After what we saw last night, it's kind of a moot point. The Red Sox themselves seized the initiative by throwing up two separate ``Welcome Back, Pedro" greetings on the message board at the end of the first inning, which had the crowd chanting for him and Pedro emerged from the dugout with a doff of the cap. That's the proper spirit.
Pedro Martínez needs to be thanked. He needs to be thanked for giving the Red Sox and their fans seven of the greatest seasons of major league pitching they'll ever see. He needs to be thanked for the two Cy Youngs and the four earned run titles. He needs to be thanked for 1999 alone, when his 23-4, 2.07 ERA, 13.20-strikeouts-per-nine-innings season was the best submitted by any Red Sox pitcher since Smoky Joe Wood's legendary 34-5 campaign in 1912. And then he needs to be thanked for a fairly dazzling encore season in 2000 (18-6, 1.74). And he needs to be thanked for 2004 when, as Gehrig38 puts it, ``he was a major part of bringing a World Series to Boston and was one of the 25."
``It's great to be back in very, very familiar territory," Martínez said yesterday. ``There are a few changes around here, but I have great memories. It's just great overall. A refreshing feeling."
The Red Sox? His second-favorite team. He says that will never change. ``Unless I'm competing against them," he said, ``I want to see them do well and become champions if I'm not going to be one."
So, um, what happened? Why is this a homecoming, rather than just another night at his old Fenway office? How did that World Series start against the Cardinals become his Red Sox farewell?
``I kept saying I did not want to leave Boston," he insisted. ``For business purposes, that was a bad move. I guess they thought when I said I didn't want to leave Boston that I would take whatever they would offer. I was speaking from the heart: `I don't want to leave Boston.' That didn't work."
