One man is the picture of human buoyancy. His face is unlined and untroubled, his eyes expressive and welcoming. He sees his life as a gift, a fairy tale, something dreamed up for effect. He has to work for his greatness, sure, but the work is simply a way to ensure the gift gets the proper audience. Still, he laughs and goofs and cracks up his teammates, making jokes that often are at his own expense. On the days he isn't pitching, he might do what he did in Toronto a while back: tape a string around a baseball and toss it repeatedly onto the roof of the dugout, pulling it back just before the fans, eager to be in on the joke, can grab it. There's no deep meaning attached, but the fans' frustration serves as the perfect metaphor: That's precisely the way opposing hitters must feel when they stand at the plate, working themselves into a hopeless fervor as they attempt to play along with Pedro Martinez.

This other man, well, he's a different story altogether. This other man is gravity. His face is stern and angled, its narrowness punctuated by crevasses of intensity -- the crags of baseball's Olympus. In the deep-set eyes you see the burden of responsibility and commitment, the cumulative weight of every game he has ever pitched, every pitch he has ever thrown. On the mound, the face becomes a gallery of contortions, each one issuing the same message: No one gets out alive. In a game in early May, San Diego's Sterling Hitchcock hit him with a pitch. He got so mad, half the team had to come out to restrain him. In the process, he tossed aside his manager, nearly knocking him to the dirt. The next day the manager asked, "Do you remember a word I said out there?" Randy Johnson had to tell Buck Showalter that he didn't even remember Showalter being out there, much less the words he used.

The two best pitchers in baseball this season come at the world from vastly different angles. Martinez signed with the Dodgers as a 16-year-old from the Dominican Republic; Johnson, from Northern California, spent three years at USC. Martinez stands 5'11" in spikes and weighs 170; at 6'10", the 230-pound Johnson is the tallest player in baseball history. Martinez is 28, Johnson 36. Martinez's delivery is fluid; Johnson's seems like the human version of an especially vexing geometry proof. Martinez is a turbo-charged Greg Maddux; Johnson is an emotional fireballer who ascended to prominence when he mastered the cerebral aspects of pitching. These two were brought together by the same randomness of coincidental greatness that brought us Mac and Sammy.

They took different paths to the same destination -- the top. They do not merely pitch; they tyrannize and traumatize. They have turned pitching into an offensive display. New Englanders plan their days around Martinez's starts, and the fans at Bank One Ballpark in Phoenix begin cheering for Johnson before he throws a warmup pitch. Every fifth day, pitching -- not savage offensive displays and the vertiginous circling of bases -- commandeers the stage.

"People should understand what they're watching when they see what he can do with that little white rabbit," Boston manager Jimy Williams says. "I just hope people appreciate it for what it is."

Williams is speaking of Martinez, but the sentiment holds for Johnson, as well. The Big Unit had the best April in history for a pitcher: 6–0 with 64 strikeouts and a 0.91 ERA in six starts. And Martinez, through his first 10 starts, was 8–2 with a 1.05 ERA and 104 strikeouts. It doesn't seem conceivable that Martinez could match his 1999 season of 23–4, 2.07, 313 K's, but he's actually raising the possibility of exceeding it. The American League, home of the small strike zone, the DH and the broken-bat homer, was hitting .163 against him through May 28, and Martinez had compiled one of the more phenomenal pitching streaks in history, allowing one run or fewer in 16 of 23 starts. (If it's ridiculous you want, try this: After last weekend's series against Boston in the Bronx, the Yankees were hitting .201 in seven starts against Pedro.)

There are no righty-righty, lefty-lefty percentage moves when these two pitch, no summoning one of the subspecies of reliever to face a particular hitter before giving way to another subspecies. Johnson -- whose eyes tell you why managers always give him full opportunity to finish what he starts -- averaged more than eight innings over his first 10 starts this year, including five complete games. Martinez had three complete games in his first 10, averaging about 7 2/3 innings per start. Their strikeout-to-walk ratios -- roughly 7:1 for both Martinez and Johnson -- are an indication of what happens when mere control evolves into total command.

"The third time they come to the plate, guys are beaten before they reach the box," says Red Sox catcher Scott Hatteberg. "Against most pitchers, you get more comfortable as the game wears on. Not with Pedro. You can see it in their eyes, in the way they walk to the plate. You can see the helplessness. Nobody goes up there real relaxed, that's for sure."

