Pedro [First Edition, First Printing] Martinez, Pedro; Silverman, Michael

As new condition dark blue boards, red spine, and white spine lettering contained in an as new condition non price-clipped color photographic dust jacket. Includes Author Dedication; Introduction; Epilogue; Acknowledgments and Career Statistics. Illustrated with a section of black-and-white photographic plates. "A bold, no-holds-barred memoir from one of the most dominant and dynamic pitchers to ever play the game. Before Pedro Martinez was the eight-time All-Star, three-time Cy Young Award winner, World Series champion, and Hall of Famer, before stadiums full of fans chanted his name, he was just a little kid from the Dominican Republic who sat under a mango tree and dreamed of playing pro ball. Now the charismatic and always colorful pitcher opens up for the first time to tell his remarkable story. Martiniz entered the big leagues a scrawny power pitcher with a lightning arm. They said he wasn't "durable" enough, they said he was a punk. But what they underestimated about Pedro Martinez was the intensity of the fire inside. Martinez willed himself to greatness, to astonishing control, speed, and ball movement. In Pedro we relive it all in Technicolor brighness, from his hardscrabble days in the minor leagues, clawing for respect; to his early days in lonely Montreal, where he first struggled with the reputation of being a headhunter; to his legendary run with the Red Sox when, start after start, he dazzled with his pitching genius; to his twilight years on the mound as he put the finishing touches on a body of work that made him an icon. Bold, outspoken, intimate in its details, and grand in ego and ambition, this memoir by one of baseball's most enigmatic figures will entertain and inspire generations of fans to come." - from the inner front jacket flap. "Later, after I had proven I could get batters out as well as anyone else in the game, I switched to subtler forms of motivation. Skeptics who doubted that my slender body could withstand the rigors of starting, coaches who belittled, berated, or fed off of me like leeches, jealous teammates who wanted to fight me, batters who charged me because they mistook my need to pitch inside for a desire to knock their heads off, a baseball establishment that tried to slow my entry into the rarefied air as one of the elite pitchers of all time. My God, baseball was a noisy, teeming jungle." - from Pedro and the rear outer dust jacket.