Martinez gives Cooperstown a run for its money

Red Sox fans and Dominican fans alike cheered on Pedro Martinez during his Hall of Fame induction weekend.

COMMENTARY

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — The chant was barely audible, drowned out by the cacophony of noise from the fans lined up along Main St., dressed in enough orange and yellow to make this village’s main drag look like a Texas sunset.

But there it was, a distinct, lone voice just down the block projecting with determination.

“Pe-dro! Pe-dro!’’

The call came during a slight break from the Saturday afternoon celebration of thousands of Houston Astros fans who descended upon Cooperstown to witness their beloved Craig Biggio’s induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Astros fans, most choosing to don the retro fashion of their favorite baseball team in lieu of the modern-day pinstripe variety, packed every corner of the museum the day before the Hall’s official induction ceremony. They lined every curb of Cooperstown, breaking out into impromptu chants of “B-G-O! B-G-O!’’ They pillaged the local CVS, purchasing nearly every beach chair available, staking their claim on a spot for that evening’s caravan of Hall of Fame legends.

Red Sox fans paid tribute to the latest Hall of Famer, Pedro Martinez.

Starring, who else? Craig Biggio.

In their minds, at least.

They got their payoff during the Parade of Legends later that evening, when master of ceremonies Gary Thorne noted that, based on the likely reception, he probably shouldn’t even bother announcing who was coming down the main drag next, following the likes of Baseball Hall of Famers Hank Aaron, Dennis Eckersley, and Robin Yount.

Biggio came along with the Class of 2015, the parade’s grand finale, bringing up the rear of the show in the bed of a pickup truck, politely waving and nodding to the boisterous sea of fandom. Randy Johnson came next, documenting the moment with his video camera.

Then, the crowd really came alive.

That lone voice, so solitary only hours earlier, was joined by hundreds more. Dominican flags waved as the truck approached, and then, finally, the man they had come to see, clad in a snazzy, red sport coat with his wife at his side, soaked in the moment, as only he could. He pumped his fists, danced, and pointed to the crowd, a love affair renewed.

It was just as they had remembered him, of course, the charismatic pitcher they embraced for seven years in a Red Sox uniform, the best pitcher the city of Boston has ever had the privilege to witness.

“Pe-dro! Pe-dro!’’

The streets grew louder.

Pedro had arrived in Cooperstown.

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In Pedro Martinez, now officially a Baseball Hall of Famer along with contemporaries Biggio, Johnson, and John Smoltz, Cooperstown has a legend of the sport as dynamic as the village itself. Martinez, of course, was a show all his own in Boston, resurrecting a woebegone franchise upon his arrival in 1998 into a region-wide fascination every fifth day when he pitched. He immersed himself in the Dominican culture of his new hometown, sparking a romance unlike any other in the Hub’s sports annals.

Pedro Martinez delivers his speech before 50,000 baseball fans.

Cooperstown’s relationship with baseball may be simplistic the other 363 days on the calendar, but on Induction Weekend, which this year welcomed around 45,000 baseball fans to the quaint surroundings (short of the reported 80,000 that showed up to watch Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken, Jr.’s inductions in 2007), things get a little more complicated.

When tens of thousands descend upon this town, it becomes the sort of place where you can spot Hall of Famer Greg Maddux, hawking autographs at a hot dog stand, just across the street from where Lenny Dykstra and John Rocker, a pair of players with less-illustrious career and post-career resumes. Bucky Dent signs photographs without the middle name with which Bostonians bestowed him. Lou Piniella and Vladimir Guerrero sit side-by-side, waiting their turn to make a quick buck.

A likeness of the late Gerge Steinbrenner at the entrance to the Cooperstown Wax Museum.

At the corner of Main and Pioneer Streets, a couple hundred hounds stand awaiting their number to be called in order to enter a building that houses baseball legends such as Carlton Fisk, Eckersley, Joe Morgan, Frank Thomas, Wade Boggs, and Jim Rice. A Johnny Bench autograph will run you up to $100. Reggie Jackson, up to $199. There’s sort of a sad aura surrounding the whole event, a Pete Rose affliction spread among the best players baseball has ever seen, and some of the richest to boot.

