Life at Baseball’s Border : Fili Martinez Pitched in Pain for 4 Years in Mexican League

Fili Martinez stared into his cornflakes and shook his head sadly. Seven years after signing his first professional baseball contract and here he was, sitting in a hotel coffee shop in the middle of Mexico, farther from pitching in the major leagues than he has been at any time since his junior season at Cal State Northridge.

“The reason I’m down here is because still, to this moment, I think I’m good enough to get hitters at a higher level out,” he says, pounding the table for emphasis. “When I don’t feel I’m good enough, when I know I’m just overmatched, is when I’ll quit.”

That may not happen any time soon because self-confidence--and a big-league changeup--are far and away the most effective weapons in Martinez’s repertoire. And he’s had to call on both to survive a career that’s taken more ups and downs than a knuckleball.

On the plus side, Martinez is left-handed, has been named an all-star in two countries and once led the California Angels’ organization in strikeouts. On the minus side, he’s 29, has been let go by two major league organizations and has had numerous surgeries on his pitching arm.

Pain still accompanies every pitch he throws, reminding him, perhaps, that it’s time to look for a new line of work. And though he can’t ignore the pain, Martinez does his best to dismiss its message--which is how he wound up staring into a bowl of breakfast cereal in a hotel that rents rooms for the cost of dinner for two at McDonald’s.

For the past four summers, the Mexican League has been Martinez’s best--if not only--option other than retirement. And though the accommodations are often poor and the travel is always daunting, the competition is one step below the major leagues, which keeps players such as Martinez coming back.

“I want to be able to look in the mirror and say, ‘You know what? I gave it my best shot. And I was not able to reach the level I wanted to reach because I’m just not good enough,’ ” he says. “That’s what I want to be able to say. I just wasn’t good enough.”

By Mexican standards, Martinez has been more than good enough. In 1993, his first season in the league, he won nine of his first 10 decisions for the Mexico City Reds.

That earned him a late-season tryout with the Dodgers, who sent him to their triple-A club in Albuquerque. But he lost twice while pitching eight innings out of the bullpen there and hasn’t played for a major league organization since.

Instead, he’s spent most of the past three summers pitching for Saltillo of the Mexican League, winning 18 of 32 decisions. But his progress was slowed by tendinitis in his left shoulder that required surgery again last February.

“I started pro ball hurting and I’ve never really played a full season where I was not having shoulder problems,” he said. “If I had a torn rotator cuff, I might have just hung it up a long time ago. But it’s just a nagging old injury. Every time, at a certain point in my delivery, it feels like a [sharp] poker. That keeps you from really extending and getting the most out of your pitches.”

Martinez can’t be sure what caused his arm problems, though they probably started in college at Northridge, where he enrolled after winning All-City Section honors in football and baseball at Franklin High.

He turned down suitors from other schools to walk on at Northridge, but the gesture was not rewarded by Matador Coach Terry Craven. Martinez appeared in only six games and pitched fewer than 20 innings in his first two college seasons.

“In retrospect, I should have gone to a JC,” Martinez says. “It was stupid. I wasted two years.”

But as a junior, he quickly made up for lost time, pitching nearly 100 innings and winning all-conference honors in Craven’s final season.

Bill Kernen, the pitching coach at Cal State Fullerton, took over the Northridge program that summer and Martinez became the workhorse of his staff, averaging better than eight innings a start.

So after pitching just 19 2/3 innings in his first two years in college, Martinez pitched more than 10 times that many--217 2/3--in his last two years, not counting the work he did during Northridge’s extensive fall practice schedule.

In just 18 months, he’d gone from being underused to overworked. And weeks after Martinez finished his senior season, the Angels selected him in the ninth round of the 1989 amateur draft and sent him--tired arm and all--to their rookie league team in Bend, Ore. Not surprisingly, his shoulder problems started soon after.

“I had a little twinge in the shoulder,” he says. “I didn’t know what it was at the time. . . . I had never had a problem before.

