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Off the Press, I'm a day late and a dollar short giving Pedro Martinez props for reaching the 200-win mark. I'm sure he won't mind. I saw a blurb somewhere on the web (the problem with reading so many pieces is one often forgets where one saw a certain thing) referring to Pedro as one of the best Latin pitchers of all-time. "What are they talking about?" I remember myself thinking, Pedro Martinez is one of the best pitchers of all-time - period. Check out his numbers!
Not only is he one of the best pitchers ever, but Pedro Martinez is probably the smartest pitcher working in the game today. Folks always talk about Greg Maddux and how smart he is. I'll give it up, Maddox is smart, but Pedro Martizen is a freaking genius. I got to see Pedro in his prime with the Red Sox. I've never seen a cat with so much concentration, poise and verve on the mound.
Pedro's strength, other than his fastball and his placement, is his ability as a strategic thinker. Pedro just doesn't pitch, he orchestrates. When he's on, he's unhittable - intimidating. Lately, Pedro has lost a little bit off his game. He's more prone to injury and his pitch count has to be monitored like the stock market. However, Pedro is still a big time player, which the Mets, to their delight, are finding out. As Shuan Powell points out in, Hot start fuels coolest fantasy, a good piece on the Mets' 10-2 start.
Yesterday, Kansas City Star columnist Jason Whitlock wrote, Sports journalism relevancy at issue. Whitlock discusses the future of sports journalism, riffing after returning from a conference at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank. Anyway, the newspaper business is in crisis and the siege mentality has spurred a debate amongst sports writers on how to revitalize the genre. At this point I should come clean, last year I participated in a similar forum at the Harvard's Nieman Foundation's Conference on Narrative Journalism. I believe that narrative has a place in sports writing, Whitlock does not. Neither of us is right or wrong, the joy of writing is in the freedom of expression. Anyway, here's Whitlock's view:
There seemed to be two groups: one advocated going back to the future and claimed that newspaper and magazine sports writing could be saved by further embracing the kind of descriptive, narrative writing that made John Lardner the envy of all sports writers in the 1930s and 1940s; the other group pushed for more opinion, analysis, information and entertainment, a combination of Bill Simmons the “Sports Guy” and Andy Katz, two writers for ESPN’s Web site.
I, of course, was in the latter group. I’ve never seen an industry rejuvenate itself by holding onto outdated ideas. Just about all sports news, unlike other forms of news, is televised. Traditional game stories and narrative writing off of televised sporting events are a waste. Save the narrative for a murder or a real news event.
Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I read for information and enjoyment. There's nothing like reading a great piece about a game one has already seen. Good writing enhances and transports. A well-written piece is like a painting. It's not about verisimilitude, it's about emotion - it's love - the reason we got into sports in the first place. For example, Mike Lupica, of the New York Daily News, wrote this great piece, Something extra is what he always gives, about Pedro Martinez. Peep this:
On the night when Pedro Martinez won his 200th game, won it in front of 36,000 at Shea Stadium on a cold Monday in April, won it against theBraves, Bobby Cox talked about the first time he saw Martinez in the big leagues. Cox talked about a slender kid who came out of the bullpen for the Dodgers one night in 1993, throwing a baseball much harder than he did last night against Cox and his team.
"When I saw how hard he could throw, looking as small as he did, my jaw dropped," Cox said. "I don't know what the radar gun said that night, but he was throwing 97 at least, and we had no chance. And I mean no chance." Then Cox laughed. "Of course, you still have no chance sometimes, even if he's throwing 82."
Martinez threw a lot of pitches in the 80s last night at Shea, on a night when the Mets beat the Braves, 4-3, to go to 10-2 and take a five-game lead early in the National League East. The only time anybody saw the scoreboard say 90 was when he struck out Brian Jordan, an old Met killer, in the top of the seventh, the last out he would get. He needed a little more against Jordan even though he was past 100 pitches now, a lot for him anytime, always a lot this early in the season. So he found a little more.
It is the beauty of watching him pitch, in front of a very nice Mets crowd that included 7,000 walkups. When he needs a little more, he finds a little more. When he needs to be young again for a pitch or two, he is young. Maybe not the kid that Bobby Cox saw out of the bullpen that night more than a decade ago. But close enough. All this time later, he is still as much fun to watch as anybody.
out.
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5/2/06 6:28 PM