What if Pedro Martinez landed with the New York Yankees rather than the Boston Red Sox?
It sounds crazy now given that Martinez cemented himself as a Yankees villain while going on one of the most dominant pitching runs in Major League Baseball history with the Red Sox. But the Hall of Famer actually was a huge Yankees fan when he was younger and even asked the Montreal Expos three times to trade him to the Bronx Bombers.
Martinez revealed this information Monday on “The Rich Eisen Show,” before then explaining his first “reality check” when it came to the business side of baseball.
Martinez, who began his career with the Los Angeles Dodgers, was traded to the Expos in November 1993. He spent four seasons in Montreal, winning a Cy Young Award in 1997, before getting traded to Boston, where he won two more Cy Young Awards and a World Series title over seven years.
Martinez ultimately left the Red Sox, signing with the New York Mets in free agency in December 2004 and finishing his career with the Philadelphia Phillies in 2009. But it’s hard to envision Martinez in pinstripes, as it surely would have thrown a wrench into the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry, which reached new heights during the late 1990s and early 2000s.
