ORT MYERS, Fla. - This is how the man shoulders the burden of being Pedro Martinez.
''I feel responsible for myself every five days,'' he said. ''I feel responsible with my own drive. I feel responsible to the fans. I feel responsible to my teammates.
''It's always a responsibility given to me one day every five days, and I take it very seriously, because it's my job, my team, and my fans that pay my salary. It's my pride. It's my country, looking up to me as one of their representatives in a different land.
''It's a lot of things. It's a gift that God has given me. It's the same drive I have always had, just the drive I have within me.''
Martinez was 18 years old and in his first season of professional ball in the United States when Dave Wallace first witnessed that drive. Martinez was playing for a Dodgers rookie league team in Great Falls, Mont., about as far from Martinez's native Manoguayabo as one little Dominican fellow could get. Wallace was the Dodgers' minor league pitching coordinator.
''Salt Lake City had an independent team in that same league,'' said Wallace, now a special adviser to Dodgers general manager Kevin Malone, ''and they had all older players, and they ran away with that rookie league. Great Falls won their division and met Salt Lake in the playoffs. I was in the stands in Salt Lake City that first night and they hammered Great Falls, like 12- or 13-2. I looked over at Pedro, who was charting the game in the stands. I was with Reggie Smith that night, and we just talked about this.
''Pedro just had this look in his eye, and then he made a statement about the next night, and the way he was going to start off the game and what he was going to do. `That's it. I'm not going to put up with this.' The next night, the first pitch was right here,'' Wallace said, holding his hand neck high, which might have been a slightly lower altitude than where Martinez's pitch actually was. ''He made a statement. He came walking off the mound, got the ball, and wound up striking out 14.
''You know what? You can't teach that. You can talk about it all you want, but when you're out there by yourself, it's the playoffs, he's 18 years old, and you see something special? From that moment, you just knew. Reggie and I were laughing about it the other night. Unbelievable.''
That was in 1990. Eleven years later, Martinez is entering his fourth season with the Red Sox as winner of two consecutive Cy Young Awards, and three in the last four years. He is the creator of a body of work both historic and hallucinatory.
Last season, Martinez was 18-6, and the Red Sox scored 10 runs in his six defeats. His earned run average was 1.74, almost two runs lower than the next-best in the American League (3.70, Roger Clemens) and more than three runs lower than the league average (4.90). Opponents hit just .167 against him, the lowest batting average ever against a big league pitcher and a percentage point below Luis Tiant in 1968, the Year of the Pitcher, when the league batting average was .230. It was .276 in 2000.
The on-base percentage against Martinez was .213, another major league record, besting Hall of Famer Walter Johnson's .217. Martinez allowed just 7.22 baserunners per nine innings, 31/2 fewer than AL runner-up Mike Mussina and the lowest number ever.
Greatest of the great?
In Jimy Williams's first at-bat in the major leagues, in 1966, he struck out against Sandy Koufax, the great Hall of Fame Dodger lefthander who would retire at the end of that season. Later that same year, Williams singled for his first major league hit (one of his three career hits) off Juan Marichal, the high-kicking Dominican righthander who also would claim his place in Cooperstown, N.Y. In the brief time he spent in the big leagues as a player in '66 and '67, Williams was a teammate of yet a third Hall of Famer, Bob Gibson, who would leave an indelible impression on New England when he beat the Impossible Dreamers three times in the '67 World Series.
Before he managed the Red Sox, Williams was a coach with the Braves, which placed him in the company of three of the elite pitchers of the current generation: Greg Maddux, the four-time Cy Young Award winner; Tom Glavine, a two-time Cy Young recipient and 1995 World Series MVP, and John Smoltz, the 1996 Cy Young Award winner and owner of a 12-4 record in postseason play.
Williams takes the measure of all the greatness with which he has been associated, and declares Pedro Martinez the best pitcher he has ever seen. ''He's one of the five best pitchers in the history of the game,'' echoes Red Sox pitching coach Joe Kerrigan, who was a teammate of Hall of Famer Jim Palmer in Baltimore.
''One of the five best ever? It's arguable,'' said Bob Feller, the 82-year-old Hall of Famer who won 266 games, struck out 2,581 batters, and threw 44 shutouts for the Cleveland Indians while staking his own claim to all-time status.
''After his career is over we'll evaluate it,'' Feller said. ''He's got a ways to go. He'll have to hang in there for a while, another five years I'd say. Another five years, we'll evaluate what his stats are, which will be very important for him as far as the Hall of Fame and his place in major league history.''
But even Feller, who has a well-earned reputation for being sparse with praise for any big leaguer born after World War II, acknowledged that the 29-year-old Martinez is not out of place in the company of the game's finest pitchers.
''Martinez is a very good pitcher, the best pitcher around today,'' said Feller, who was here this spring for an old-timers charity game. ''You have to evaluate men from their own generation, their own decade. Who was the greatest, Lincoln or Washington? Churchill or Franklin Roosevelt? He's not a top five pitcher yet, but he may be. He may be the No. 1 in history.''
But once you've raised the bar as high as Martinez has, how does he continue to compete against himself? ''Like my dad always said, you always find the most trouble in the biggest apple tree,'' Feller said. ''When you get to the top, it's harder to stay there than the getting there.''