One of the perks of the job for Martinez's catchers -- Jason Varitek and Hatteberg -- is watching the expressions of reserves inserted into the lineup for regulars who get the day off when Pedro pitches. "They walk to the plate with this look on their faces," Hatteberg says. "Some of them look at me and say, 'Nice draw, huh?' Usually, those guys have long days."

Mets pitcher Pat Mahomes came to the plate against Johnson last season and, on the first pitch, broke his bat on a weak foul. He took a look at the bat, shrugged his shoulders and then dug back into the box. The homeplate umpire called time.

"You gonna go get another bat?" he asked.

"What's the point?" Mahomes replied. He struck out two pitches later.

Johnson leads the league in causing uncomfortable at-bats. As he looks in for the sign, his mitt concealing the lower half of his face, his enormous forefinger sticks out of the glove at the hitter, making it look a lot like he's flipping him the bird. And if he isn't doing it literally, he's doing it figuratively.

"Randy's the same all the time -- ornery," says Diamondbacks catcher Damian Miller. "And he wouldn't mind me saying that."

"Hey, I'm not here to make friends," Johnson says. "To achieve the results I want to achieve, this is the way I have to be. I've come to realize there are no shortcuts to getting the results I want. I'm pretty high-strung and focused. Not everyone here has come to grips with that."

Miller, who catches the majority of Johnson's starts, is a sturdy Midwesterner with a long minor league résumé and a leatherneck's fortitude. "I used to be intimidated by him when he first got here last year," Miller says. "I didn't want to go out to the mound or cross him at all. But now, if he needs an ass-chewing, I'll give him an ass-chewing. And when I do, he looks right at me and listens to every word I say."

Johnson thinks this is funny. "Yeah, right, Damian," he says. "Just get back there and catch the ball."

When Johnson and Martinez are asked to talk about the other, their differences take on a nearly comic exaggeration. Martinez is fascinated by Johnson: "I think what he's doing is unbelievable. I watch him, and I don't really understand it. I like to see his attitude and his intensity in the game, and the command he has. He's so challenging. He's one pitcher I would pay to watch. I don't think I'm doing what he's doing. He's from another world. He's the best right now. You think Randy is all power and that's it, but no. The man knows how to pitch. As intense as he is and as wild as he might look, he's probably one of the smartest pitchers in baseball. And he's getting better -- that's what's scary. Getting better at 36 years old. Imagine that."

Then there is Randy on Pedro: "I don't even want to compare myself with Pedro. He's a great pitcher. I just try to take care of myself."

***

May17: Red Sox vs. Blue Jays first inning, two outs.
Raul Mondesi takes the first curveball for a strike. He takes the second curveball for a strike. He takes the third curveball for a ball, barely. He takes the fourth curveball for strike three.

This is the unbearable lightness of Pedro. This is both the gift and the appreciation of the gift. Four curveballs, traveling to the plate at a narcotic pace, snapping down and away as if pulled by stage wires. What fun that must be. What power. What pure mastery. And four straight curveballs -- who would have thought? Certainly not Mondesi, and that's precisely the point.

"He knows it's possible, he knows," Martinez says of Mondesi, who advanced through the Dodger organization with Pedro. "He knows, especially when I read he's not seeing the breaking ball too well. He knows when he's expecting something else, he'll get what he's not looking for."

Martinez did not read of Mondesi's breaking-ball troubles in the newspaper. He read them on his face, or, as Pedro says, "I read his attitude. I read that he wasn't looking too good on the breaking ball, so I just flipped it."

Put yourself in the batter's box. Martinez can throw it 96 on the black, with movement, buckle your knees with the curveball or leave you mesmerized by a 78 mph changeup that looks for all the world like that fastball until, too late, it isn't. He can throw all four of his pitches -- fastball, curve, changeup and cutter -- for strikes on any count. Expect something and get something else. Guaranteed.

"When everything is working, I throw anything I want," he says. It's just click-click-click, choose one."

In the first inning of a start against Texas last year, Martinez gave up three hits -- all on fastballs -- and one run. Roughly 30 of the next 40 pitches were changeups, and the Rangers didn't score again. "Everyone knew it was coming, and no one could hit it," says Braves pitcher John Burkett, a Ranger a year ago. "That's the definition of a great pitch."

