Edgar: An Autobiography

For Holli, Alex, Tessa, and Jacqueline

—E.M.

For Mom, whose memory shines on, and the family she loved: Dad; Judy and Esther; Lisa, Jessica, Meredith, and Jordan

—L.S.

Contents

Foreword by Ken Griffey Jr.

Introduction

1. How It All Started

2. Breaking In

3. Up and Down

4. Making It

5. The Mental Game

6. Batting Title

7. The Hamstring

8. The Year of Magic

9. Back to the Playoffs

10. Soaring to New Heights

11. Walking Away

12. Life After Baseball

Photo Gallery

Foreword by Ken Griffey Jr.

When I think of my friend Edgar Martínez, I think first of his incredible work ethic.

Well, first I think of that amazing mustache he had when we were teammates on the Mariners in 1989. I was just a 19-year-old rookie and couldn’t grow any facial hair at all, so I was jealous of all the guys who could sport a mustache or goatee. The only thing I had was a ’fro—and Edgar had a little bit of that going, too.

But it was evident to me from the start that Edgar put in an unbelievable amount of work. People see what he did on the field, which led to a brilliant career that rightfully put him in the Hall of Fame in 2019. What they didn’t see was what he did off the field. The eye exercises Edgar did for 20 to 30 minutes every single day to correct his vision problem. The hours in the weight room and the batting cage. They see the two batting titles, but not the work it took to accomplish that feat.

I was lucky enough to see it close up for the 11 seasons we were together in Seattle. I saw the countless hours Edgar spent preparing before each game. And I understood that the job he had for most of his career, designated hitter, is the hardest position in baseball. Playing in the field, you can sweat a little, get some flow and rhythm going. But as the DH, all you’re doing is hitting. You have to go up to the plate cold. It’s just hard. It would be like a basketball player who doesn’t run up and down the court. You just stand in the corner, and if we pass it to you, you shoot.

Edgar found a way to make it work, though. He took that position to new heights. He transformed the DH spot from what it used to be, which was an older guy trying to hold on for a couple more years. After Edgar, teams looked for guys who were in their prime to DH. When he wasn’t playing in the field, Edgar studied the game. He was one of the most prepared guys in baseball. Because he had to be. Whenever there was a pitching change, we’d go to Edgar to get a scouting report. He would tell us what pitches the guy threw, what tendencies he had. When Edgar got done, I would look over at Lee Elia, our hitting coach, and he’d nod his head yes.

It took a while for Edgar to get a starting job on the Mariners—and early in his career, he was a good defensive third baseman, too. He didn’t show any frustration. He just worked harder. We had a logjam at third, and Jim Presley was ahead of Edgar, even though he was tearing up Triple-A. But when you can hit, they’ll find a spot for you. And Edgar could hit. Every year for a decade-plus, he put up a .300 average, 25 to 30 homers, 40 to 50 doubles, 100 RBIs, and he could even steal a base when he needed to.

Edgar’s night was four at-bats—five if he was lucky. So his mindset had to be different than ours. We could go out and play defense. He just had those at-bats to make an impact. It was impressive to see him do it day in and day out, to be ready for an at-bat after sitting for 30 to 40 minutes. He made a living doing that.

One great thing about that group we had in Seattle—Edgar and Jay Buhner and Dan Wilson and all the rest—is that we took care of each other. We were all in the same age group, and we all got along. We pushed each other, too, in a positive way. The only way to get better is to compete, and we’d do that every day in batting practice. Whether it was getting the guy over, home run derby, getting the guy in—it was a competition. But we all rooted for each other. The jealousy wasn’t there. Edgar winning a batting title was like Jay or I winning a batting title, even though we didn’t hit for him. We were just as excited when he won it as if we had won it ourselves.

That’s the way we took care of each other. No one cared whose name was in the paper or not in the paper. As long as we went out and played and did our jobs, we didn’t worry about who had the headlines. It was like, Okay, if you want a headline, go ahead and do something to earn it.

Edgar was a funny guy, too. He had a dry humor—and sometimes he’d crack us up without even trying. You’d just look at him, and it was almost like how people say things about Rickey Henderson. We’d say, There goes Gar.

