Left: Pedro Martinez of the Boston Red Sox during their game against the New York Yankees on September 19, 2004 at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, New York. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images) Right: Jorge Posada of the New York Yankees on April 12, 2008 at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
A day after getting voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame along with John Smoltz, Randy Johnson and Craig Biggio, former Boston Red Sox ace Pedro Martínez seemed ready to mix it up again with his old nemesis.
Making a Wednesday appearance with the other three newest Hall members on “Daily News Live,” a show on the New York Mets-affiliated SportsNet New York television network, the Dominican pitcher was asked, “Who was the Yankee you liked to hit [with a pitch] the most?”
“Jorge Posada,” he answered without hesitation.
Why? Because, Martínez said, “Jorge always seemed to have a bad attitude toward me.”
The pitcher famously used to cup his hands over his ears in imitation of the Yankee catcher’s oversize hearing organs.
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"I called him Dumbo,” Martínez acknowledged, “but that’s no reason for you to want to kill me.”
He added that Posada “was so arrogant... He never wanted to talk to me. He was always mad at me for some reason.”
While Martínez – who once after a loss to the Yankees said, “I just tip my hat, and call the Yankees my daddy” – claimed on the show that he never intentionally hit Posada, he recently estimated that as many as 90 percent of all the batters he hit were on purpose.
He also suggested on Wednesday that Posada sparked the Oct. 11, 2003, brawl between the Yankees and Red Sox during Game 3 of the American League Championship Series during which Martínez threw to the ground the 72-year-old Yankee coach Don Zimmer.
"Then [Posada] let it go a little bit too far with the Zimmer incident. Between Latinos you don’t mention anybody’s mother. I did not appreciate that. I know it was in the heat of the situation, but that’s sensitive to Latino players.”
Mothers, but apparently not fathers.
Appearing on “Late Night With David Letterman” later on Wednesday, the new Hall of Famers read out the show’s Top Ten list.
The category was, “Top Ten Things I Said When I Learned I Made the Baseball Hall of Fame.”
Number 3 was delivered by Martínez. “Who’s your daddy?” he said.
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