Pedro Martínez Enters the Hall of Fame with the Highest Percentage in History for a Latin Baseball Player

Pedro Martínez Enters the Hall of Fame with the Highest Percentage in History for a Latin Baseball Player
Santo Domingo, January 9, 2015

Juan Marichal was the first 32 years ago. Now it is Pedro Martínez’s turn and he has done it through the front door, with the highest percentage in history for a Latin baseball player. The Dominican Republic, the foreign country with the largest presence in the Major Leagues, has managed to place a second representative in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, the highest award that a ball player can receive in professional baseball.

After receiving the favorable vote of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA), on January 6th the Hall of Fame authorities announced their decision. The 2015 induction ceremony is scheduled for Sunday, July 26th, and it will be held at the Clark Sports Center in Cooperstown, New York.

Martínez, who played in the Major Leagues for 18 seasons – between 1992 and 2009 – with the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Montreal Expos, the Boston Red Sox, the New York Mets and the Philadelphia Phillies, won 500 votes out of a total of 549 ballots (91.1 percent), placing second in the 2015 voting.

Along with Martínez, Randy Johnson, John Smoltz and Craig Biggio will also be immortalized. This is the first time since 1955 that more than three players are elected in a single year to the Hall of Fame. The player with the most votes this year was Randy Johnson with 534 (97.3 percent). After Martínez came Smoltz, who received 455 votes (82.9 percent), and Biggio with 454 votes (82.7 percent).

“I want to dedicate it to my family, to the Dominican Republic, to Latin America”, Martínez said during an interview from Boston on the MLB Network. “They should feel that they have one more Latino in the Hall of Fame” he said.

Martínez is the eighth Latin American elected and the fourteenth Hispanic in general to reach the Hall of Fame. Before Martínez came Puerto Ricans Roberto Clemente (1973), Orlando Cepeda (1999) and Roberto Alomar (2011); Marichal (1983); Venezuelan Luis Aparicio (1984); Panamanian Rod Carew (1991), and Cuban Tony Pérez (2000).

Also selected by the Special Committee of the Negro Leagues were Cubans Martin Dihigo (1977), José Méndez (2006) and Cristóbal Torriente (2006), while three commentators received the Ford Frick Award, which honors radio and television men as members of Cooperstown: Argentinian Ely “Buck” Canel (1985); Ecuadorean Jaime Jarrin (1998) and Cuban Rafael “Felo” Ramírez (2001).

Since Ozzie Virgil made his debut with the New York Giants in 1956, the Dominican Republic has placed more than 600 players in the Major Leagues, two of whom, Marichal and Martínez, came to Cooperstown.

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