When we were in the hitters meeting, as soon as someone said the word cutter, we’d all look at Edgar. He’d say, Everyone has a cutter. No one throws the ball straight anymore. It was no longer the sinker everyone was upset about; it was the cutter. Well, Gar made his living off the cutter. He hit nearly .600 against the guy with the best one, Mariano Rivera. Now they’re going in the Hall of Fame together.

Early in his career, Edgar hit second, right in front of me. But I think when a guy hits as many doubles as Edgar did, and the No. 3 hitter keeps getting walked, you’re going to make a change. Lou Piniella put Edgar at cleanup behind me. He wasn’t the traditional fourth hitter, but he could do a lot more damage than most No. 4 hitters. He had a deadly combination of not striking out, doubling you to death, working the count, and having the ability to hit the ball out of the ballpark. And, oh yeah, he’d hit it down the right-field line as if he was a left-handed pull hitter.

Of course, Edgar and I will always be linked by the double he hit in Game 5 of the 1995 playoffs against the Yankees. It scored me from first base with the winning run to clinch the Division Series. That was an incredible year for all of us. I broke my wrist in May, and we eventually fell 13 games behind the Angels before making a miracle comeback. You look at how many people can carry a team for one, two, three, or maybe four days in a month. Between five guys, they carried it for 73 games. Then more than that after I came back. That’s how determined the guys were to just keep fighting. So many guys stepped up. You hear about next man up. That year, we stepped up as a team and were able to do something that was fun and exciting—not only for the players, but for the city of Seattle, and for baseball.

When Edgar stepped up against Jack McDowell in the 11th inning at the Kingdome, we were trailing the Yankees by one. Joey Cora was on third and I was sitting on first base as the winning run. What I was thinking was, Give yourself a chance to score. If Edgar hits a double and I don’t score, then maybe they get out of the inning and who knows what happens? I wanted to score for Edgar. I wanted to make it hard for Sammy Perlozzo, our third-base coach, to stop me. Make him have to come in and explain why he sent me or stopped me. You didn’t want Lou to ask you that question: Why weren’t you running? That’s the worst feeling in the world.

Of course, Edgar hit it into the left-field corner and I scored from first to win the game. The players came out and mobbed me, and there’s a famous picture of me smiling at the bottom of the pile. I’m just trying to get people off me! Don’t forget, I had surgery three months earlier. That’s why I rolled over the way I did, to protect my wrist. But sliding into home and having people jump up and down, that’s one of the greatest feelings you can have as a player.

Playing with Edgar, being his teammate and friend, was another one of the joys of my career. I think it took a little longer for people to realize how good he was. But when you put his numbers up against everyone else’s, you see how consistent he was. When I was growing up, the definition of a Hall of Famer was someone who was one of the most feared guys for 10 years. That’s the way it was when my dad played, and that’s the criteria I grew up believing.

With Edgar, the answer to that question was yes. I’m thrilled we’re going to be teammates again in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. It was lonely being the only Seattle guy.

—Ken Griffey Jr.

Introduction

I didn’t play baseball to make the Hall of Fame.

I played for the pure joy of the game, and for the constant challenge of making myself a better player. I played for the relentless pursuit of winning, and how good it felt when that goal was achieved. I played for the camaraderie of a clubhouse and the enduring friendships of teammates. I played for the great fans who supported me every step of the way. I played for my family and for the people who got me started in baseball as a kid in Puerto Rico. I played for all those who stuck with me when it didn’t appear that I was going to fulfill my dream of a professional career.

I am completely sincere when I say that personal accolades were not what drove me during my 18-year major-league career with the Seattle Mariners. In fact, my personality has always been to shy away from the spotlight. I have been happy to let others take center stage. During my career, I played with Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson, Alex Rodriguez, and Ichiro, all of whom were legitimate superstars. Some people say that I was overshadowed, but that’s not how I look at it. I always felt appreciated and valued, both within the team and from those on the outside. My career was a blessing, from start to finish.

All that being said, I can’t put into words the thrill when my cell phone rang on January 22 at 5:18 pm in my hotel room in New York. I knew who it was—though a couple of minutes earlier I had gotten a false alarm when the manufacturer of my CPAP machine had returned a service call. Talk about bad timing. This time, however, the call was the one I had been waiting 10 years to receive. Jack O’Connell, secretary-treasurer of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, was on the line. The phone was on speaker so that everyone could hear.

