ALLENTOWN, Pa. – I suppose it’s simple politeness when media types laugh at not-so funny jokes told by athletes in interview sessions. After all, you have two interesting and conflicted variables at work here – media people are not polite and athletes are not funny.
Yes, there are exceptions and we generalize because it’s fun. So it must be pointed out that athletes are funny in the overgrown frat boy kind of way and media types are polite in the way Eddie Haskell was.
Again, we generalize because it helps us prove a point.
Nevertheless, Pedro Martinez is funny. Make that legitimately funny. When it comes to pure comedy, Pedro has it all – timing, delivery, intelligence, material, honesty and the ability to throw Don Zimmer to the grass with nary a shove. If you ask Pedro a question, he’s going to give an unedited answer. That’s rare. For instance, last night Pedro was asked about the revelations about his two former teammates and their presence on the infamous positive test list from 2003. For some reason names keep leaking out from that list one-by-one even though the union should have protected the list.
Moreover, the names on the list have all been players of Dominican descent. Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez are U.S. citizens with family from the Dominican Republic and Sammy Sosa and David Ortiz are Dominicans by birth. So far those are the only names released from the ’03 list.
Don’t think for a second that this was lost on Pedro.
“One thing that really caught my attention is, why is it all Dominicans? Why is it all Dominicans that come out positive? The last one standing might be me,” he said. “I can tell you one thing, I’ve seen Manny throughout his career and Manny has been as steady as you want a player to be.”
OK, that’s not funny. However, when he talked about how after all the Dominicans in baseball are disgraced, they might just come after him is kind of funny in a government-conspiracy kind of way. After all, Pedro, a Dominican, might be 5-foot-11 and 188 pounds. That’s what he claims, but he might be enhancing it.
Nevertheless, Pedro says he’s ready if they come after him.
“I’m not going to say anything because I believe the game should be played clean, but they have my total support. There weren’t the only ones. There were a lot of guys,” he said. “But out of a hundred or something guys why is it just four guys who are all Dominican? That’s a big question to ask. Why is it? I might be the only to be left standing. One of these days they’re going to come and say, ‘Pedro, too.’ I’m going to start stripping my clothes off and show people that I never had acne on my back. I’m going to start stripping in front of everyone. … If I did use it before they need to give me money back. That shit didn’t work.”
Here's Pedro via The Fightins and via, uh... us:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVXRiZxIWh8&hl=en&fs=1&]
The idea of a ballplayer stripping off his shirt to show off his back as if that’s the proof of drug use is comical. The idea of Pedro doing that with that wry smile of his is even funnier.
Also, when asked about the acquisition of Cliff Lee, Pedro flashed a wry smile and talked about how Ruben Amaro got the team another, "herky-jerky lefty..."
Herky-jerky? That's gold!
But even that wasn’t the best part.
The best part came when Pedro was asked about the controversy surrounding Omar Minaya and Tony Bernazard from his former team the Mets. There, Pedro pled ignorance and dropped a subtle line that probably the guys who have written about the Phillies for a few years understood.
And when he said it, a few of us lost it.
The line:
“I was never part of any back-and-forth with anybody. I never have. The person who I probably got into an argument with one time was Joe Kerrigan and that was in the best year I ever had.”
Yep, Joe Kerrigan. The same Joe Kerrigan who was the pitching coach for the Expos, Red Sox, Phillies and now Pirates. The same Joe Kerrigan who quit the Phillies after two seasons when he got into a publicized fight with Brett Myers in the clubhouse before a game, and witnesses say he also was punched in the face by a relief pitcher in 2004.
Bring up Joe Kerrigan’s name with players who know him and you’ll get sarcastic remarks like, “Yeah, there’s a positive guy.” Or, when he went out to the mound to talk to a pitcher during a game against the Phillies this season, a player from his days in Philly shouted to the pitcher on the mound, “Don’t listen to him, you won’t learn bleep!”
See, that’s funny.
Imagine that… a guy on the way to a Hall-of-Fame career with three Cy Young Awards who went 41-10 with a 1.90 ERA in his two best seasons in Boston got into a tiff with Kerrigan? Say it isn’t so. Hey, the guy really knows pitching and as far as analysts go, he's baseball geek to the highest order. That's a compliment. But knowing that Pedro argued with him and knowing this years after the fact and it’s no wonder there was nearly a fight with Brett Myers. After all, if Pedro Martinez wasn’t good enough during his days in Boston, it would take a pitching coach with riot gear or a strong jaw to preside over the 2003 and 2004 Phillies.
And indeed, it was pretty funny.