The Boston Red Sox watched Pedro Martinez become an icon as one of the best pitchers to ever throw a baseball. His legacy expands past that through his extensive charity work.

Martinez and his wife, Carolina, hosted their eighth annual gala in Boston Friday night to benefit the Pedro Martinez Foundation which reached 75,000 children in 2023 and continues to reach new heights.

“It’s just like always, it’s part of the commitment we have with the community,” Martinez shared with NESN.com. “It’s part of what we do and want to be recognized for. It’s always so special because you’re doing something special. I hope that people can really perceive what we’re really doing.”

“The fact that we have almost 400 people here says a lot about the Boston community,” Carolina Martinez, the foundation’s president, told NESN.com. “It says a lot about the respect they have, not only for Pedro and what he did for the city, but the institution of the Pedro Martinez Foundation. That means a lot of commitment for us to continue going. We’re very thankful.”

Speaking exclusively with NESN.com, several former Red Sox players and Boston athletes shared why supporting Martinez’s cause remains special for them.

“It’s always an honor to be here with my compadre and Carolina, supporting them,” David Ortiz said. “They do a wonderful job for these kids. They change a lot of lives, a lot of family directions. It’s amazing, doesn’t get better than that.”

“It’s great to attend and support Pedro and his foundation,” Orlando Cabrera said. “It’s awesome, the things they do for kids in the Dominican Republic and in the Boston area. Happy to be here.”

“This is my first time coming to this event,” Derek Lowe shared. “My wife and I just moved back to Hingham. This was a no-brainer to come support Pedro. He’s been doing this for a long time to raise money. He’s not just a Hall of Fame pitcher. He’s a Hall of Fame guy. It’s going to be great to support him and have a beautiful night.

“As long as we’ve had the opportunity to come, it’s great to support Pedro, Carolina and the foundation,” Jason Varitek said. “It’s been a lot of years running now. Their ability to give back is phenomenal.”

Even baseball players who made their ultimate name outside away from Boston found their connections with the Red Sox icon to benefit the cause.

“This is a great cause,” Multiple-time American League Cy Young award-winner Corey Kluber said. “(My wife) and I have been fortunate enough to do this a number of times. To see Pedro and Carolina’s passion for their cause is really inspiring.”

“It’s my pleasure and privilege to be back here tonight,” 2010 MLB home run leader José Bautista offered. “… Any time that I get the call from Pedro, I can’t help but to show up, show the support, spend some time with his patrons, spend some time here, enjoy ourselves and help raise the most amount of funds that we can for all his projects. I’m very close to the project he’s building in the Dominican Republic. Very excited about that, happy to help in many different ways. Really happy to be here and I think it’s going to be a great evening.”

Martinez inspired athletes beyond baseball to show up and support the cause, including three Super Bowl champions from the New England Patriots’ dynasty of the 2000s.

“It’s always great when you can give back to something that means a lot to you, especially Pedro being the legend that he is,” NFL Hall of Famer Ty Law said. “To be able to support him, be present and really respect what he’s doing with his foundation helping kids. Anytime you can help families and kids, that’s what it’s about.”

“In this community, I think it’s a given that if you’ve been here long enough, you realize the impact of taking time out of your day and what it can do for others,” Super Bowl champion and left tackle Matt Light offered. “There are so many icons who have been a part of the Boston sports scene. Pedro’s obviously one of them for what he did on the field. These are the things that I think solidify you in the history of this area. So many people really care. To be here tonight to support him, his efforts and the work that they do, it means a lot.”

“It’s always a blessing,” Super Bowl XXXVI champion Jermaine Wiggins said. “I’m a huge Red Sox die-hard Pedro fan. Anything to help and support the cause for what he’s doing is obviously tremendous.”

The Pedro Martinez Foundation continues its 17th year of service to improve the lives of children throughout the Boston area and the Dominican Republic.

The defense team in the high-profile Karen Read case has requested any communications that Norfolk County District Attorney Michael Morrissey made from his personal phone and email accounts involving the case, which is headed for a retrial.

It was one of several filings made by the defense Friday, along with a response to the prosecution’s request to have evidence from Read’s SUV re-tested because a new expert said the data previously taken from the Lexus was incomplete, and that more data may be recoverable. The defense now says that the expert misunderstood the data, but is willing to have the data retested anyway.

Morrissey’s office has been embroiled in controversy over the claims that Read was framed in the death of her Boston police officer boyfriend John O’Keefe. The prosecution has accused Read of hitting him with her SUV and leaving him to die in the snow in front of a home in Canton, Massachusetts, in January 2022. The defense argues Read is the victim of an elaborate coverup.

Read is facing charges of second-degree murder, knowingly leaving the scene of an accident, and involuntary manslaughter, though she’s appealed to have two of the charges dropped.

Read’s new trial is currently set to begin on Jan. 27, 2025, though both sides have requested it be pushed back until April.