I’m calling to tell you that the writers have elected you to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Congratulations.

My family, gathered in the room with me, cheered. We all hugged and then my wife, Holli, led us in a toast. I didn’t show much outward emotion, because I’d used a mental trick I learned during my baseball career to keep my composure. I concentrate on the moment, and don’t let the past or the future overwhelm me. It worked for me in pressure situations at the plate, and it worked for me that day. But trust me, on the inside I was overwhelmed with joy and pride.

As you read this book, you will learn how close I came to never having a baseball career. I was nearly 20 years old and enrolled in college, preparing for a business career, when I signed with the Mariners out of a tryout camp I didn’t even know was going to take place. I hit .173 in my first professional season, and spent several years stuck at Triple-A, waiting for a major-league job I wasn’t sure was ever going to come. And then I endured a series of injuries that threatened to end my career prematurely.

But I persevered, and lasted through 18 mostly wonderful seasons, all of them in Seattle. I won a couple of batting titles. I honed the mental skills that helped me endure the inevitable setbacks that test every major-league ballplayer. I adjusted to and eventually embraced the new position of designated hitter that became my full-time home starting in 1995, which was also the season that the Mariners saved baseball in Seattle. I got a double against the Yankees in the playoffs that year that you might remember, too.

When I finally hung up my cleats for good after the 2004 season, I thought I had a shot at the Hall of Fame, but I suspected it was going to be a long, difficult road. I wasn’t sure how the writers who vote would look at the fact that 72 percent of my plate appearances were as a designated hitter. And though I was very proud of my numbers—a .312 career batting average, .418 on-base percentage, and .515 slugging percentage—I didn’t hit the milestones that voters look for, like 3,000 hits or 500 home runs.

And a long and difficult road it was. I received 36.2 percent of the vote in 2010, my first year of eligibility. You need 75 percent to be elected. When my total fell to 25.2 percent in 2014, my fifth year on the ballot, I began to think it might not happen. That same year, the Hall of Fame changed the eligibility rules. Instead of staying on the ballot for 15 years, candidates would remain for only 10. So I had just five more years, not 10, to raise my vote total from 25 percent to 75 percent. It looked nearly hopeless, particularly when I was still stuck of 27 percent in 2015. But I wasn’t bitter at all. I considered it a great honor to even be considered, and I understood why some voters had hesitance. It wasn’t something I stressed over. My attitude was always that it would be a great bonus if I got voted into the Hall of Fame, but it was not something that consumed or haunted me.

That’s when some remarkable things started to happen. The Mariners did an amazing job of reaching out to voters with a package of statistics and information on my career, as well as testimonials from many great players already in the Hall of Fame. Many voters who were well-versed in analytics and sabermetrics took a new look at my career and looked deeper than just the raw numbers. And some influential writers and analysts began to write articles about how I was deserving of a Hall of Fame vote. The bias against a DH, which I had felt from my first day of eligibility—and before—started to be chipped away.

The result is that my vote total began creeping upwards. I received 43.4 percent in 2016 and 58.6 percent in 2017. I began to regain hope that I could make it, but I was also prepared for disappointment. In 2018, my next-to-last year on the ballot, it actually looked like it could happen. My wife, Holli, would frequently check the twitter and website of Ryan Thibodaux, whose Hall of Fame tracker tallied each vote as it was revealed. I tried to ignore all that, but Holli would always tell me when I picked up a new vote, so it was hard not to get excited. However, when the results were announced, I fell just short with 70.4 percent.

It was disappointing, but also highly encouraging. No one who had received at least 70 percent of the vote had ever failed to make the Hall of Fame. For the first time, I started to really believe it was going to happen—especially when Ryan’s tracker showed me well above 75 percent once the voting resumed in December 2018. It was my last time on the ballot. Every time I received a new vote from someone who had passed me over before, Holli would let me know. Yet still, in the back of my mind, I was prepared for bad news when the vote was announced. I knew from experience that whatever the tracker said—and it had me hovering around 90 percent—I was going to lose votes from those who didn’t reveal their ballots publicly. About six weeks before the BBWAA vote, Harold Baines was named to the Hall of Fame (along with reliever Lee Smith) by the 16-person Today’s Game Era committee. That gave me even more hope. Harold was primarily a DH, just like me. I figured if he got in, then I probably would have a real good chance via the same committee, if the writers didn’t vote me in.

