Hall of Famer Pedro Martínez was obviously not like most baseball players when on the field.
But before he delivered his first pitch in any game, Martínez, like most of his MLB brethren, had a specific routine that he had to follow.
Wake up at the same time (10:30 or 11 a.m.). Listen to some music. Say a prayer. Eat a light meal. Most of it was not too out of the ordinary.
But before leaving for the stadium to cut down opposing hitters, Martínez also had to take time to cut flowers in his garden.
“Clip my roses before every game,” he said in part two of his appearance on the 6-1-1 podcast with Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard. “I will clip my roses. I will get into that zone where I'll just be by myself. My little scissors -- clip the flowers, clean my roses, clean the leaves.”
From there, Martínez said he wouldn’t talk while on his way to the park. Once he arrived at his locker, he stayed quiet and would just “zoom in” on his plan of attack for that day’s game.
“I'll just get everything ready, prepared, until it was about time to go warm up my body because I did my routine every single time the same way. … The main routine for me was go clip my flowers and then not talk. Just go do.”
Pedro remained silent while spying on the opposing team’s batting practice as well.
“I’ll take a corner in the dugout and watch their entire BP,” Martínez said. “Just watching who was taking hacks, who was hitting the ball far, who had problems with the ball in, who had problems hitting the ball to right field. And then I would go to the videos, find someone that was similar to me facing them.”
“That’s probably a difficult task though, huh?” Rollins quipped to the three-time Cy Young Award winner.
Be sure to listen to the latest 6-1-1 podcast episode to hear Martínez talk about current-day aces Tarik Skubal, Paul Skenes and more.