Someplace more familiar, where there aren’t papaya and higuero trees growing outside, this would be called a mom-and-pop store, the neighborhood 7-Eleven.
Here, it’s known as a “colmado,” and Alejo Jaime Abreu, the man in the T-shirt that has Pedro Martinez’s likeness stamped over the Dominican flag, figures he has been minding the store for the past 13 years.
On the counter, there’s a bag of red beans and containers filled with sweet cloves and cinnamon. There’s rice, of course, a freshly baked pound cake, shelves that contain cough drops and a wall of bottled rum.
Two little boys, both the color of mocha and unencumbered by clothing, stroll in and reach into the huge icebox plastered with the logo of El Presidente beer. In a tropical country where refrigeration is in short supply, El Presidente buys loyalty by offering iceboxes on a generous installment plan, as long as the shopkeepers and bar owners sell that brand only. The older of the boys places a couple of liter bottles on the counter, gives Senor Abreu a fistful of pesos, and heads out to complete his errand.
An elderly woman enters, wearing a baseball cap that reads “Amable con Balaguer.” That’s her way of expressing support for Juan Balaguer, the 93-year-old blind dictator who recently announced he is running again for president, one more absurdity in a poor country that exports some of the best baseball players in the world but has to import just about everything else.
During election season, it’s impossible to go more than a block or two in the capital of Santo Domingo without seeing billboards and banners extolling Hipolito or Danilo, the two leading candidates for president. But what has Abreu offering a toothless grin to his visitors is a survey that has nothing to do with the politicians and everything to do with this island nation’s favorite sons.
So, Senor Abreu, who’s more popular, Sammy Sosa or Pedro Martinez?
“There it is,” he cackles. “There it is. A gancha [fishhook].
“I’m not going to take the gancha. Let somebody else answer that one.”
It should be noted that on this particular “calle de suenos” (street of dreams), Pedro enjoys a home-field advantage over Sammy, who grew up a shoeshine boy in San Pedro de Macoris, the mill town almost an hour east of here. Alejo Jaime Abreu is the brother of Paolino Jaime Abreu, the former semipro pitcher and father of the famous Martinez brothers, who go by their mother’s name, as is the custom in these parts.
His colmado fronts the family compound where Paolino Abreu lives and the brothers Martinez still come for family gatherings. The father’s house, though modest, has been dramatically upgraded from the “arrancho” (tin shack) that the Martinez brothers once called home. And the ballfield where Ramon and Pedro played as children?
“It’s gone,” says Rafael Gonzalez, who is carrying a Red Sox equipment bag upon his return from the team’s academy, where he is training with the other Dominican players signed by the Sox. “There’s a juice factory where the field used to be.”
Gonzalez, who lives just down the street from where the Martinez boys grew up, is a pitcher. At 18, he already is much bigger than his skinnier predecessors.
“I have a good fastball,” says Gonzalez, who will be attending his first spring training in the United States this month. “I throw around 94.”
Down the block, on the wall of the photo-developing shop, a poster commemorates Pedro winning his second Cy Young Award and proclaims him to be the “Orguell Dominicano” (pride of the Dominican). Take that, Gary Cooper. Another poster calls him “the most valioso Dominicano” (most valuable Dominican).
Juan Marichal, the Hall of Fame pitcher who now serves as the country’s minister of sport, dedicated his recent golf tournament to Martinez. The Caribbean Series, which matches the winter league champions of Mexico, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic, also was dedicated to Martinez, with full-page ads in the newspapers trumpeting that honor.
Even in the “salon de belleza” (beauty salon), where Rosamaria Jaime good-naturedly grumbles, “I’m the slave here” as she fusses over the hair of a client, the women are attired in the fashion of the day. They are wearing their Pedro T-shirts.
“Always, his love is here,” says Maria Herrera Jaime, who, like fellow customers Lucita Jaime and Arletti Campusano, are part of the Martinez clan, which might be proliferating faster than Pedro’s strikeout total, judging by all those who claim to be family.
But has Pedro met his love here? “Ay-ay-ay,” Maria says with a laugh when asked if Manoguayabo’s most eligible bachelor has any plans to be married. “There aren’t even any rumors.”
