SEATTLE – His eyes got misty.
“All the guys were embracing me,” he said softly. “It got really tough to even speak.”
Anyone with a pulse who was watching had to get a little choked up. For this could have been the end. This could have been the last time we would ever see No.11 in a Seattle Mariners uniform.
And so, we felt the lumps in our throats. And the tears well in our eyes.
What a sad day if this was it. What a sad day if this was Edgar Martinez’s swan song to baseball.
We don’t ever want him to go away. We want him forever to step into the batter’s box, wave his bat menacingly above his head, swing that perfect swing and hit the ball wherever it’s pitched – a rocket to right-center, a scorching line drive into the right-field corner, a smash off the wall in left, a towering fly ball over the fence in left-center.
We want him to chug down the line, his muscular arms swinging, his blocky body all business, like he did in the eighth inning of Sunday’s season finale at Safeco Field.
You’d have thought it was the seventh game of the World Series.
“I just wanted to make contact,” he said. “I didn’t want to walk back to the dugout.”
He did, though. He walked back to the dugout after reaching first on a fielder’s choice. Walked back to a prolonged standing ovation from the 45,719 fans who had gathered for a sweet sendoff to a team they had lived and died with for the past six months.
As much as they love their team, they love Edgar Martinez even more. Love him for the hitter he is. Love him for the man he is. Love him for what he means to the Mariners organization.
And if the truth be known, many – if not most – had come to see Edgar play, because if this was the end, they wanted to be here to show him their love. And they showed it every time he came to the plate, rising to their feet and applauding as one. But the last time they showed it was the one that really got to him.
“It got tougher as the game went on,” he said. “I could feel the fans’ (emotion). The last at-bat was the toughest one I ever had.”
As he stepped into the batter’s box, he dug a hole with his right foot. In the Mariners dugout, every player, every coach, every trainer moved to the top step and leaned against the fence. They wanted to see this as much as the fans did. But more than that, they wanted to show their respect.
The applause had begun as he approached the plate with one out and a man on. And it went on and on, even as the count went to 0-2. When he finally hit the ball to the first baseman, who threw to second for the force, and there was no relay to first because no one was covering, the crowd got even louder because the grand old man had chugged into first safely.
That’s when manager Bob Melvin sent Chad Meyers in to run for Martinez. And 45,000 sets of eyes locked onto No.11.
As he neared the dugout, he took off his cap and waved it to the fans. Then teammate Mike Cameron – who also might have been playing his last game as a Mariner – embraced him. And as Martinez made his way down the length of the dugout, others did the same. And the noise would not die down.
He came back out for one final wave and then he disappeared down the dugout steps. And the life went out of the crowd.
Was this it? Was this the end of the career of the most beloved player in Mariners history?
In the clubhouse afterward, he talked about that and other things.
If he came back, could he ever see himself playing for another team? “Believe me,” he said without hesitation, “this is where I want to play and where I’m going to play. That (playing for someone else) would really be hard for me to do.”
He talked about a future without baseball. Last year, he took three days off after the season, then went back to work preparing for the 2003 campaign. “Regardless of whether I play or not, I’ll keep working out,” he said. “I just enjoy working out. It’s part of my routine.”
He said coming back to a team with a chance to be competitive was important. “I don’t know how I would handle losing like in the past,” he said. “You need adrenaline when you get older, when you play as many years as I have.”
He will take some time off to be with his family and try to make up for all the time he’s away from them during the season. And, of course, he will hash things over with them about the decision that has everyone curious. It has to be, he said, a decision he “can live with.”
He talked about driving to the ballpark that morning. “I had a lot of thoughts in my mind,” he said.
The last three days, he had arrived for work later than usual, leaving just enough time to get in some batting practice, because he didn’t want to constantly be answering the question. “That’s the first time I’ve ever done that (come late),” he said.
Usually, there are many bats stacked at his locker, but after this game, there wasn’t one.
On a chair in front of his locker sat his son, Alexander. “At first, he wanted me to stop playing,” the father said. “Now, it’s whatever I want. They (the family) pretty much support the decision I make.”
As the questions got fewer, a young man in a Marshall Faulk jersey and a St. Louis Rams cap turned backwards stepped up, softly said something to Martinez and handed him a drawing of No. 11.
Martinez signed it and gave it back.
The young man carefully rolled it up and placed a rubber band around it.
Rafael Soriano had a keepsake he can someday show his children.
And proudly say, he played on the same team with Edgar Martinez.
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