BOSTON — From Ted Williams to Carl Yastrzemski to Jim Rice, the Boston Red Sox have retired seven numbers, placing them along the facade of the right-field roof deck in hitter-friendly Fenway Park.
None of them were worn by pitchers.
That all changes Tuesday night when the club will retire the No. 45 worn by Pedro Martinez, just two days after he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Martinez will be honored before Boston faces the Chicago White Sox. Randy Johnson, John Smoltz, and Craig Biggio joined Martinez in the Class of 2015 in Cooperstown on Sunday.
“As excited as I am about the Hall of Fame, I’m equally excited about having my number retired,” Martinez said when he learned of the decision. “I think it’s a great honor. I don’t have enough words to thank the Red Sox.”
Martinez won five ERA titles in an offensive-rich era, dominating hitters putting up crazy numbers.
One of his biggest moments was in the 1999 All-Star Game — held at Fenway Park — when Martinez started and struck out five of the six National League hitters he faced.
“The fact that he was so elite in an offensive era, he was as dominate as anyone at any stage of the game’s history,” Red Sox manager John Farrell said over the weekend.
But it wasn’t just his pitching that his teammates remember. Slugger David Ortiz, a teammate when the Red Sox ended an 86-year World Series drought in 2004, felt like he learned so much just being with the right-hander.
“Pedro is the most unbelievable human being that I’ve ever been around,” Ortiz said. “Everything he told me made me a better player, a better person.”
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