even if you don’t love me anymore…”
