Pedro open to considering PED users for Hall of Fame

FORT MYERS, Fla. – When Pedro Martinez is officially inducted into the Hall of Fame in July, he will be standing on the stage in Cooperstown with Randy Johnson, John Smoltz, and Craig Biggio.

Together, pitchers Martinez, Johnson, and Smoltz account for 735 career regular-season wins and 159 saves, with 28 postseason wins and four saves. Safe to say, there will be plenty of pitching talent going into the Hall of Fame that Sunday afternoon.

“That’s a great honor,” Martinez said of being inducted with Johnson and Smoltz. “I don’t think you could ever pick a better group to go in with. I’m blessed and honored and humbled to go in with those guys. I competed against them, I know what they’re made of, I know who they are, as family members, as human beings. And I’m extremely, extremely blessed to have the opportunity to go in with them.”

But there are other players from his era over whom hangs the dark cloud of PEDs, short for performance-enhancing drugs. Should those guys get into the Hall of Fame?

“If you look at [Barry Bonds’] career and you look at Roger Clemens’ career, they should [get in] because they had [the numbers] before,” Martinez said. “It wasn’t like after they did what they did, that they had all those numbers. No. Roger Clemens was like a four-time Cy Young Award winner already, or three times [before the alleged PED use]. So, as much as I was. He had probably the same amount of wins, or probably more, as I did.

“Barry Bonds, you look at his career, he probably easily could have retired that same year he started using and he would have been a Hall of Famer. Just like Albert Pujols. He retires today, he’s a Hall of Famer.”

Martinez was not invoking Pujols’ name to cast suspicion. The former Red Sox ace was using Pujols as an example of players he believes have already posted sufficient numbers to earn Hall of Fame election.

“You’re looking at some of the guys,” Martinez said, “Miguel Cabrera? If he retired right now, he’s a Hall of Famer. In the middle of their prime, they retire and they have such big numbers, they can be Hall of Famers. I feel the same way with Roger and Barry Bonds.”

Asked for a recommendation on how the voters – members of the Baseball Writers Association of America – should handle those suspected of PED use, Martinez replied:

“I can’t tell you what to do. But I know that you guys have to sit down, yes, punish, yes. I don’t condone anything illegal. But at the same time, I would like to consider whoever needs to be considered. I’m not saying everybody deserves the chance that Roger and Barry Bonds probably get. I’m saying – if I’m not mistaken – if they weren’t Hall of Famers, they were really damn close.”

Martinez, despite his small stature one of the most dominant pitchers of his era – most of it during the height of suspected PED use by players -- retired following the 2009 season after 18 years in the Major Leagues, a record of 219-100, a 2.93 ERA, and three Cy Young awards. What would his numbers have been like if had not been facing batters who were artificially enhanced?

“I have no idea,” he said. “But I wouldn’t want it any other way. Because right now, whatever I did it seems even bigger. What I did with this body frame and everything you see, now it makes me feel even better. So I’m extremely satisfied with the fact that I played in that era, competed the way I did, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

Maureen Mullen can be reached at mmullen@itemlive.com. Follow her on Twitter at @MaureenAMullen.