Craig Calcaterra points out that rumors of Pedro Martinez’s comeback were probably just rumors, as Pedro sure sounds like a happily retired man.

Too bad.

My 200-word post about why I think the Mets should sign Pedro Martinez inspired a shocking amount of vitriol, considering the content. I thought I explained pretty explicitly how the Mets don’t make a ton of sense for Pedro and Pedro doesn’t make a ton of sense for the Mets, and that I just really like Pedro Martinez so I want to see him back. It’s an emotional thing, not a rational thing.

When Pedro was Pedro — from his last year with the Expos through his first year with the Mets — his performance was about as special as anything we’ll ever see on a baseball field in our lifetimes. Do you remember it? Lineups of meatheaded mashers, muscles testing the constraints of their uniforms, terrified at the hands of a tiny little jheri-curled righty.

It was nuts. He put any pitch anywhere he wanted it. Guys ducked out of the way of his curveball before it fell into the zone. They couldn’t catch his fastball and couldn’t wait on his changeup. Crazytime. It looked unfair.

And Pedro brought a certain joy to his dominance, or at least I read it that way. Not just the weird and hilarious off-the-field stuff. Even when he was staring guys down, posturing like he did, there was something in his countenance that suggested he knew exactly the magnitude of his accomplishment. You can see the same thing in Orson Welles if you watch Citizen Kane close enough, like he was thinking throughout the filming, “I am absolutely killing this s@#!.”

That’s why I want Pedro back on the Mets; I want to watch him pitch again, and to try to remember how amazing it was to watch the first time.

Yeah, I said it.

Rumor says Pedro is open to pitching again in the 2011 season. I have no idea how much he’ll cost, and last time he pulled this all the reports said he was prohibitively expensive. Plus if he’s coming back he’s probably going to want to come back to a team likely to win, and that conservatively puts about 10-15 teams in better position than the Mets. Also, he’s 39 now and hasn’t pitched a full season since his first in Flushing in 2005. And he doesn’t seem any more apt to stay healthy and contribute to the Mets in 2011 than Jeff Francis or Chris Young.

But every single time Pedro makes noise about a comeback, I will argue that the Mets should oblige him. Pedro Martinez is one of my favorite pitchers and humans of all time, and though I recognize that any future Major League incarnation of Pedro would likely appear a shell of his former self, I’d be thrilled to watch the shell again.

Plus, not for nothing, he was pretty good in his small-sample return for the Phillies in 2009, and it’s not like the Mets have a glut of starting pitching.