“Now I’ve grown to realize that it was tendinitis and just a nagging irritation that stayed with me.”

The Angels promoted Martinez to the Class A Midwest League in 1990 and, despite the pain, he had an all-star season and led the league in strikeouts. But instead of resting over the winter, he pitched in the Arizona Instructional League and the pain worsened.

He struggled the next season in double A, losing as many games as he won. By now the Angels knew something was wrong, so in the spring of ’92 they released him.

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Although both of his parents are Mexican, Martinez is a Glendale native whose personal experience with Mexico was limited to quick visits to border towns as a youngster. Playing deep in the heart of the country helped him develop a new appreciation for his parents’ homeland and the culture they left behind.

In fact, as far as the Mexican League is concerned, he already has qualified for Mexican citizenship. Because teams are limited to five foreign-born players, Martinez was given a Mexican birthplace before his rookie season and told to play along.

“Let’s just say that on my birth certificate it says I was born in Durango and we’ll leave it at that,” he says with a laugh.

Martinez is bright and well-spoken, with a quick wit and a ready smile. Those traits have served him well in the Mexican League, where buses and paychecks are often late and game times change as quickly as the weather. But on this morning, Martinez is in an even better mood than usual because the night before he picked up the first victory of his latest comeback.

He didn’t have to work hard for it, retiring only one batter then watching his teammates score four times in the ninth for a 5-4 victory. He pitched the next two nights, in Oaxaca and Minatitlan, facing one batter each time but failing to get a decision.

Although Martinez has been a starting pitcher most of his career, Saltillo Manager Miguel Solis--one of only seven pitchers to win more than 200 games in Mexican League history--was bringing him back from the February surgery slowly, limiting him to short stints out of the bullpen to build up his arm.

Ironically, that strategy contributed to Martinez’s decision to leave the team in a contract dispute with less than a month left in the season.

Club officials said they hadn’t expected Martinez, who missed the first two months of the 4 1/2-month season, to play much this year and made financial commitments to other players in his absence. But Martinez refused to accept the salary--Mexican Leaguers routinely make about $3,000 a month--they offered and returned to his Highland Park home, in the shadow of Dodger Stadium, to sort out his career options.

“My phone’s not ringing off the hook and nobody’s pounding on my door,” he says. “But I’ve been told there’s a need for left-handed pitching. Even though I’ve pitched with injuries, I’ve had success everywhere I’ve gone. And that’s what’s keeping me going.”

Eventually the phone did ring, and Martinez accepted an offer from Palm Springs of the independent Western League, where he’s gone 1-1 with a 3.52 ERA in 7.2 innings. The level of play is about equal to Class A--well below the Mexican League--but playing in Palm Springs has allowed Martinez to spend more time at home than in any summer since he was married in 1992. Which makes Regina, his wife and former high school sweetheart, happy.

“We’ve had a seasonal relationship,” says Regina, a Spanish teacher at Poly High in Sun Valley. “It’s a personal choice and I’ve told him it’s his decision. But I’m ready to have him around the house full time.”

So are Fili’s kids, 3-year-old Sarah and 9-month-old Noeh. And they may get their wish sooner rather than later. Although Martinez won’t admit it, this summer may have been a make-or-break season for him. He turns 30 in January and, even with expansion, few teams are likely to take a chance on a sore-armed pitcher with no major league experience.

“I have to do exceptionally well or someone has to like me,” he says. “I’m not where I want to be right now. In terms of health for my arm, I have a long way to go.”

Still, he was getting his fastball up to 84 mph on a regular basis in Mexico, just five ticks below what he hit in his prime. It’s small victories such as those that keep him chasing his major league dream despite the long odds.

“I’d like to get a shot at it,” he says. “I’m not asking anyone to give me a contract and say, ‘You know what? You’re on our team.’ I just want an invitation to spring training. . . . And I think once I get in, I’ll be able to take care of the rest.”