Selective Memory for Returning Diva

Disclaimer: This was not written by Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe, it is a parody column for the BSMW “Be Dan Shaughnessy” contest.

Selective Memory for Returning Diva

By Dan Shaughnessy, Globe Columnist | June 26, 2006

Oh, there will be some boos tomorrow night for the return of the Diva, but for the most part the ovation from the Fenway Forgetful will be fierce and clamoring.

Yes, Pedro Martinez returns to the Living Room of New England tomorrow night. There will be an interlocking NY on the bill of the baseball cap that will be repressing that interesting hair-do, but it won’t be the logo of that city’s American League entry. And that, for all intents and purposes, will be the reason that the free-speaking Dominican superstar who always played fast and loose with the team rules will receive that fierce and clamoring ovation.

Johnny Damon was back here, not too long ago, and despite the fact that he was a man who would never beg out of a game due to injury, never seemed to be too busy for a Joey from Burger King who wanted just-one-more-autograph, and could not have been more gracious in his dealings with the media nor more graceful in his playing on the diamond, he was mercilessly booed.

Wrong NY on his cap.

Pedro Martinez always danced to the beat of his own drummer in his seven star-crossed years in Beantown. He’d occasionally make it to the park on time, and he’d sometimes sign an autograph, to be sure. Oh, and, lest we forget, he did finally make it to a Team Photograph session in 2004, his final of seven seasons with the Sox. But he earned his moniker over those seven seasons, the moniker that has followed him to another team, another town, another league.

The Diva.

Over in the Big Apple, Pedro didn’t like the softness of the bullpen throwing mounds. What do you think happened next?

Yup, that’s right. Next day after his complaint, those mounds were entirely ripped out and replaced to his personal satisfaction. Over in Gotham, there have already been the missed practices, the late arrivals for team buses, but Martinez keeps on winning, and has a chance with these revived Mets to reach deeply into the post-season once more, certainly as the biggest star pitching for the favorites to be the Senior Circuit entry in this year’s World Series.

The Diva knows that if his team (and certainly, he thinks of it as his team) are to reach the Series, he must have the kind of year that he had a couple years back when he wore a big, bright red “B” on his cap.

And because his value to his team is just that paramount, Pedro Martinez will continue to dance to his own drummer, he’ll continue to elicit the muted or anonymous grumblings of his team-mates, and that dance to that drummer will salsa right up to “the line” without quite crossing it.

That’s what Divas do. And that’s what The Diva did for seven years here as he put up Koufaxian numbers while being integral to the utter destruction of that “Curse” thing.

But the fans here won’t remember The Diva. They so easily forgot Johnny Damon’s grand slam in Game Seven to finally erase the Yankees in that Championship season. They forgot that he had another home run that buried any gasping chance the Bombers might have had in that game. They forgot how Damon played through the after-effects of repeated face-to-wall collisions. They forgot how Johnny was Jesus, the Sox won it all, and how he smiled through all that hair and embraced New England as warmly as they once embraced him.

They will forget all about the historic antics of The Diva, tomorrow night, as well.

The ovation will be fierce, and clamoring, as the amnesia takes a firm hold of the collective inhabitants of New England’s Living Room.

The Diva is coming home to collect the embrace… of the Fenway Forgetful.

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