Before Boston: Pedro Martínez’s 1997 Montreal Expos Contract, Signed for the Season He Became a Superstar

Pedro Martínez had already shown flashes of brilliance in Montreal, but 1997 was the year he took over the sport. He went 17-8 with a major-league-best 1.90 ERA and 13 complete games, striking out 305 batters, and he became the first right-handed pitcher since Walter Johnson in 1912 to strike out 300 hitters with an ERA under 2.00. He won the National League Cy Young Award, and he did it with a team that gave him little help. The Expos finished 78-84, 23 games behind Atlanta. This original contract, signed by Martínez for that 1997 season, is the paperwork behind one of the great pitching years of the modern era.

It also marks the end of his Montreal chapter. With Martínez set to become a free agent after 1998, the Expos decided to look to the future and traded him to Boston, sending him to the Red Sox on November 18, 1997 for Carl Pavano and Tony Armas Jr. Boston signed him to a six-year, $75 million deal, and he made it look like a bargain. He won back-to-back Cy Young Awards in 1999 and 2000 and helped Boston win the World Series in 2004, and he went into the Hall of Fame in 2015. For collectors, this contract is one of the last pieces from the Expos years, signed in the season that proved he was a true ace, just before the trade that sent him to Boston and into history.