Pedro Martinez, Fenway Park, Boston MA
For the past several years I have traveled to all of the Major League Baseball parks and many of the minor league ones. In the process I have amassed about 20,000 images of players, parks, fans and many other things relating to The National Pastime. I have met hundreds of wonderful people and made some lifelong friends in the process. From getting to chat with Ernie Harwell to meeting a woman in Texas, who as a young child had met the great Ty Cobb, I experienced a sense of what baseball has meant and continues to mean to America and its citizens. I also had the chance to eat a lot of hot dogs.Travel by train, plane, buses, cabs and just plain walking showed me that not only is the game of baseball alive and well it is thriving in the hearts and souls of our children. Watching the joy in kids faces as they were given smiles and autographs from men such as Mark McGwire and Tim Naehring brought back those hours I spent in the same pursuits. If heroes and heroines still exist in America, they begin their journeys with these acts of kindness.
Nowhere are the values represented by baseball at its finest are on better display that at McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, RI, home of the AAA Pawtucket Red Sox. A beautiful, well maintained park, safe, inexpensive and rooted in old traditions is my favorite of them all. No dancing garbage cans or hot tubs are needed to present the game at its best. A preview of a book in the process of being published and a permanent exhibit currently on display at the Sports Museum of New England, with the title "The Real McCoy" can be seen here.
I photograph for BOSTON BASEBALL! Magazine, the Pawtucket Red Sox and numerous free lance assignments. My work is also featured in "Mudville Diaries", has been exhibited at Harvard University and The Sports Museum of New England, as well as having been shown in many other galleries. A portfolio of 12 photographs is featured in the current edition of "NINE..A journal of Baseball History and Culture." My photos also appear in Howard Bryant's book, "Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston." I consider my interactions at McCoy to be the finest of my baseball photography career. Obsession, addiction or just an All American boy that can't grow up... You be the judge...and nine of you can be the jury..
I dedicate my journeys to the memory of my parents. Without their kindness, my travels would have not been possible. I have never entered a ballpark, any ballpark, without climbing to the uppermost seat behind home plate to say a prayer in loving memory.
See you around the horn.....