Mr. Anti-October No More -- Martinez's Slam Hands Game 1 To Yanks

NEW YORK - During the first two rounds of the playoffs, the unmistakable sound of booing began to be heard when Tino Martinez came to the plate at Yankee Stadium.

A story line was growing, and with it the pressure on Martinez to do in the postseason what he has done so brilliantly and so consistently in the regular season: hit in the clutch.

In the seventh inning of last night's World Series opener, with full dramatic effect, the storyline changed, and so did Martinez's reputation.

The Yankee first baseman crushed a two-out, two-strike grand slam off Mark Langston, breaking a 5-5 tie and lifting New York to a 9-6 victory over the San Diego Padres.

The Yankees not only got past Padre ace Kevin Brown (who took a line shot by Chili Davis off his left shin in the second inning that might have been a factor in his relative ineffectiveness), they survived a two-homer barrage by Greg Vaughn and a two-run shot by 38-year-old wonder Tony Gwynn.

After his decisive slam, the sweet sound Martinez heard next was the sellout crowd of 56,717 serenading him with a raucous chant of "Tino! Tino!" when he went out to his position in the top of the eighth, not stopping until he had acknowledged them with a tip of his cap.

"I was struggling in the ALCS, but no one likes to get booed when you've busted your butt all season to get here," Martinez said.

"I know I haven't been doing much, but that eventually I'd come up in a big spot and get a big hit to help the team win. It's a big relief."

Said Manager Joe Torre: "You know, even with Tino struggling, we still got into the World Series, so we felt we had something in the bank coming from Tino."

Martinez's homer - which came one pitch after the Padres thought they had him struck out - capped a seven-run Yankee inning and followed closely the vindication of another maligned Yankee from the playoffs, Chuck Knoblauch.

Knoblauch, roundly booed for his blunder in Game 2 of the American League Championship Series - when he argued with the umpire rather than chase an errant throw - had tied the game earlier in the inning with a three-run homer off Donne Wall, who had just relieved Brown.

"If you play baseball, it's going to be a roller coaster," Knoblauch said. "I tried to put that ALCS play to bed when I stepped out on the field in Cleveland for Game 3. There was nothing I could do to change it."

Said Torre: "If you try in this game to make up for every time you struck out with the bases loaded, every time you made an error, that pressure would pile up so much you wouldn't be able to walk. Regarding Chuck's play, we got to the World Series, so the redemption is there. There's nothing they can blame on him other than having a little bit of a blackout."

It was a game of revolving momentum and steep emotional surges. After rookie Ricky Ledee put the Yankees ahead 2-0 with a bases-loaded double in the second, the Padres tied it on Vaughn's two-run homer in the third.

The Padres then moved ahead 5-2 in the fifth on back-to-back homers by Gwynn and Vaughn, the former a two-run shot, off Yankee starter David Wells, who nevertheless won his fourth postseason game this year without a defeat.

"Boomer has spoiled all of us with the way he's pitched," Torre said. "He missed his spots tonight. His stuff was good, his location not so good."

After Derek Jeter followed Knoblauch's homer with a single, Langston replaced Wall and got a quick second out. But after a wild pitch, he walked Bernie Williams intentionally, then Davis unintentionally, to bring up Martinez, who had hit only .105 (2 for 19) in the ALCS and had but one postseason RBI in his Yankee career.

"What's been going on with Tino in the first and second round wasn't too pretty," Wells said. "Hopefully, this will wake him up. When he was in a slump, everyone wrote him off, but now he showed everyone - and himself - what he could do."

The Padres felt he should never have gotten that chance, however. On a 2-2 pitch, Martinez took a fastball down the middle that Langston and the Padres thought was strike three, but plate umpire Richie Garcia thought it was low and called ball three.

"Carlos (Hernandez, the San Diego catcher) thought it was there, and Mark thought it was there," San Diego Manager Bruce Bochy said. "But the umpire is the only one that matters, and he didn't think so."

On the next pitch, Martinez delivered the 17th grand slam in World Series history, the first since Atlanta's Lonnie Smith in Game 5 in 1992 against Toronto. The last Yankee slam was hit by Joe Pepitone against the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 6 in 1964.

"Tino and I have been trying to pump each other up, to be honest," Knoblauch said. "I was probably more excited about his home run than mine. I was sitting on the bench saying, `Come on, Tino, let's go!' "

"I felt exactly the same way," Martinez said. "We've been struggling together, and when he hit his homer I ran out there and told him, `This is it!' "

And the Yankees hope "it" continues for three more victories.