Pedro Martinez elected to Cooperstown: 'I did it clean'

Mere moments after being elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Pedro Martinez made sure to distance himself from his fellow candidates whose legacies remain tarnished by connections to performance-enhancing drugs.

"I did it clean." Martinez said on MLB Network. "I didn't take the short way to get there. I did it the only way my mom and dad taught me."

(Courtesy: MLB.com)

Martinez, a three-time Cy Young award winner, appeared on 500 of the 549 ballots (91.1 percent) submitted by the voting members of the BBWAA, coming second to only Randy Johnson (97.3 percent) in votes among 2015 candidates.

Related: Johnson, Martinez, Smoltz, Biggio elected to Hall of Fame

Martinez spent seven seasons with the Boston Red Sox during his remarkable 18-year career, and proved an integral part of the 2004 club that snapped the franchise's 86-year World Series drought. He shared a clubhouse for many of those years, however, with Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz - the former was suspended multiple times for steroid use while the latter reportedly tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003.

Though Martinez never triggered a positive test, it's possible his relationship with Ramirez and Ortiz compelled him to reiterate Tuesday that he didn't use drugs during his baseball career.

"I wouldn't have wanted any other way," Martinez tweeted after the announcement. "I wanted to embarrass any team out there; it was a great honor to have done in a PED era."

Martinez's tenure with the Red Sox nevertheless remains among the most dominant stretches ever enjoyed by a pitcher, and the folks at Fenway Park took the opportunity Tuesday to congratulate Martinez on an amazing career.