Talk:Edgar Martínez
From BR Bullpen
Edgar was born on January 2, 1963, in New York, NY, but was raised in Puerto Rico. He spent much of his free time as a child playing baseball with his friends and family. His cousin Carmelo Martinez also grew up with him playing baseball. As many youths in his small town did, they aspired to become professional baseball players. As they grew, so did their talents, and people started noticing them. Carmelo Martinez who was 2 1/2 years older, was first signed at age 17 by the Chicago Cubs.
He eventually made his debut at age 22 in 1983. Edgar followed in his footsteps and was eventually signed by the Mariner's organization in 1982. His professional baseball career started in 1983, and spent the next 5 years there before he was able to get a tase of the Majors. He playedfairly well, and in 244 games with Calgary (a Mariner's minor league affiliate), he batted .344!
He go his first big league experience in 1987 after hitting .329 with Calgary in 129 games. In his short stay in the Majors, he played in over a dozen games, got his first hit (a triple!), and hit a stunning .372/.413/.581 with 5 doubles, 2 triples, and 0 homeruns. Up to this point, he was seen a good slap hitter, who had good speed and a decent glove at third base. And while he was putting up amazing numbers in the minors, the Mariner's had already put a lot into Jim Presley, who had shown promise with 3 seasons with 20+ homeruns, but his little bit of power disapeared in '88, leaving the mariners with only a horrible average to deal with. Edgar once again was given a chance to play with the team for a short time in 1988, but his numbers were not as eye popping as before .281/.351/.406 with 4 doubles. The mariner's gave Presley one more chance in '89, hoping for him to get back on track, but it never happened. Edgar played 1/3 of the season (65 games) with the Mariners, but while his .240 batting average was not impressive, it was still better than seasoned pro Jim Presley's - .236. The Mariners traded Presley away the next season, and gave Edgar his first full season in the Majors.
He had a very solid first season, hitting .302/.397/.433, and was 6th in batting average, and 3rd in OBP! While this was a very good year for the him and the team, but being on a back of the pack team, did not get too much attention, and whatever attention was given to the team was taken up mostly by the young up and coming star by the name of Ken Griffey Jr. Martinez followed up his 1990 season with an even better one in 1991, showing him progressively getting better. For the second time in his short career, he hit over .300.
He was now set as the teams long term answer at third base, but he was turning out to be a little different than what they expected. He was brought into their organization as a good fielder with speed, but wasn't known for his hitting, but here he was, becoming one of the better hitters in the league, but while his glove was making waves, it was for the wrong reasons. He was generally a decent fielder, but a lot of it was undone when he had 4 errors in a game!
Of course, the team was willing to sacrifice a bit of defense for the steady bat and keen eye that Edgar Martinez had. But what many people did not know was that he had eye problems, so he was constantly working on training his eyes to see the ball.
His training paid off in 1992, where he put together a tremendous season, capped off by winning his first batting title with a .343 average. He was the first player(?) to win a batting title on a last place team. Edgar had to deal with injuries over the next two seasons, pulling his hamstring, a problem that would be with him his entire career, and while it surely hampered some of his accomplishments, he did what he could to make up for it with what he could - with his bat.
By now, he was one of the top hitters in the Majors, but many thought that '92 would be his career year, and it was...up to that point. After battling injuries for 2 years, Edgar finally came back healthy in 1995, ready to get back on track.
The biggest difference for him now was that he was to play primarily at DH, something that would stick with him for the remainder of his career. The team got off to a good start in the first two months of the season, going 19-13, before nose-diving in the next two months. With Griffey out for most of the season due to injury, and only one ace on staff, with Randy Johnson, the team was kept alive by the powerful bats of Tino Martinez, Jay Buhner, and Edgar Martinez, with 'Gar leading the pack. He had a year to a remember in '95. After missing two seasons, he was ready to play, leading the league in games played. On top of this, he captured his second batting title with a .356 average (the last right-hander to have 2 batting titles was Joe Dimaggio), this just helped compliment his astounding .479 OBP! It was his bat that kept the team in the game, and it was behind him that they came back from a 13 game deficit in the last month, to end up tying the Angels on the last day for the wildcard lead.
After the mariners won the tie breaker, it was off to the Division series against the ever disliked Yankees, who they had won the season series against, 9-4. But things looked different at first, when the Yankees jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the series, but all of that changed in game 3.
But Edgar wasn't given a chance to shine in that game, since he was walked 3 times - twice intentionally. But game 4 was a different story. Edgar went 3-4 with a walk, oh and did I mention the 2 home runs 7 RBI!?! But while he considers that his finest hour, all of his true fans, know it wasn't until the next game, when they had their last chance, it all came down to Edgar in the 11th inning with Joey Cora at second, and Ken Griffey jr. at first. He receives a
