Marvelous Martinez

SEATTLE – Edgar Martinez was a content bachelor earning a comfortable wage in a pharmaceutical factory in Puerto Rico. Then the Seattle Mariners called offering a contract.

The deal: Years of toiling in the minor leagues before a chance in Seattle, for a signing bonus of $5,000 – the baseball equivalent of a bat rack, even in 1982.

Martinez’s response: “No, thanks.”

He was 19. He wanted to keep his $4-per-hour job and the crew of 12 machinists he led at the factory. He still wanted his studies at American University in Puerto Rico toward a business degree and his good second income as a year-around, weekend third baseman in semipro leagues.

“For Puerto Rico, it was a comfortable living for a single, young kid,” Martinez said.

But after 25 years, seven All-Star Games and a career batting average of .312 with Seattle, the man regarded so highly as a designated hitter that the American League named its annual “best DH” award after him is glad that cousin and former major league outfielder Carmelo Martinez talked him into accepting that meager Mariners offer.

“Carmelo Martinez and I had an argument,” Martinez told a luncheon in his honor. “He said, ‘Sign it! I know you can make it.’ “

Martinez indeed made it.

Saturday night, he will become the third player inducted in the Mariners’ Hall of Fame. He joins Alvin Davis and Jay Buhner plus broadcaster Dave Niehaus – three years after he retired as one of baseball’s most respected hitters. That year he also became the first Puerto Rican to win baseball’s Roberto Clemente Award for humanitarian service.

“It’s incredible,” the soft-spoken Martinez, 44, said of his weekend. “I’m overwhelmed.”

On Friday, the Mariners honored him on the playing turf at Safeco Field with a sold-out, white-linen luncheon full of some ribbing and fond remembrances under sun that was as bright and glorious as his career.

“The most unheralded player ever,” Buhner told the crowd of 1,000 seated on round tables in left field.

Buhner’s voice was cracking as he turned to his teammate of 14 seasons.

“You never asked for anything,” Buhner said, uncharacteristically serious after a series of jokes and stories – including the revelation that Martinez once dressed up as his cinematic hero Austin Powers, rotten teeth and all, to break the daily clubhouse monotony.

“You stayed with Seattle for 18 years,” Buhner said. “You could have gone anywhere, in this era of free agency and big bucks. That’s special.”

So is Seattle’s regard for its all-time leader in games played (2,055), at-bats (7,213), hits (2,247), runs (1,219), RBIs (1,261), doubles (514), walks (1,283) and total bases (3,718) from 1987-2004.

Martinez, who was born in New York and raised in Dorado, Puerto Rico, is so beloved in Seattle that the thoroughfare linking Safeco Field to the city’s two main freeways is Edgar Martinez Way.

No wonder.

He had the division series-winning hit – known in Seattle as “The Double” – that beat the Yankees and brought the city its first A.L. championship series in 1995. That likely saved the Mariners from moving, because it sparked special legislation that fall creating Safeco Field to replace the old Kingdome.

Martinez twice led the A.L. in batting, including when he hit .356 in that wondrous ‘95 season. He also led the A.L. with 52 doubles and a .479 on-base percentage that year, both career highs, while usually hitting behind Ken Griffey Jr.

“He is by far the worst right-handed hitter I’ve ever played with. I mean, he couldn’t hit water if he fell out of a boat into the Puget Sound,” a straight-faced Griffey, wearing his Cincinnati Reds uniform, deadpanned into a camera in a message delivered over the stadium’s video board Friday.

Martinez, a key to Seattle’s 2001 team that won an A.L.-record 116 games, was a leader by extraordinary preparation and well-timed humor. Buhner recalled how Martinez once spiced up a dull spring training week. He pretended to be bothered by salsa music blaring from the clubhouse stereo while he meticulously weighed his bats, as he always did.

After a couple of times turning the music down only to have it turned back up, Martinez took one of his cherished bats and obliterated the stereo. All that was left was the tuning knob – and a bat that now had gouges.

“Oh, that’s not good,” Martinez said. He then simply returned to weighing more bats while the rest of the team stared in disbelief.

A minute later, Martinez doubled over laughing. So did all his teammates. The next day, Martinez had a new, deluxe stereo system installed in the clubhouse.

Today, Martinez and wife Holli live with their three children: Alex, age 12, Tessa, 5, and Jacqueline, 2. He runs Branded Solutions by Edgar Martinez, a byproduct of his family’s embroidery business, in Redmond, Wash.

Not that he needs the income. That $5,000 original signing bonus in 1982 peaked to a $7.1 million contract by 2002.

As for that other Hall of Fame, baseball’s in Cooperstown, N.Y., Martinez said he doesn’t think too much about induction – yet. He isn’t eligible until 2009.

“Oh, that’s the ultimate honor as a baseball player,” he said. “I’m sure I’ll think about it more the closer we get.”