My daughter Tessa turned 17 the day before the 2019 announcement, and she wanted to spend her birthday in Manhattan. So our family headed to New York to watch a Broadway play (Book of Mormon), try to get out of an escape room, and take Tessa out for a nice dinner. The next day—announcement day—seemed to go on forever. As I said later, the final 10 hours seemed to last longer than the previous 10 years. For the first time in the entire process, I felt nervous. I tried to stick to my daily routines, including a workout in the morning. In the afternoon, Holli and I slipped away to have a glass of wine and a quiet talk about what lay ahead. That helped relax me, but there was still a lot of nervous energy as the family sat in the hotel suite, just waiting. Our close family friend, Christi Downs, loosened us all up with some jokes.

When the phone call finally came, and I found out I was joining Mariano Rivera, Mike Mussina, and the late Roy Halladay (along with Baines and Smith) in the Cooperstown Class of 2019, it was exhilarating, emotional, and deeply rewarding. And I realized that in many ways, the long wait to get into the Hall of Fame, which had been so frustrating at times, was actually a blessing. If I had made it my first year, my kids would have been too young to fully appreciate what it meant. But now they were able to celebrate right along with Holli and me, which just made the moment even richer.

Naturally, such an honor causes a person to reflect on the journey that got them there. For me, it all began in New York City, took flight in Puerto Rico, and soared in Seattle—with lots of detours and delights along the way. Here is that story.

1. How It All Started

My major-league baseball career was fulfilling beyond my wildest dreams—18 seasons, all with the Seattle Mariners, two batting titles, seven All-Star appearances, and a berth in the Hall of Fame. The life I have forged in Seattle, my adopted hometown, with my wife and soulmate, Holli, and our three kids, Alex, Tessa, and Jacqueline, has been a constant source of happiness and inspiration. I had a rewarding second chapter in the game I love as the Mariners’ batting coach and will continue to work with the organization on hitting.

But I’m certain that none of it—not the association with lifelong friends and former teammates like Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson, and Jay Buhner, not the Martínez Foundation that Holli and I started in 2008 that has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote teachers of color, not The Double in the 1995 Division Series against the New York Yankees that may have saved baseball in Seattle and gets brought up to me virtually every day of my life by Mariners fans—would have happened if I had left my grandparents’ house on that fateful day in 1974.

I was 11 years old, living contentedly with my grandpa, Mario Salgado, and grandma, Manuela Rivera, in the town of Dorado, Puerto Rico. We weren’t rich, by any means, but they made sure that food was always on the table for me; my younger brother, Elliot; and my older sister, Sonia. Born in New York, I had moved as an infant to Dorado—specifically, to the neighborhood called Maguayo—when my parents split up. Sonia and I, along with our mom, who was pregnant with Elliot, moved in with her parents, Mario and Manuela, and that was my home. It was the only home I’d ever known, and not only was I happy, but I felt my grandparents needed me. And to me, they were my parents.

My mom moved back to New York and eventually got back together with my dad. They decided they wanted to get the family together and give it a second chance. My sister and brother, they were kind of excited about that. I was excited my mom and dad were getting back together, but I wasn’t excited about going to New York and leaving my grandparents.

I loved living in Dorado, with my friends, with my grandparents, with my cousin Carmelo, with whom I was inseparable. Surrounded by rolling bluish hills and dense green pastureland, Dorado is located 17 miles to the west of San Juan. It is composed of seven neighborhoods, including Maguayo, with a cumulative population of about 35,000. As my friend and winter-league teammate Carlos Baerga once said, It is a calm town, like Edgar. It is a town for him.

