Dennis Martinez is being inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in St. Marys, Ontario this weekend.
He will handle the honour with grace.
It’s the way he handles everything.
From how he deals with people, to the way he pitched, to the work he’s doing in his native Nicaragua, trying to keep kids that are really, really poor out of trouble.
Martinez knows that drill.
He grew up in that extreme poverty but was saved by his ability to throw a baseball.
In 1976 that ability got him to the big leagues with the Baltimore Orioles.
He then proceeded to almost blow everything, losing his soul to alcoholism.
But this is where Canada comes in.
After Martinez was cast aside by the Orioles, the Montreal Expos took a flyer on him in 1986.
The long shot came home.
Free of alcohol, fueled by determination, mentored by the Expos’ great pitching coach, Larry Bearnarth, nurtured by managers Buck Rodgers and Felipe Alou, Martinez spent the next eight years with the Expos, winning a lot of games and a reputation as one of the best money pitchers in baseball.
Representing the Expos at three all-star games, he pitched the only perfect game in franchise history, on July 28, 1991.
By the time he retired from Major League Baseball as an Atlanta Brave in 1998, he had won 245 games, the most by any Latin American pitcher ever, posting a 3.70 ERA over a his 23-year career.
Terrific stats. Better man.
Sensing that man, Montrealers and people across Quebec and Canada embraced him. They knew about his bout with alcoholism, loved him for the fight he was waging to live to his best.
It was his heart that cemented the deal.
Dennis never pulled his punches. If something was on his mind, or in his heart, he said it.
This, everybody seemed to believe, was a man worth rooting for.
And they did.
This year’s Canadian HOF class is impressive.
It includes former Toronto Blue Jay and Cy Young Award winner Pat Hentgen, longtime Toronto Blue Jays Executive Howard Starkman, former Blue Jays TV analyst Tony Kubek, the late William Shuttleworth, sometimes known as “The father of Canadian baseball” for his work at promoting the game in the 19th Century, and longtime scout and former coach and general manager with Baseball Canada’s National Teams Wayne Norton.
All are deserving, I’m sure. I know none of them.
Dennis, I know.
I know what Canada means to him.
It’s only fitting that he be honoured here.
He–and all the fans who were in his corner–earned it.
Martinez spoke with RCI by phone on Thursday from his home in Miami.
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