Martinez, Mussina Exits May Mark End of an Era

It’s the end of an era in New York. Forget the dual destruction of two long-standing baseball edifices in Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium; the end of the season may also have brought a conclusion to the careers of two fin de siècle pitching greats, Mike Mussina of the Yankees and Pedro Martinez of the Mets. Mussina has indicated that he might retire, while Martinez has not made his future plans known.“Fin de siècle” refers, in this case, to the end of the 20th century, but given the current news, it might be more appropriate to describe Mussina and Martinez as pitchers who bestrode the Era of Two Bubbles — technology and housing. To paraphrase Mark Twain and say that they came with the bubble and they go out with the bubble: “The Almighty has said, no doubt: ‘Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.'”Mussina reached the majors in 1991. Martinez received a cup of coffee the following year. Both excelled in their first full seasons, though Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda, in his dotage, put Martinez in the bullpen for a season before trading him for Delino DeShields, one of the worst swaps of all time. Simultaneously, Mussina was going 18-5 with a 2.54 ERA for the 1992 Orioles, helping that franchise improve its record by 22 wins over the previous season. He finished fourth in the Cy Young voting that year.Mussina quickly established himself as the rare control pitcher with good enough stuff to get more than his share of strikeouts. Although he never posted another ERA under 3.00 amid the rising offensive era in which he pitched, he did reel off another 10 seasons under 4.00, and had nine top-four finishes in the ERA category. Mussina never won a Cy Young award, but he was a top-10 vote-getter eight times. There were often pitchers who had more spectacular, dominating seasons than the cerebral hurler, but few matched him in year-in, year-out excellence.No one matched Martinez in anything. He was, at his peak, the most dominant pitcher of all time. In his 2000 season, in which he posted a 1.74 ERA against a league average of just less than 5.00, in the designated hitter league, in tiny Fenway Park, Martinez rose above his contemporaries by a greater margin than any pitcher in history. Martinez never had a power pitcher’s build, foreshadowing a shortened career, but he had a combination of power, command, and pure artistry that is unique in the history of the game. Adjusted for park and league setting, Martinez’s career ERA is the lowest of any starting pitcher in history.Unlike Mussina, Martinez was also aggressive to the point of courting trouble. It is tempting to see this in terms of the class struggle: the Stanford-educated, first-round pick Mussina had his scruples about hitting batters, considering it immoral or unsportsmanlike. He plunked just 60 of them, and it is probable that each was accidental. The Dominican Martinez, pitching for economic salvation, hit 137 despite throwing 780 fewer career innings than Mussina, and was saved from many more only by batters with quick reflexes.The one thing that Pedro and the Moose do have in common is that they were unable to boost their New York teams to a championship. Martinez was available to the Mets because the Red Sox balked at giving the frail pitcher a four-year contract. The Mets did so, probably knowing that they were likely to get only two healthy years for the price of four. In actuality, they got only one. The Yankees got better value, going to the postseason in all but one season of their eight-year association, and with the exception of 2007, even when the aging Mussina struggled relative to his established level of ability (2004-05) he was still good enough to keep them in games.If both pitchers’ careers are indeed over, neither will have the 300 wins that lets the Baseball Writers’ Association of America voters avoid thinking. This is a bad thing only insofar as when the writers start thinking, they generally come to the wrong conclusion. Three-hundred wins has little meaning where they are concerned, if it ever had meaning at all. One flared brighter than any pitcher, the other shone sharply and steadily. There is great value in these things regardless of numbers. Ironic that those who claim the least regard for statistics put the most faith in them.* * *This column too marks the end of an era. Since 2004, I have written more than 230 columns for The New York Sun. I am proud to have been part of the most progressive sports section in the country and associated with writers who are among the best and most knowledgeable at what they do. I want to express my gratitude to the editors, especially the indefatigable Geoffrey Foster, who tolerated my many verbal flights of fancy and eccentric approach to deadlines. The Sun will be missed, not least of all by me.Mr. Goldman writes the Pinstriped Bible for yesnetwork.com and is the author of “Forging Genius,” a biography of Casey Stengel.

Martinez, Mussina Exits May Mark End of an Era

Martinez, Mussina Exits May Mark End of an Era

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