Get your popcorn ready. Longtime Yankee nemesis Pedro Martinez is back in the Bronx. And the Phillie pitcher has fired up Yankee fans with his claim Wednesday that he is “the most influential player” to ever play in Yankee Stadium. But is he really that off base?

While it’s true that Martinez is not going to make anybody forget all-time greats like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, or Mickey Mantle, he has carved out a niche in Yankeeland as one of the greatest villains ever, in his games with the Red Sox, Mets, and now the Phillies. Pedro has had a good decade-long run at being the pitcher Yankee fans most love to hate - yes, even more than Curt Schilling or Randy Johnson.

Whenever Martinez faces the Yankees, especially at Yankee Stadium, the reporters come out. And the fans. And the catcalls. I was at Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS, and the lone entertaining moment of the night for Yankee fans was win Martinez inexplicably came into the game in relief and promptly loaded the bases, amid very loud chants of “Who’s your daddy?”

Although this Yankee fan hopes my team beats up on the future Hall of Famer in Game 2 of the Yankees-Phillies World Series - he’s starting against A.J. Burnett - I have to tip my cap at the way Martinez gets the media and the fans squawking. Is there anybody in baseball who can hold as compelling a press conference as Martinez? And smack around reporters with his words - yet leave them wanting more? Or get a crowd fired up against him? I can’t think of any.

Wednesday, the always-eloquent Martinez talked, and talked, and talked - about everything from Don Zimmer, to being compared to Satan, to being willing to strip to prove himself.  Here are a few quotes from the presser:

On his “most influential” claim:

“I don’t know if you realize this, but because of you guys in some ways, I might be at times the most influential player that ever stepped in Yankee Stadium….I have all the respect in the world for the way they enjoy being fans. Sometimes they might be giving you the middle finger, just like they will be cursing you and telling you what color underwear you’re wearing. All those things you can hear when you’re a fan. But at the end of the day, they’re just great fans that want to see the team win. I don’t have any problem with that.“

When asked to clarify his remark, he was asked, “when you say you’re one of the most influential players to come in here, do you mean as a visiting player?” He then complained about the New York Post’s coverage of him:

“I think in every aspect, the way you guys have used me and abused me…. I remember quotes in the paper, ‘Here comes the man that New York loves to hate.’ Man? None of you have probably ever eaten steak with me or rice and beans with me to understand what the man is about. You might say the player, the competitor, but the man? You guys have abused my name….”

“There was one time I remember when I was a free agent, there was talk that I might meet with Steinbrenner. One of your colleagues had me in the papers with horns and a tail, red horns and a tail. That’s a sign of the devil. I’m a Christian man. I don’t like those things. I take those things very serious. Those are the kind of things that the fans actually get used to seeing, and actually sometimes influence those people to believe that you are a bad person, that you are like an ogre….”

He threatened to take his clothes off to prove a point, similar to the way he threatened to strip to prove he never took steroids:

“The way people perceive me in New York, I don’t know if they got to know me a little bit better after I got to the Mets. It’s totally different than the way I am; I just compete. And yes, I will do whatever it takes to beat you. But I’m a human being after I take my clothes off. A lot of people can witness that any time, anywhere, any moment.”

He was asked what he remembered about that 2004 ALCS relief appearance at Yankee Stadium. He then went off on a tangent about his 2003 fight with Yankee coach Don Zimmer. Only thing is, he misremembered that the fight happened at Fenway Park, not Yankee Stadium!:

“I remember being calm, really calm, ready for anything. Actually I had a little bit of anger inside of me, not towards the Yankees or towards whoever, towards the tweaking that the whole scenario took. Actually, and I’m sorry I’m going to recall this because it was an ugly scene — this is probably the first time I’m ever going to talk about it publicly. But when Zim came over to me, I thought he was going to just give me advice or something, just “Go, Pedro, you need to slow down or something,” or try to make it look a little bit different….”

“The ball hit the bat on Karim Garcia, and Zim charged me, and I think he’s going to say something, but his reaction was totally the opposite, was trying to punch my mouth and told me a couple of bad words about my mom. I  just had to react and defend myself kind of. But the tweak that it took made me look like a monster that just came in to play Yankee Stadium. And you know what I did, go out there, compete, and nothing else. I remember getting back to my dugout and seeing middle fingers. My mom, poor mom. I’m glad she’s blessed by God because all those curses were, I mean, unbelievable.”

Win, lose, or no decision, don’t be surprised if Pedro Martinez gives a Hall of Fame-worthy press conference after his start Thursday. Or if he’s the most influential player in Yankee Stadium - at least for that night.

Photo by dbking

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