ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The boyhood dream was so vivid that Michael Martinez can still remember it in rich detail: how he stood at the left side of the plate and delivered the winning hit in the seventh game of the World Series for the Cleveland Indians.
Martinez had a chance to live it out last November, when he walked to the plate with two outs, a runner at first and his team – those same Indians – trailing by a run in the bottom of the 10th inning of Game 7 of the World Series.