Former Braves ace Tom Glavine is here too, as fans await their number to be called in order to meet the Billerica native. But following his 90-minute stint with MAB Celebrity Services, there’s Glavine down the road just browsing Baseballism, a clothing boutique store, with his wife, chatting up fans and posing for pictures. There’s not a crush to get to Glavine, and the man is seemingly more than happy to appease everyone before donning his sunglasses and ducking back out the front door.

And suddenly, Cooperstown sort of feels like Cooperstown again, even to a rookie visitor.

To use the cliche that the village is stuck in time can’t be more accurate in the fact that its very being is to recall the past. The museum is obviously an entertaining ride through baseball history, as is much of the street it resides on. At Augur’s Corner Bookstore, for instance, browsers can purchase back copies of team scorecards and Sports Illustrated magazines, each for $1. The 1984 SI Summer Olympics preview is available, and it’s got the girth of a best-seller, packed with an array of printed advertisements that today’s generation probably can’t comprehend. “Banned (but needed) in Boston’’ reads the headline on another cover from 1986. “With troubled pitcher Oil Can Boyd in exile, the Red Sox take a beating.’’

Abbott and Costello shirts for sale at Shoeless Joe’s in Cooperstown

It’s where fans can pore through baseball cards from decades past at Yastrzemski Sports (staff members claim the owner is a relative of the Red Sox Hall of Famer), where a creepy likeness of late New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner stares at passerby from the entrance of the wax museum. Only in Cooperstown is Abbot and Costello’s old-timey “Who’s on First?’’ routine so part of the culture woven into town that one is able to buy shirts with “Who,’’ What,’’ and “I Don’t Know’’ emblazoned on the back.

“See Jonathan Winters, the Babe Ruth of comedy in person,’’ reads an ad hung from the wall at Doubleday Cafe, just a stone’s toss from Doubleday Field, which sits just to the rear of downtown in historical perpetuity. In Cooperstown, Yogi Berra sayings, “Yogi-isms,’’ of course, are celebrated like religious passages, and the conversation shifts to baseball no matter what cafe or restaurant you poke your head into.

A replica of the types of gloves baseball players would wear in 1925, for sale at Shoeless Joe’s.

Even to a cynical baseball fan, Cooperstown serves as a genteel elixir, eschewing the game of $100 million contracts and the advanced metric war amongst fans. It was something that became clearly evident during the parade on Saturday, the complexities of Major League Baseball stripped down to simply the best players the game has ever watched riding down Main Street in small-town America. History, right before you, along with the memories and feelings each player delivered his respective city.

One by one, they rode by, the living Hall of Famers. Whitey Ford. Rickey Henderson. Steve Carlton, each politely waving to an appreciative crowd.

Then Pedro Martinez brought the party. And it didn’t stop there.

****

Former pitcher John Rocker signed autographs for fans in front of Paterno Brothers Sports.

In the same fashion as the previous day’s parade, Biggio, Smoltz, and Johnson were each reserved in their speeches before a huge crowd under a punishing sun adjacent to the Clark Sports Center. Johnson admitted tthe emotions of the day got to him, while Smoltz said he regretted not mentioning former Atlanta Braves owner Ted Turner during his speech, which clocked in at 29:29. (Smoltz, of course, wore the No. 29 during his two-decade career with the Braves.)

Meanwhile, Houston fans — thousands of them — feted Biggio during his long list of gratitude, cheering the very mention of every former teammate — including Jeff Bagwell, Moises Alou, and the late Ken Caminiti — along the way.

Yastrzemski Sports in downtown Cooperstown. The owner claims to be a relative of the Hall of Fame Red Sox player.

“I hear ya,’’ he told the crowd of boisterous Astros fans. “Pedro is going to give you a run for your money.’’