John Cumberland, the Red Sox bullpen coach, watched Pedro warm up before his start against the Orioles on May 12 and told whomever would listen, "He's going to throw a perfect game tonight." Cumberland wasn't far off. Pedro threw a two-hit shutout, striking out 15, in a game some observers compared to his remarkable one-hit, 17-strikeout victory over the Yankees last September. Teammates say it didn't hurt Martinez's motivation that Frank Robinson, who had handed Pedro a five-game suspension a week earlier, was sitting about 10 rows up behind the plate in Camden Yards.

Says Greg Maddux: "Pedro's one of the few power pitchers who could lose 10 miles per hour off his fastball and still win. That says a lot. If, for some reason, he started throwing the ball 85 or 87 like the rest of us, he would still win. Not many power pitchers could do that."

Pedro puts it this way: "I can be different. I can be a doo-doo thrower. I can be a power guy. I am not just one pitcher."

May10: Dodgers vs. Diamondbacks, eighth inning, two outs, tying run at second.
There is a Randy Johnson slider boring in on Eric Karros like a false wall. It is the 127th pitch of the night for Johnson, and Karros, with two strikes, is trying to stop his swing. The bat is out there, possessing a life of its own, and its owner is trying desperately to get it back. The bat is beyond the point of salvation. The inning is over. Johnson screams and fires his arms in front of his chest, tensing to the point where every tendon in his body threatens to burst through the skin. This, then, is the burden and the responsibility: keeping it close, keeping it together, holding up his end of the bargain.

"A great battle," Johnson says. "That was the game right there -- go-ahead run at second, good hitter at the plate. I didn't have much left, but I knew I had that pitch. That's when it's fun. It might not look like it, but this is how I enjoy myself. People ask me, 'Do you feel like you're intimidating?' How am I supposed to answer that? People ask, 'What are you like on game day?' I don't know. People don't talk to me, I know that much."

Johnson's slider gets to the plate at 88 mph, which is as close to off-speed as Johnson chooses to get. The fastball routinely hits 100. The two-seam fastball, new to his arsenal this year, arrives at 90-91 and serves as a change of pace from the four-seam missile. A 90-mph changeup? Believe it. "His fastball goes anywhere from 90 to 100, and that's by design," Matt Williams says. Consistent with the severity of his purpose, Johnson doesn't seem capable of passing the butter at anything less than 88 mph.

Says Diamondbacks pitcher Brian Anderson, "Filthy stuff, start after start after start. Just filthy. It's almost like he's reached a point where he can't make a mistake. If he misses with his breaking ball, it becomes a great backdoor slider. If he misses with his fastball, no one's going to catch up to it. He'll throw 92 then -- boom! -- here's 98 on your hands. Hey, good luck."

***

Johnson gets his body ready to pitch every fifth day with a strict regimen of weights, abdominal work, stationary bike riding and stretching. This is part of the burden. The work is intended to lessen the impact on his back, which was surgically repaired in 1996. "This is the hardest working pitching staff I've ever seen," says Williams. "Randy's the biggest reason for that. When your best guy works the hardest, everyone follows."

Johnson gets his brain ready to pitch never-mind-how. It's none of our business. He will say only that his mental preparation is as important as his physical preparation, and that what you see on the fifth day is merely a decanting of what he has accomplished the previous four. He sits at his locker for hours on the days he starts, sometimes reading statistical sheets but often simply staring at the floor. Those who know him say they think Johnson employs a brand of home-brew meditation. They can't be sure, though: Johnson doesn't divulge his secrets even to teammates.

"It's bad enough that people know I throw a two-seam fastball now," he grumbles.

Martinez gets his body ready by running, working with a medicine ball and doing arm exercises with surgical tubing. He also stretches his arm out with long toss -- playing catch with someone standing as far as 250 feet away. It is, for the most part, low on the tech but high on the sweat.

Pedro gets his brain ready with some good old-fashioned cockiness. No mysticism or trances for him. "I tell myself I'm as good as anybody -- Randy, Maddux, whoever you got. Then I tell myself I can't be beat. I tell myself you can't beat me today."

Different paths, same destination. Different approaches, same results. The most common result is a procession of hitters, including the best in the game, walking away with their bats dragging behind them in forlorn defeat. In the wake of the wicked fastballs, frightening sliders and unfair changeups -- all that filth -- there is a gust of admiration that is fast approaching awe. Those hitters, they never had a chance.

That's where the paths converge, and the differences dissolve.

This article appears in the June 12, 2000 issue of ESPN The Magazine.