And just how skewed are the expectations of those expecting near-perfection every time Martinez takes the mound?
''That's something we always talk about,'' said Martinez's elder brother, Ramon, who had an eight-year run as one of the dominant pitchers in the National League until his shoulder gave out on him in the 1997 season, and again the following year, when he reluctantly succumbed to shoulder reconstruction.
''Right now, he's on top of the hill, and he might do the same thing for the next three years. But he's got to be ready for those times [when he's not]. Some time, it's going to happen, and Boston is a hard place to play.''
Martinez, Wallace said, will continue to compete at the highest level because he knows no other way.
''There are certain guys who are special,'' Wallace said. ''So many guys today, especially with the financial structure we use, reach a certain level and have been successful, and there's almost a complacency, I think, that sets in.
''But those special guys are challenged by the ability to try and do it again, to consistently compete even on days when their stuff isn't good or they're giving up runs and they still beat you, 6-5. When you're on, and winning, 2-0, 3-0, a lot of guys can do that. It takes those guys who win even on those cold, windy, rotten days or [when] the karma isn't right. Those guys are special.
''What Pedro has done in Montreal and Boston, you can't measure. We as baseball people sometimes make a mistake of looking only at physical ability as opposed to really getting to know what somebody is all about. Gosh, Randy Johnson challenges people, Curt Schilling, Roger Clemens - like him or dislike him, to try and maintain that level of excellence makes him a special guy.''
Test of time is next
Ferguson Jenkins, in a Hall of Fame career that spanned 19 seasons, had six consecutive seasons in which he won 20 games or more, and seven of eight. He won 284 games and isn't quite ready to place Martinez in the top five all-time.
''I'll name you five right now - Koufax, Gibson, [Tom] Seaver, [Steve] Carlton, and myself included, and there are guys who have done more than I've done - [Juan] Marichal, [Don] Sutton, [Phil] Niekro,'' Jenkins said. ''There's a ton of guys. Pedro has only played 10 years.
''Let him pitch 18 years. I'd like to see him put up some stats. Right now, Roger Clemens has 250-plus wins.''
Jenkins said that if Martinez stays healthy, he has no doubt he will put up all-time numbers. It will be important, he said, that Martinez avoid not only a major injury but the nagging ones - blisters on his pitching hand, groin and hamstring pulls, back problems - that can limit how often he pitches.
''The ability part of it is not minimized, but if you're the No. 1 starter, you've got to go out there 25-30 times [a season],'' Jenkins said.
''He may be small, but his stature is bigger when he takes the mound. He knows how to pitch. The level of pitching isn't always done physically. It's mentally, too. He's able to transfer from his standpoint to make it a physical thing. He's reliable, he's durable, and he goes to the post whenever his time comes up. He's always out there.''
Jenkins points to the now mythical performance by Martinez in the 1999 playoffs in Cleveland, when Martinez, despite a sore shoulder that kept him from starting the deciding fifth game of the division series, came out of the bullpen and threw six hitless innings, even though he was unable to throw his best fastball.
''Mentally, if you learn how to play the game, I think you can transfer that into your performance,'' Jenkins said. ''You don't always have to have good stuff. A lot of times you have to pitch with your brain. It's what's on top of your shoulders that cause people to look at you and say, `Well, hey, this guy can pitch because he's learned his craft.' Even with mediocre stuff or 75 or 80 percent of your stuff, you're able to get people out because you're intimidating to start off with. And if you can intimidate the hitter to make him do half the work, it makes your job easy.''
Wallace, who was a pitching coach with both the Dodgers and Mets, believes that even if an injury robbed Martinez of his great fastball, he would still be able to excel. ''If it happens and you know the guy's work ethic and makeup and he's young enough, I think he's going to be able to come back from it,'' Wallace said. ''Sure, you're always concerned about pitchers long term. Even Nolan Ryan went through it with his elbow.
''But Pedro has such a feel for pitching, and his ability to adjust from hitter to hitter and from pitch to pitch, seeing a hitter move in the box, seeing the tendencies of hitters, that's innate. A lot of guys never get to that level. Look at what he did in Cleveland in the playoffs without a good fastball. That was amazing. His ability to pick hitters apart and make adjustments in the course of a game is incredible.''
Time will dictate Martinez's place in history, Wallace said, but Martinez certainly ranks as the best pitcher he's ever been around. ''He's right there,'' Wallace said. ''I was around Orel Hershiser in '88 [during his record 59-inning consecutive scoreless streak]. I've been around [Greg] Maddux, who has been so consistent over time. Clemens is certainly what he is, but, my gosh, for the total package I would be really hard-pressed to find someone with a better package than Pedro. As good, maybe.
''I didn't see Sandy, but I'm good friends with him. Johnny Podres, who I respect as one of the best pitching coaches ever, told me, `In 1955, I was pretty good, but that 32 [Koufax], when he walked on that mound, he belonged in a different league.'
''At times, you get that same feeling about Pedro. I'm not a numbers guy, but look at the numbers. They're ludicrous.''
Pedro Martinez's dominance is indisputable. A look at some of his eye-popping statistics.