from the Yankees Magazine

1997

BY MICHAEL KAY

The readers and experts agree: Tino Martinez should be named the first annual Yankees Magazine MVP. Looking back on '97, it is not hard to see why.

The last time a Yankee first baseman was having a great season, it was Donnie Baseball in 1985. Tino Martinez sent out a loud signal in the second game of the 1997 season. With three swings of the bat, the Yankee first baseman pounded out a message that this would be his breakthrough year, this would be the season that he separated himself from the enormous shadow of his predecessor, Donald Arthur Mattingly.

How great was Martinez last season? Well, if you watched the Yankees for the full 162 grind, you realized how rock-solid their first baseman was. And it all began in the season's second game when Martinez belted three home runs in the Kingdome against his former teammates, the Mariners.

From that game on, Martinez was the man. The ball simply jumped off his bat and he ran into very few extended slumps. Unnoticed amidst all the gaudy offensive numbers was the fact that Martinez had turned himself into an excellent first baseman. True, he was not Mattingly around the bag, but who is? But after taking countless ground balls before games Martinez turned himself into a sure-handed fielder who would not shock the world if he ended up winning a Gold Glove down the line.

But again, it's hard to notice the leather when the wood is so damn impressive. After the three homer outburst, Martinez went on to have a dream first half of the season. At the All-Star Break Martinez hit a robust .302 with 28 homers and 78 RBI. Those numbers are easy to gloss over when you type them in or when you read them, but go over them again. .302 average. 28 homers. 78 RBI. Those babies are better than some players put up over a full season.

And Martinez put a pretty punctuation on the first half when he strode into Jacobs Field and won the All-Star Home Run Hitting contest against some of the game's great sluggers. Incredibly, throughout the first half Martinez insisted "I'm not a home run hitter" and even when he got back from Cleveland he repeated the same seemingly tired mantra. But he was telling the truth. He is not a hitter who can go up to the plate and try to hit one out, his homers must come within the confines of his swing. That just goes to show how locked in Martinez was. He was on the ball so well that the homers were coming at a previously unheard of rate. Yes, players get older, stronger and more mature, but the jump from one year to the next should not be so drastic. The 1997 season was simply a clear case of a man being so focused and locked that he was able to launch 44 homers over the course of the season.

It seemed like every week of the 1997 season, Martinez had to defuse the superlatives being hurled his way. He laughed his way through predictions of keeping pace with Roger Maris. If you even brought up winning the league's home run title, Martinez would shoot you a look of incredulity. "I am not a home run hitter," Martinez would plead. "Now Junior (Ken Griffey) is a home run hitter. He can hit home runs whenever he wants. He can go to the plate and look to hit it out and he can do it. I can't do that. If I try to hit one out I usually just pop the ball up and get my swing out of whack."

Martinez would also point out further that, "When I'm swinging the bat well I will hit line drives and they usually don't go out. When Junior swings the bat well, then the ball goes out of the park. There's a big difference. Don't put me in that class of Griffey and McGwire because that's not me. That' s not what I do well."

But Martinez did it well. His season's numbers were .296 with the aforementioned 44 homers and 141 RBI. In most seasons, those prodigious digits would win you the MVP, but Martinez' former teammate, Griffey, had a dream year as well and copped the award. But Martinez has nothing to be ashamed of, appearing on all 28 ballots by American League writers and finishing a strong second in the voting.

But you really have to look inside all the numbers to put Martinez' season into proper perspective. Consider:
* The 141 RBI were the most by a Yankee since Mattingly brought home 145 runs in 1985.
* The 44 homers were the most by a Yankee first baseman since Lou Gehrig hit 49 in 1936.
* Became the first big leaguer to reach 40 ribbies in his first 30 games of the season since Roy Campanella drove home 44 in 1953.
* Became just the fourth Yankee to hit 12 homers in his first 30 games, joining Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra and Babe Ruth.
* His 28 homers at the break made him just the third Yankee to hit 25 or more at the half-way point. Mantle and Roger Maris are the others.
* Martinez incredibly belted 13 homers of three or more runs, tying Babe Ruth for the team record set in 1929 and one shy of the big league mark held by Jimmie Foxx set in 1932 and 1938.

SUPRISE, SUPRISE: Martinez beat out the likes of Ken Griffey Jr. and Mark McGwire at the Home Run Derby during the All-Star break. Have you had enough? Just take another look at the company Martinez now finds himself in. His name is forever etched in the record books with Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle, Maris, Foxx and Campanella. To say Martinez was living large this year is a decided understatement.

Usually "living large" would be accompanied by all the trappings of being on top of the game. You know, jewelry, fancy cars, attitude. Somehow, Martinez did not fall victim to the negative aspects of being a star, particularly being a star in New York.

Martinez may be one of the most humble, soft-spoken stars to ever throw on pinstripes. Apologies to Martinez because he's probably tired of the comparisons, but his quiet, but strong demeanor is a great deal like that of Mattingly.

Martinez is fortunate because of the real estate he occupies, not so much his place in the order but his place, literally, in the locker room. Martinez' cubicle is located all the way in the back of the Yankee clubhouse, the last locker on the right side. Diagonal from Martinez in 1997 were Joe Girardi and Paul O'Neill. Any crowing, strutting or talking glowingly about himself with earn Martinez incredible ribbing at the hands of the two veterans.

But both Girardi and O'Neill were totally blown away by Martinez' production this season. O'Neill, almost weekly, would pull aside a member of the media and whisper, "Tino is incredible. What a year. He's amazing." From O'Neill, that is the utmost in respect.

Yankee manager Joe Torre would shake his head and speak glowingly as Martinez continued to put up heretofore unheard of numbers. Including his 1997 stats, Martinez is only a .276 lifetime hitter. Before the 44 homers, Martinez had only belted 113 in his career so it's clear this was a breakout year.

Lookin' up: Although he isn't spectacular at first base, Martinez has improved significantly on defense. The only trouble Torre had with Martinez was after the Yankees had clinched the wild card for the playoffs. The manager wanted to give all of his regulars some time off to rest up for the playoffs. Torre called his first baseman into the manager's office and slowly began to tell him he wanted to give him some days off. Martinez, quickly realizing where this conversation was going, buried his head in his hands and semi-jokingly moaned, "noooo, I don't want to sit out. C'Mon, noooo."

Torre relented a bit and didn't sit Martinez out for long stretches but he did rest him so he could get guys like Mike Stanley and Cecil Fielder some much-needed at bats. Martinez confided that, "I'm swinging the bat well. I don't want to lose it and I wouldn't mind getting to 150 RBIs."

That's as close to selfish as Martinez will ever get but in reality, he wasn't being very selfish when you consider the Yankees were in the playoffs and couldn't really improve their lot. Martinez simply wanted to continue a dream season that began with the three homers in Seattle.

But the best read on Martinez came after the disappointing five-game division series loss to the Indians. The Yankee first baseman sat slumped in front of his locker, looking exhausted. All the magnificent stats he had compiled during the season suddenly didn't seem so important because the Yankees had not gotten back to the World Series. Martinez quietly said, "Anything less than winning the World Series again was a failure, so this doesn't feel very good."

Only the separation of years from the final loss in Cleveland will give Martinez the proper appreciation of what he has done in 1997. Until then, it will be left to the record books to put into perspective.