Below the beauty salon, kids are playing baseball in a washed-out gully, the one that doubles as a parking lot for the cockfight arena next door. The tallest of the players is hedging his bets. He is wearing a No. 45 jersey, but when he spots an American with a camera, he pats his heart with two fingers, Sosa’s trademark gesture.
“Pedro is a hero,” says Kelvin de la Cruz, who fixes trucks and tractors in a garage near the colmado. “Here? No, everywhere. The reality is, Sammy has more propaganda in the press; that’s why he may be more popular.”
The night of the Martinez Milagro (miracle)–when Pedro ignored the pain in the back of his right shoulder and held the mighty Cleveland Indians hitless for six innings in the deciding game of the American League Division Series–Alejo Jaime Abreu hauled his small TV set from behind the counter of his colmado and onto the street, where dozens gathered to watch the action.
“There were more than 35 people out in the streets screaming,” the old man says. “The police came, but they took care of the people who were celebrating. The police said, `We’re with you.’ There were people on their motorbikes dragging stuff down the street–beds, sofas.”
As if on cue, Modesto Cruz Delgado shows up a few minutes later on his Yamaha.
“I was the one pulling the sofa,” he says. “When he beat Cleveland, it was heavy, hard and good. I was afraid for him, but I knew he could do it.”
When Pedro and Ramon came back to the Dominican after the playoffs, seven busloads of neighbors were at the airport to greet them. It was to Manoguayabo they returned for a huge party in an open field, where a cocoban played merengue and schoolchildren spelled out Pedro’s name with placards.
“Anywhere you go in this country,” says Juana Bienvenida de Jaime Guzman, “they talk about Pedro Martinez. This is where he was born. We enjoy his triumphs, and we suffer his sorrows.”
Guzman (the father of pitcher Juan Guzman is her cousin) is the community coordinator for the Immaculada Concepcion church, the one built as a gift from Pedro to the neighborhood after he signed his six-year, $75 million contract with the Red Sox.
“He personally made the promise to me in front of my door,” she says. “He said, `If I ever get to the major leagues, I promise I will build a church,’ and he did.
“The best thing about Pedro is the simplicity of his heart, for what he is. A lot of people who have reached his status might not have come back here, but he came back.”
The church is not a cathedral. It is built to scale in the neighborhood. But with its walls painted in bold pastels, lime green and peach, it is an inviting place. Inside, there are 28 wooden benches, 14 on either side of the aisle, and a bouquet of bright yellow flowers adorning the simple altar. The church opened two years ago this month.
“We never had a church here before,” Guzman says. “We used to gather in a school.”
Pedro has been here on several occasions, including the baptism of a child for whom he was named godfather. He doesn’t live in the neighborhood. He lives about 20 minutes away in Santo Domingo, the capital, in a comfortable but hardly flashy condo complex, just behind the $5 million mansion Sosa recently had built for himself, the one with the gold No. 21 on the gates and a replica of the spiral staircase from the Titanic inside.
But while Martinez is not a regular at his church, there are many times when his name is invoked within its walls.
“When he is playing and he feels bad,” Guzman says, “he calls here, to Manoguayabo. Some of his friends, they’ll come here and make prayers for him.”
Sosa, for all the charitable work he has done in his community, including the hurricane relief efforts directed by his foundation, has been criticized publicly this winter for not doing more with his millions. Guzman shakes her head when asked if people expect more from Pedro, too.
“We are very, very grateful for Pedro,” she says. “He doesn’t realize what he’s done for this community.
“He comes from a very poor family, and there are a lot of people who depend on him. He’s just finished building two homes for people who really needed homes. He gives to people who are really needy.
“He’s going to build a school for the community. We already have the grounds. We never had the land, and now we have the land because he personally bought the land, just as he did for the church.”
He is their neighbor, their son or cousin or nephew, their hero and, yes, for some, their salvation.
“Pedro doesn’t like the cameras,” Guzman says. “He doesn’t like that people know what he has done.
“But the best government we’ve ever had here is Pedro Martinez.”
