Daddy dearest Does Pedro, after his bizarre post-game confessional, have the fortitude to win in the post-season? BY CHIP YOUNG

The night of Monday, September 27, should have been an occasion of utter joy for the members of Red Sox Nation. The BoSox beat the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, 7-3, to guarantee themselves a spot in baseball’s post-season.

Back in the spring, Boston fans were going through their initial bout of angst. The team faced another longest season after being five outs away from a World Series during the previous fall. In fitting tribute to years of erratic behavior, from the field to the front office, manager Grady Little had been sacrificially guillotined in the off-season for failing to lift Pedro Martinez soon enough in the game seven playoff against the hated Yankees. In addition, Beantown icon Nomar Garciaparra had been insulted and his feelings hurt when the Sox, after trying to acquire Alex Rodriguez, publicly blew the negotiations. But to put whipped cream on top of this crap, the club acquired Curt Schilling, one of the top starters in baseball (and Keith Foulke), to join Pedro and Derek Lowe in what was to be a pitchers’ version of Murderers’ Row.

Keeping with form, the Sox came out of the blocks hot and they humbled even the mighty Yankees within the first weeks of the season. Then came the inevitable swoon. Hypercritical Sox fans subjected new manager Tito Francona to the usual diatribes, and the media dealt him the death of a thousand cuts. Then came the players’ turn on the rack, as the club began playing listless .500 ball from May through July, and the crimson hose were accused of having no spark or cojones — a view that some of them actually acknowledged in so many words. Even the New York press put the boot in, using Yankees captain Derek Jeter’s face-first dive into the seats at Yankee Stadium, to snare a pop foul, as a screaming counterpoint to Nomar choosing to sit out that Yanks-BoSox war with a persistent, yet perhaps overstated injury.

After the dusty script of the past few years, fans and players were shocked into life, this time as Nomar became No-More, getting shipped to the Chicago Cubs, Boston’s National League partner in futility. The Sox got Orlando Cabrera to take over at short, and he quickly and surprisingly became a talisman for the Red Sox success as the team took off on its inevitable hot streak. This breakout threw them back not only into the wild card race — which previously looked to be slipping away — but the American League East title chase with their arch nemesis. The BoSox went from 10.5 games behind to 4.5 back with a blistering winning streak, and it was the Yankees who suddenly looked like they had lost their game, not to mention the starting rotation.

While only Pollyanna and Richard Simmons could be optimistic enough to hope the Sox might catch the Yankees for the AL East crown, the usual roller coaster ride came to an end with the wild card clinching win on September 27. Visions of a Fall Classic danced in the heads of Red Sox Nation. But this is when the Beantown Boys managed to turn the attention to their own bad selves, despite splitting six games with the Yankees coming down the stretch, impressively winning their season series with the Bronx’s finest, 11-8.

Tito Francona led off the gasps with his Grady II impersonation, leaving Pedro in past his sell-by date in the opener of the Sox’s final three-game series with the Yanks at Fenway. New York came back to win the game as Sox-killer Hideki Matsui jacked out a tying home run in the eighth, keying a 6-4 win. Déjà vu all over again, as Yogi would say.

At least Francona still (for now) has his job, which is more than Mr. Little can say. Tito should have gallivanted around the field in Florida, knowing that the 800-pound gorilla represented by that gaffe had at least dropped a few hundred pounds. But the second-guessers will be out by the millions for the rest of the Red Sox’ 2004 ride and you’ll have more dugout shots of Francona accompanied by amateur psychoanalysis than is reasonable.

Fortunately for Francona — if unfortunately for the tens of thousands of Red Sox fanatics who "took a hot," as we say in Rhode Island — Petey Martinez entered the Twilight Zone. Talking with reporters after his reprise blow-up performance against the Yankees, he declared live during the post-game on NESN, "What can I say? Just tip my hat and call the Yankees my daddy. I can’t find a way to beat them at this point . . . I wish they would fucking disappear and never come back. I’d rather face any other team right now . . . How many times am I going to have the lead and let it go?"

These remarks were reported in Sunday papers, in some cases because they were delivered after many local papers had gone to bed. They were so amazing that half the people who heard them probably didn’t believe their ears. To say they were jaw dropping is to understate it. Try having a two-ton weight fall on your head, especially if you happen to wear a Boston Red Sox uniform.

The attitude displayed by Pedro is so foreign to basic sports tenets that it is incredible. This is made even more so by how one of the best pitchers of his generation called his worst enemy, the Evil Empire itself, his "daddy." Jesus, Petey, can you bend over and grab your ankles a little more while the Yanks line up behind you?

What makes this admission of defeat — and call it nothing less — so striking is that it came from one of the toughest competitors in the game. A guy who has never been afraid to come in tight with his nasty fastball, especially if the guy standing at the plate was wearing the famed pinstripes. And if it hits them? Tough shit, pendejo, get off my plate.

Now it becomes a case of Daddy Dearest, with Pedro admittedly waiting to get beaten with a coat hanger, if not a few Louisville Sluggers.

Johnny Damon — who along with Jason Varitek and Schilling has been one of the toughest and best Red Sox this year — tried to tame the shock, saying he would also rather avoid playing New York in the post-season. That isn’t a totally stupid thing to say, given the Yankees’ track record, but it took none of the sting out of Martinez’s comments. No wonder the victory over Tampa Bay produced such a non-event.

How will the players feel when they next line up behind Martinez against the Yanks? Jeez, Petey, give us seven reasonable innings and we’ll send out a rescue team before you fold like a road map? Given how Francona has acted as if he has been cowed by Martinez and Manny Ramirez’s personal demands all year — and Nomar’s, too, when he was here — is he going to have the guts to pull his pampered star in the fifth before the terminal depression and late-inning anxiety enters Pedro’s head? Not bloody likely.

If Tito sits tight, can you imagine the screams coming from the stands? Francona got justly ripped by the fans and media after mishandling Byung-Hyun Kim against the Orioles on September 23, leaving him in to squander a close game after not having pitched in the bigs since May. At least Kim has never said the other team had him by the karmic short hairs. Imagine if Tito now waits too long to yank Pedro, especially if the opponents are the father figures of George Steinbrenner.

This high drama is going to add plenty to the post-season. Every sportswriter and commentator is dying to see Martinez take the mound against the Yankees ASAP, and then to weigh in with their thoughts on Pedro’s seeming Stockholm Syndrome.

No one in Red Sox Nation is amused, however. That sound you hear floating somewhere in the wind is Grady Little having a very long and hard laugh. But you can barely hear it above the crowd at Yankee Stadium chanting, "Pedro, who’s your Daddy?"

Ouch. That wire hanger hurts.