Of course, he did.

Hundreds had flown here from Martinez’s native Dominican Republic, and they kicked off what Dominican and Red Sox fans have waited more than a decade for. As Martinez noted during his speech, this was a moment his proud countrymen have been waiting 32 years for, the time between his induction and that of fellow Dominican native Juan Marichal.

First the drums, then the bells, and then the familiar refrain known to anybody who visited Fenway Park on a night when Pedro walked off the mound with yet another masterpiece to add to his now-Hall of Fame repertoire.

“Pe-dro! Pe-dro!’’

Red Sox fans and Dominican fans alike soaked it in as Martinez’s highlight reel (narrated by former teammate and longtime catcher Jason Varitek) played on a big screen. Among the Pedro moments captured, of course, was the pitcher’s challenge to Babe Ruth. “Wake up the damn Bambino. Maybe I’ll drill him in the ass.’’

Cut to a moment with Martinez and a life-size statue of Ruth in the Hall of Fame’s plaque gallery. “Sorry bro,’’ Martinez told the statue. “I didn’t mean to say that.’’

All the while, Martinez played along, his grin curved to a higher degree than the devastating pitch in his repertoire. He pointed at the crowd and danced atop the stage before greeting everybody, wearing a blue suit, standing him out from the crowd, flanked by a symbol representing the Dominican Republic on his right shoulder, his second home, the United States of America, on his left.

“Hola!’’ he shouted.

Martinez proceeded to be reflective and humorous during his speech, being sure to give nods of appreciation to his family, the Dominican, Boston, and former Red Sox general manager Dan Duquette, in the crowd on Sunday, who is the only man to have traded for the diminutive righty twice, once with Montreal, once with Boston.

“I had some bullet points that I wanted to get across when I first drafted what I wanted to say,’’ Martinez said afterward. “But a lot of it was just pure creation.’’

Martinez said the decision to honor Marichal, with whom he waved the Dominican flag at the end of his speech, came to him at about 6:30 Sunday morning. It was an image that Martinez said he gave to his people since it happens to be Father’s Day in the Dominican Republic, with two of its own being celebrated in Cooperstown.

“A lot of people, as you saw, showed up from all over the country of the Dominican Republic in different places to support one of its sons being inducted into the Hall of Fame,’’ Martinez said. “To be up there and to give them their first opportunity to see their first two sons in the Hall of Fame, I think it was the greatest gift I could probably come up with for a Father’s Day in the Dominican and the Dominican population.’’

As 48 other Hall of Famers looked on, the Dominican Republic and Red Sox fans threw a party.

The Hall of Fame class of 2015.

Pedro has indeed arrived in Cooperstown.

For good.

“I thought he did great,’’ Jose Ramirez, a native of Tewksbury wearing a No. 45 Red Sox jersey, said after Martinez’s speech. “I thought he was fantastic. He was all Pedro. He spoke from the heart, he was able to mix his English, his Spanish, speaking to the American fans and the Dominican fans. You could tell how much it meant to him. It didn’t come across as necessarily rehearsed. It was somebody putting a microphone in front of Pedro as happens so often, and off he went.’’

There were plenty of empty seats in the sections closer to the stage when Martinez began his speech, vacated by family and friends of the inductees that preceded him on stage. Some Houston fans departed early too, with Biggio having batted leadoff on the day, and the long trip back to Texas ahead of them.

“When you think about the amount of people from Houston that were here that made the song journey to get here, obviously it’s not easy to get here,’’ Biggio said. “For them to come to this and enjoy this together, as many of them that came, I mean it was just a great day. It was a blast.’’

As for the even longer trip back to the Dominican, in due time. The party, after all, is just winding down, and Cooperstown is getting ready to assume its sleepy reputation once again.

Martinez now has an annual invitation to this weekend for the rest of his life.

The Hall of Fame, in all of its ceremonious grandeur, just got a whole hell of a lot more fun.

Boston artifacts in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown

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