NEW YORK — Pedro Martinez walked into a packed interview room in the basement of Yankee Stadium and peered out at all the cameras and reporters waiting for him. “They don’t get tired of it, huh?” he said. Back in the Big Apple, where he was first a Red Sox [team stats] villain and then an ace for the Mets, a reflective Martinez threw all his pitches during an anything-but-ordinary news conference before the opener Wednesday night. “I don’t know if you realize this, but because of you guys in some ways, I might be at times the most influential player that ever stepped in Yankee Stadium. I can honestly say that,” Martinez said. The 38-year-old right-hander also said he regrets his fight with Don Zimmer during a bench-clearing brawl between the Boston Red Sox and Yankees in the playoffs six years ago. “It was an ugly scene,” Martinez said, adding this was probably the first time he was discussing it publicly. “Zim charged me and I think he’s going to say something, but his reaction was totally the opposite, (he) was trying to punch my mouth and told me a couple of bad words about my mom. I just had to react and defend myself. “It was something that we have to let go kind of, and forget about it, because it was a disgrace for baseball,” he added. “Even though it wasn’t my fault, I was involved in it, and it’s one of the moments that I don’t like to see. I don’t like to see it because I’m not a violent man.” From that point on, Martinez didn’t appreciate the way New York tabloids portrayed him as a villain or monster every time he returned to Yankee Stadium with the Red Sox. “You guys have used me and abused me,” he said. “I remember quotes in the paper, ’Here comes the man that New York loves to hate.’ Man? None of you have probably ever eaten steak with me or rice and beans with me to understand what the man is about. You might say the player, the competitor, but the man? You guys have abused my name. You guys have said so many things, have written so many things. “There was one time I remember when I was a free agent, there was talk that I might meet with (George) Steinbrenner. One of your colleagues had me in the papers with horns and a tail, red horns and a tail. That’s a sign of the devil. I’m a Christian man. I don’t like those things. I take those things very serious. Those are the kind of things that the fans actually get used to seeing, and actually sometimes influence those people to believe that you are a bad person, that you are like an ogre.”

The most influential player that ever stepped into Yankee Stadium huh? Why don’t you tell us how you really feel Pedro? But hey who am I to argue? Because for my money he’s still the best Boston athlete I’ve ever seen in my life. That includes Brady. That includes Papi. That includes Nomar. That includes everybody in my lifetime that I can remember. There was just nothing else like watching Pedro during that span of time when he ruled the world. Every 5th day was an event. Like you literally thought there was a 50/50 chance you’d see a perfect game or 30 strikeout game or something you’d never seen before. He’s the only pitcher where the first question people would ask you when he was pitching wasn’t what the score was, but whether he’d given up any hits yet. He was that good. Whether it be his one hit 17 strikeout performance in the Bronx, his all star game performance when he was throwing 122mph, the time he came out of the pen at Cleveland in the playoffs and threw 6 no hit innings and sucked the air out of an entire stadium, the time he beat Clemens 2-0 at Yankee Stadium or the Gerald Ice Williams game, it was just one virtuoso performance after another.    Nobody intimated and dominated quite like he did. His career best summed up by the immortal David Segui.

If the Lord were a pitcher, he would pitch like Pedro.”

So like I said if Peety says he’s the most influential player in the history of Yankee Stadium than who am I to doubt him?