It isn’t too far from the Dorado Beach Resort and Club, which is a former plantation once owned by Laurance Rockefeller. The country club is the home of the famous Dorado Beach East Course, a golf course designed by Robert Trent Jones and featuring a hole that was rated by Jack Nicklaus as one of the 10 best in the world. Chi Chi Rodríguez owns a mansion overlooking the course and the Atlantic Ocean coastline beyond. But that seems like another world compared to Maguayo, an inland barrio of modest means. Yet to this day, I feel completely at home whenever I return. I’ll buy a pincho (something like a chicken or beef shish kebab) from the vendor at the barbecue pit across from Felipe’s Place, an open-air bar that is always one of my first stops. It’s where people from the town go to hang out and relax. Calle 13, the narrow street where my childhood home still sits, isn’t far away. Calle 13 has now been renamed Edgar Martínez Street, something I could never have dreamed back in those days.

I had started playing baseball, a game I immediately fell in love with. I didn’t have any reason to go to New York, even though everyone tried to tell me how much I would love it there. I never told my sister and brother I didn’t want to leave Maguayo. But I struggled with that in my mind. I told myself, I’m not going. I’m not going to New York. I was thinking about my grandparents, and how they would get by without us when they were older. My grandmother had diabetes and heart issues. My grandfather was already losing his vision from an eye condition that eventually would leave him nearly blind. My brother and I helped him work on the car and truck that he drove to make his living. We helped him with the yard, and any work he needed done around the house. I didn’t think he could do it without me. So with all those things put together, I said, I’m not going. And I meant it.

At the time when I was expecting my father to pick all of us up to fly to New York, I went to the back of our house. There was a ladder, and I climbed it. I went on the roof, and I lay flat so no one could see me there. When the time came that my father had to go to the airport to catch a flight with us, I never came down, and no one knew I was up there. I could hear neighbors and everybody looking for me, calling my name. I just stayed there, praying no one would find me. I must have been up there for an hour, maybe longer.

My grandfather basically said to my parents, you have to leave him here. You’re going to have a problem with him there. He doesn’t want to live in New York. So Sonia and Elliot left, but I ended up staying in Puerto Rico. As my uncle, José Juan Rivera, told the Seattle Times in 2001, Edgar’s luggage was already packed. The luggage left. He stayed.

I remember it was so difficult. My brother and sister were close with me. It was tough, being apart from them, but I went through with it. I didn’t really know what I was doing, not at that age, but I went with my feelings. I just felt great staying with them. Looking back all these years later, I feel like I did the right thing. I never had doubts or remorse about staying. But it did affect me. For a while, I had this strange feeling inside. One part of me was sad. I think that sadness stayed with me for a long time. It helped that Elliot eventually moved back to Puerto Rico and moved in with us, and now I have a very good relationship with my mom, who lives in Puerto Rico. My father passed away a few years ago.

I’m certain if I had gone to New York, my baseball career would have never gotten off the ground. Elliot had played Little League in Puerto Rico one year, and he was a power hitter from the left side. He could hit the ball a long way. But when he moved to New York, he never had a chance to advance his career. Our father worked in New York as a doorman in a building, and he wasn’t a baseball fan. He wanted Elliot to get a vocation. For some reason, he wanted my brother to be a pilot, go to aviation school. Elliot didn’t play ball in New York; he just went to school and pursued other interests. I don’t think my dad would have let me play, either. It was like fate, in a way. My decision to stay in Dorado happened in a matter of minutes. It was far from the last time that fate intervened to guide me toward the glorious life I would wind up having.

My grandparents instilled in me a work ethic that I carried all the way to the major leagues. My grandfather had a variety of jobs over the years, but he was always working. At one point, he had a few trucks to transport gravel around the island. Later, he drove public transportation in his car, similar to a taxi. He owned the vehicles, so in addition to working five days a week, he’d spend the weekend tinkering with the vehicles, which always had something wrong with them. Most people rested on the weekend, but I never saw that. He wouldn’t even take a half-day off. That just wasn’t him. I would help him on weekends with the cars, trucks, or whatever else he was working on.

