a premature final tribute to the president

that would be el presidente, of course.dennis martinez was released by the mariners in may of 1997, at which time he announced his retirement. he was 1-5 in 9 games with the mariners, posting an era of 7.71 and a whip of 1.92! he retired with 241 wins, just 2 wins behind juan marichal who was the winningest latin pitcher of all time.

in 1998, upper deck released this card with their final tribute shield to celebrate the complete career of el presidente. unfortunately for upper deck and marichal, dennis returned to the majors in 1998 with the braves, winning 4 games before retiring for good. i seem to recall that marichal was a wee bit pissed at the time.

dodger fans will always remember martinez for his perfect game pitched against the dodgers on july 28, 1991. what killed me about that game was that mike morgan pitched well, too. both expo runs were unearned, granted by two alfredo griffin errors in the 7th inning.

it was also the culmination of perhaps the most offensively anemic series the expos have ever endured. two nights earlier, martinez's teammate mark gardner no-hit the dodgers for 9 innings only to lose in the tenth because the expos couldn't score off of hershiser or kevin gross, and the day before, they were shut out 7-0 by bobby ojeda for a series total of 2 unearned runs scored. at least they made them count.