A Perfect Patriot : Expos’ Martinez Translates July’s Glory Against Dodgers Into Help for Nicaragua

The dilapidated Juan de Dios Hospital stands neglected next to the bus station in Granada, Nicaragua. From there, it is a short walk--2 1/2 blocks toward the lake and a block down from the central market--to the house where Jose Denis Martinez grew up.

The neighborhood looks different now--poorer, decayed. A decade of war can do that to a place.

But the people, especially the children, are the same--stoic, hopeful, resolute. They are Martinez’s people.

“There’s something about the children--the way they look at you,” Martinez says. “I mean here, kids look up to you and they admire you. But there, it’s like you’re from another planet.”

Martinez might as well be. His modest home in Miami is palatial by Nicaraguan standards. And during the summer, when he is playing for the Montreal Expos, he makes $3 million to pitch in a state-of-the-art stadium with plastic grass and a retractable roof. Such an existence is hard to imagine in a country where potable water is often rationed and telephones are a sign of wealth.

Radios, however, are everywhere. And on the last Sunday of last July, Nicaragua listened as an announcer in a Managua studio broadcast a delayed re-creation of Martinez’s perfect game against the Dodgers. The announcer was still bluffing his way through the seventh inning when he finally broke off the ruse to say that, at that moment in Los Angeles, Martinez had retired the Dodgers’ Chris Gywnn for the final out.

Suddenly, the First World and Third World were as one. On the mound at Dodger Stadium, Martinez was mobbed by his teammates. Mobs also formed on the streets of Granada and Managua, where car horns honked, firecrackers exploded and a long, loud night of celebrating began.

Months later, the noise has yet to fade. The phone at the Martinez house rings persistently with callers offering ways to capitalize on the perfect game. But to Martinez, that game was never his to exploit. It was a gift, he says, one he readily presented to those he calls “my people in Nicaragua.”

“I think there was a purpose to that game,” he says. “It gave (Nicaraguans) something to cheer, something to celebrate. And there’s been so much suffering there for so long.”

Nicaragua is never far from Martinez’s thoughts these days. His mother, Emilia, and a brother, Carlos, still live in Granada’s Barrio Nuevo, 2 1/2 blocks from the hospital. Martinez wants to do something for their neighbors, but he is not sure where to start. Unemployment stands at 50% in Nicaragua and, thanks to rampant inflation, the cost of living is among the highest in Latin America. Moreover, as the violent riots in early November showed, political passions continue to threaten Nicaragua’s uneasy peace.

“This time, more than any time, the people need me to help them get back on track physically, mentally, spiritually,” Martinez said. “I’m responsible to the Nicaraguan people. It’s impossible to fill every heart, but I do what I can.”

Last month, Martinez returned to Nicaragua, where he threw out the first ball to open Nicaragua’s winter baseball season. He hopes to return again at Christmas, looking for hearts that he can fill. He has been back before, of course, making what were billed as goodwill trips after the 1987 and 1990 seasons. But those visits were nothing compared to his triumphant return in August, three weeks after the perfect game.

News of his three-day visit dominated Nicaragua’s three daily newspapers, even though the ill-fated Soviet coup was unfolding at the same time. Special newspaper sections were published, featuring everything from photos of his Miami home to interviews with members of his family.

There was a special proclamation declaring July 28, the date of the perfect game, a national holiday in Nicaragua and, as seems to be the custom everywhere, politicians fought to have their pictures taken with the celebrity of the hour.

There were photos of Martinez having lunch with President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro and of him accepting a special commendation from the national assembly. There were pictures of Martinez reaching through cell bars to greet prisoners at the national penitentiary and of him shaking hands with Gen. Humberto Ortega, who presented him with the Order of Camilo Ortega, one of the Nicaraguan army’s highest honors.

Not that Martinez is a stranger to fame in Nicaragua. During the major league season, each of Martinez’s starts is covered with a preview story, a game story and then a follow-up, making his pitching the top sports story in all three papers at least three days a week.

And that was before the perfect game.

But Martinez, 36, welcomes the spotlight because it gives him a chance to reflect it on a subject he says seldom draws enough attention: the plight of Nicaragua’s children. Opinionated and outspoken, Martinez rarely gives an interview without bringing them up. Even in Nicaragua, where the locals have been excited by rumors that the Dodgers and Giants might build facilities there, Martinez warned of the consequences for the children.

“In principle, it’s good because it takes the children off the streets and teaches them baseball,” he told Gerardo Lopez of the Managua daily La Prensa. “But then on the other hand, these organizations only import exploitation. They don’t care if the children get an education . . . only if they can play baseball.

“I don’t want what has happened in the Dominican Republic to take place here. . . . What has happened with the Dominicans who never made it to the major leagues? They wind up as thieves, drug addicts and alcoholics because they don’t have any other way to defend themselves.”

The subject of alcohol abuse is especially close to Martinez’s heart. The son of a heavy drinker, he almost lost his career to alcoholism. But after a night in jail and several weeks at an alcohol-rehabilitation center, he has gone nearly eight years without a drink.

His pitching has improved with his sobriety--and his move to the National League. In the middle of his 10th season with Baltimore, Martinez developed shoulder problems and the Orioles traded him to Montreal in June of 1986. In his first three seasons with the Expos, he was 42-24 with a 3.02 earned-run average.

“Now that I’m sober, I’m an 80, 85, 90% better pitcher than I used to be,” he says.

Last season, his 16th in the major leagues, might have been his best. He led the league in shutouts with five and in ERA at 2.39, made an All-Star team for the second time and, despite having lost five of his final eight decisions, still finished the season 14-11.

“One of my goals was to win more games than I ever had,” said Martinez, who has won 16 in a season three times. “Last year, I think I pitched well enough to win 17 games. That’s what the numbers showed.”

Still, the perfect game--only the 15th in major league history and the first by a Latino--overshadows all that.

Martinez remembers the day of that game as being full of omens. When he went out to pitch the first inning, for example, Martinez complained to umpire crew chief Bruce Froemming that the mound was wet.

“Bruce said it would dry out later--that in a few innings, it would be fine,” Martinez said. “I told him I didn’t know if I’d be around that long. I don’t why I said that. I’m never like that. I guess I was trying to get him to laugh.”

The day before, Martinez contemplated doing something else completely out of character: skipping Sunday morning Mass.

“Since my recovery (from alcoholism), I have to be able to keep in control and Sundays, before I do anything, I have to go to church,” Martinez said.

But on this particular Sunday, the Expo team bus was scheduled to leave for the stadium before Mass would end. Martinez phoned his wife, Luz Marina, seeking advice.

“My wife told me, ‘God knows that if you miss one day it’s not because you want to miss. It’s because of your job.’ ”

But that didn’t completely satisfy Martinez. It sounded too much like the kind of excuse an alcoholic might use to justify another round.

“I thought about that a lot at the game the night before,” Martinez said. “I decided at the game that I would go.”

The next morning, as Martinez left the 10 a.m. Mass, the first thing he saw was a cab. Ten minutes later, he was in the visitors’ clubhouse at Dodger Stadium.

“I think God gave me that game,” he said. “That’s the first thing I told (my wife). ‘See how God works in your life.’ God has to be first in my life for me to survive.”

The people of Nicaragua can be content in knowing they are a very close second.