My grandmother was similar in a way. She was a homemaker, but she rarely rested. They showed me two important qualities—hard work and respect. Some people called me a perfectionist when it came to honing my baseball skills, and there’s no question where that came from. My grandfather was very good at details. You had to do it right. If it didn’t work quite the way he wanted, he would spend hours to make sure it worked. I was the same with hitting—I’d work at it until I got it right, whether it was my stance, my swing, or my approach. I might have blisters on my fingers, but I wasn’t leaving the batting cage until I figured out whatever felt out of synch. I needed that perseverance when I was languishing in the minor leagues, year after year, getting a taste of major-league playing time in the late 1980s but unable to stick for a full season. That was the most frustrating time in my career, and there were points when I thought I might be traded by the Mariners—and that it might be best—but when the breakthrough came in 1990, it was that much sweeter.

The first time I really became aware of baseball was in 1971, when Roberto Clemente, who had grown up in Carolina, Puerto Rico, about 35 miles from Dorado, played for the Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series against Baltimore. Everyone on the island was riveted to that Series because of Clemente, the best player ever to come out of Puerto Rico. I was eight years old, and I was mesmerized not just watching the World Series, but watching my family watch the World Series. They were living and dying with every pitch, especially my aunt Wilma, who was a huge baseball fan. I have a vivid memory of watching a highlight of Clemente hitting a double, and Aunt Wilma screaming in the living room.

He ended up as the MVP of the World Series, batting .414 with two home runs, so there was a lot more cheering. I have a picture in my mind of a television being set up in my classroom so we could watch the games at school. It might have just been highlights, but the mental image I have is of our teacher putting the games on live. It’s funny—one thing I remember is seeing Baltimore first baseman Boog Powell, who was 6-foot-4, 230 pounds, and thinking, Wow, he’s huge.

After that, I paid more attention to baseball. There was a plot of land very close to our house where all of us would play. I started Little League at age 11, and from that point on, I played baseball for the next 30 years, until I retired in 2004. Sadly, Clemente died on New Year’s Eve just a year later, when his plane crashed while he was on a relief mission to deliver supplies in Nicaragua after a major earthquake. Once again, I remember Aunt Wilma’s reaction, though this time instead of celebration, it was tears and sobbing when the news came over the television. I cried, too. Every young Puerto Rican boy wanted to be the next Clemente, including me. That’s why one of the greatest honors of my entire career was winning the Roberto Clemente Award in 2004, which reflects not just baseball but sportsmanship and community service.

Just three weeks after I played my final game, I received it at the World Series that year in St. Louis from Roberto’s widow, Vera, and his children. I was the first Puerto Rican ever to win the award, which has a treasured place in my home. Clemente is in the Hall of Fame, and joining him there will be the ultimate thrill. Orlando Cepeda, Roberto Alomar, and Iván Rodríguez are the only other Puerto Ricans in the Hall.

I was hooked on baseball almost instantly. I loved the game so much. In Puerto Rico back then, we didn’t have what the kids have today, so many choices, like video games and computers. In Maguayo, playing baseball was a way for me to entertain myself. I would go out and hit rocks with a broomstick. My grandfather had a pile of pebbles and rocks in the backyard from various construction projects, and in my mind, I would picture myself being like Roberto Clemente. I would pretend it was different situations in a game, and hit the rocks, imagining I was in a major-league stadium. I would do that for an hour, maybe longer, day after day, for years. I did it so much that I cleared out all the rocks from the backyard, which wasn’t necessarily appreciated by our neighbors. I remember that my grandfather bought me my first uniform around that time—striped, with my name sewn on the back. I couldn’t have been prouder.

Sometimes it would be raining and I would try to hit the drops as they fell from the gutter of the house. I had a small baseball glove, and I would get a golf ball and throw it against the driveway wall. That was how I practiced defense, catching ground balls off the wall, or pretending I was a first baseman receiving a throw from an infielder. I would put baby powder in the area of the driveway where my grandfather would park the car on slick tiles. Then I would run and slide. The powder made the slide smoother. Some days, Carmelo and I would pitch bottle caps to each other. Carmelo started early teaching me to hit the ball to right field, which was a big advantage in my career. We didn’t have the best equipment, but we were creative in finding ways to play or practice every day. And we loved every minute of it. We lived for baseball.

My grandpa was a big baseball fan, too. When the Puerto Rican winter league—which is now named after my childhood hero, Roberto Clemente—started in November, his team was Santurce, a town nearby. Every night, he would grab the radio and