If you’re a Boston sports fan, you certainly recall the famed “Curse of the Bambino” which loomed over the Boston Red Sox baseball team for nearly a century. In 2004, the team finally reversed the long-held curse by besting the New York Yankees in a stunning seven-game upset before taking home the World Championship against the St. Louis Cardinals. As a pitcher for the Sox at that time, Pedro Martínez was integral to the success of the organization, and has since gone down in history as a Boston sports legend. Martínez is so impressive, in fact, that the superstar athlete has been chosen as one of several subjects for the new Netflix docu-series The Comeback: 2004 Boston Red Sox.
Since Martínez is fresh on everyone’s mind, now seems like as good a time as any to take a look at his whopping net worth, which clocks in at over $70 million according to Celebrity Net Worth, and see what we can learn from his diverse portfolio. Through means such as his MLB salary, endorsement and brand deals plus various real estate holdings, Martínez has exemplified what it means to build generational wealth.
Pedro Martínez’s Early Life And Career Beginnings
Long before Pedro Martínez was stacking up All-Star accolades on the pitching mound, he was born to a humble family in the suburbs of the Dominican Republic. As one of six children, Pedro developed an early liking to baseball before beginning work as a mechanic when he was quite young in order to supplement his parents’ income. When he first began playing the sport, Martínez was too poor to purchase genuine baseballs, and instead chose to practice with oranges. His family knew that he would soon become a force to be reckoned with when Pedro was 14 years of age, after a trip to the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball camp in Santo Domingo revealed his pitch speed to be nearly 80 miles per hour.
Soon after he began taking the game seriously, Martínez made his professional debut with the Dominican Winter League, pitching for the Tigres del Licey. After playing a single season in his home country, the father of four immigrated to the United States and joined the MLB as a free agent. By 1992, the rising star had signed his first contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers, where he played alongside his older brother Ramón, who taught Pedro how to pitch in their youth. Pedro Martínez’s initial salary with the Dodgers clocked in at just under $120,000 for the season.
Time With The Red Sox
After playing a successful season with the Dodgers, Martínez was traded to the Montreal Expos, where he quickly refined himself into one of the top pitchers in the league. Though his tenure with the Canadian team was quite impressive, spanning 4 seasons and a number of record-shattering field performances, Martínez didn’t truly become a household name until he began his historic seven-season run with the Boston Red Sox. This began with his 1997 free agency declaration, which saw him signing the largest pitcher salary contract in MLB history, worth a whopping $75 million.
Once he joined the Sox, the Dominican athlete saw immediate success, and rapidly became a frontrunner for Most Valuable Player. In fact, there was a significant controversy in 1999 when two sportswriters omitted Martínez’s name from their MVP ballots, as it was near-unanimously agreed upon that the pitcher would receive the honor, even after he had taken home two consecutive Cy Young Awards.
Pedro Martínez’s accolades continued to stack as he entered into the 2000 season, which many analysts consider to be the strongest performance year of his career. During that time, Pedro recorded 10 consecutive starts with 10+ strikeouts, set the league record for most consecutive innings pitched, and pitched seven consecutive shutout innings, giving the New York Yankees their only postseason loss of the year. Martínez also managed to strike out 32 players between two games in May 2000, tying Luis Tiant for most strikeouts ever recorded in such a span. Though Pedro Martínez suffered an injury during 2001, he bounced back quick with an excellent 2002 season, which saw him receiving AL Strikeout Leader honors for the third time in his MLB career.
Reversing The Curse And World Series Championship
Ahead of the 2004 season, Pedro Martínez was given an option to extend his hefty $75 million contract for one more year at $17 million. After accepting these terms, he quickly proved himself invaluable, as 2004 would finally mark the end of the nearly century-old “Curse of the Bambino.” The curse, which plagued the city of Boston since 1918, began when the Red Sox mishandled their contract with Babe Ruth, and ultimately traded him to the Yankees. Once Ruth found his new home, he quickly improved his record, finding greater success as a home run hitter than he ever had as a pitcher. Thus began a decades-long drought of World Series wins for the Red Sox, as well as a deep-seated rivalry between the team and the New York Yankees.
Martínez and company finally reversed the curse after besting the Yankees in a nail-biting series of playoff games, culminating in a narrow 4-3 success. This made the Sox the only MLB team in the league’s history to take home a postseason championship after losing the first 3 games. With the Yankees out of the league, Pedro and his team took on the St. Louis Cardinals for the title of league champions, and handily took home the glory with a four-game sweep. This win would go down as one of the sports analyst’s greatest career highlights, and serves as the basis for Netflix’s The Comeback series.
Salary, Endorsements And Other Investments
After becoming a free agent following his World Series championship win, Pedro Martínez went on to sign a $53 million contract with the Mets. By the time he officially retired in December 2011, Martínez had netted over $146 million in career salary with the league, making him one of the highest-paid pitchers to ever set foot on the field. While this massive salary obviously makes up the bulk of Martínez’s $70 million net worth, the 8-time All Star player also made tens of millions in brand and endorsement deals. In retirement, Martínez’s legacy remained tied to the Red Sox, as he returned to serve as a special assistant to the general manager in 2013.
That same year, the 52-year-old was hired to serve as an on-air sports analyst for MLB on TBS, a role which came with a 7-figure salary. In 2015, the Red Sox legend was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, in his first year of eligibility. His plaque depicts him wearing a Red Sox cap, and the team officially retired his number just days after his induction ceremony. While not much is known about Martínez’s investment portfolio beyond that, it’s clear that the hall of famer has been prudently investing his wealth over the years. Now that he’s settled down to raise his children, several of whom have pro-ball dreams of their own, it’s obvious that Pedro Martínez has found a way to make his generational wealth work for him.