Karen Read defense’s request for Morrissey emails, texts

The new request for Morrissey’s personal communications, which refers to a claim made by an attorney for Aidan Kearney, the blogger known as Turtleboy, that Morrissey used his personal email account in communications concerning official matters, comes days after the prosecution moved for records from interviews read did last year with Boston Magazine

As prosecutors prepare for Karen Read’s second murder trial, they are asking for records of an interview she did last year with Boston Magazine.

The defense now argues that the district attorney has been using personal accounts to discuss Read’s case in an official capacity, meaning that information should be released to them as part of the discovery process.

They pointed to an email Morrissey allegedly sent a judge in September of last year, a day after a witness in the Read case applied for a harassment prevention order against Kearney — which was denied.

That email, lawyers say, came from Morrissey’s personal iCloud email account instead of his state email address.

Morrissey raised concerns in the email about a Stoughton District Court employee sharing a copy of an affidavit with Kearney, according to the letter from attorney Mark Bederow, who represents the blogger.

A court spokesperson said that court employee was placed on paid administrative leave last October and terminated the following month, but declined to comment on the reason.

Read’s defense is arguing that Morrissey’s contact with Trial Court Justices “is extremely concerning and raises concerns about the integrity of this prosecution.”

Asked for comment on the filings, Morrissey’s office said any response will be made in court, citing the pending case.

Data from Karen Read’s SUV

In the the defense’s response about re-testing information from her Lexus, the alleged murder weapon in the case, they claim that the commonwealth’s expert fundamentally misunderstood the difference between the terms megabit and megabyte — two different sizes of storage capacity of computer chips — from Read’s vehicle.

Hank Brennan, a new special prosecutor for the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office, signed a filing calling for new testing on the vehicle they allege Karen Read drove into John O’Keefe in 2022.

The misunderstanding of the “basic digital forensics concept” is important, the defense says, because the commonwealth’s expert was arguing that the defense expert’s extraction of data from the chips was incomplete, based on the assumed storage size. The defense expert extracted 8 megabytes of data from the chips, which the commonwealth had argued was not the full amount. But the defense says there is easy math involved – 64 megabits is equal to 8 megabytes. If there was confusion between the two terms, the storage amounts would reconcile.

Moreover, such a mistake calls into question what other mistakes could occur during testing, some of which would be destructive to the evidence, they said. But they agreed that new software could help pull more information from the vehicle.

So the defense requested their forensics expert be present during any future testing, and be given the power to stop any testing if there were concerns about its accuracy or necessity.

Karen Read was in Massachusetts’ highest court Wednesday where her lawyers argued why two of the charges against her should be dropped or at least reexamined following outreach from jurors saying Read would have been acquitted. 

We asked legal expert Michael Coyne how the court might rule, and talked to Read’s father outside of court.

It was that enthusiasm that made International Skating Union and U.S. Figure Skating officials want to bring the championships back to Boston in 2025. At the TD Garden on Thursday, Wagner joined 1984 Olympic gold medalist Scott Hamilton and current world champion Ilia Malinin to mark the start of single-session ticket sales for the event, which begin Friday at 10 a.m. via Ticketmaster.

“That response at worlds is why I moved to Boston,” said Wagner, who now lives with her family on Nantucket.

While every year’s World Championships are important, the 2025 edition is particularly so. The 300 athletes expected to participate will be seeking to secure their nation’s spots for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano-Cortina, Italy. In each discipline (men, women, pairs and ice dance), if a nation’s top two skaters or teams placements combined equal 13 or less, the nation receives the maximum three spots in that discipline.

“Boston is truly the first step to Milan,” said US Figure Skating president Sam Auxier.

Being one of the last major events before the 2026 Olympics, the 2025 World Championships also are important for purposes of momentum. Hamilton recalled that while he had won two world titles heading into the 1983 World Championships, it was his title that year that truly made him believe he could win gold at the 1984 Games.

“It was a situation where once I won in 1983, it felt like the Olympic gold medal was mine to lose,” said Hamilton.

Malinin will be looking to repeat after winning his world title in March in Montreal. Having made history in 2022 at Skate America, an international invitational held at The Skating Club of Boston, by landing the first quadruple axel at a major international event, he is looking forward to skating in front of the area’s audiences again.

“Here in Boston, they are really great fans of sports,” said Malinin. “They really get energetic and almost chaotic in a way, and it really helps us to feel that energy and how excited they are to see us skate.”

The World Championships are expected to bring a $40 million boost to the Boston economy, with 12,000 hotel room nights expected to be reserved between fans, skaters, coaches, volunteers, and media. Internationally, Boston is considered one of the sport’s hubs, and skaters were excited to hear of the event’s return to the area after a mere nine years, which is rare for the World Championships.

“It is rare for a city to host twice in such a short amount of time,” said Doug Zeghibe, executive director of The Skating Club of Boston, which is the host of the event. “The audience made 2016 a standout success.”

Kat Cornetta can be reached at sportsgirlkat@gmail.com.