He's Everyman and yet, for 18 years in this city, Edgar Martinez has been a most extraordinary man.

He isn't the best athlete Seattle has seen, but he's the most popular. He isn't the most outgoing personality in town, but he is the most loved.

And even if you've never spoken a word with him, or shaken his hand, or seen him anywhere but on the rock-hard turf of the Kingdome or the lush green carpet of Safeco Field, if you live in Seattle you feel as if you're on a first-name basis with him.

Edgar.

"He belongs to us," said Speight Jenkins, general director of the Seattle Opera and a longtime Mariners fan.

Edgar is an anomaly, really.

He emerged in the intrusive era of 24-hour cable sports networks and played during the cacophony of drive-time-to-prime-time sports talk radio. But he endeared himself to this city, without throwing himself in front of cameras or inviting himself on every show.

Edgar Martinez became a star in this town through hard work and by somehow, almost nonverbally, connecting with everyone in the ballpark, connecting across gender, across generations, across cultures.

This is a guy who grew up in Dorado, Puerto Rico, but was embraced in Seattle like a native son.

"In pop culture today — TV, movies, music, sports — one thing that is lacking is humility," actor and critic John Procaccino said. "But Edgar's a guy who's extremely humble and grateful for the ability God gave him. You look at society today, and we honor and make celebrities out of truly obnoxious people. We don't often see a guy as talented as Edgar who is so humble."

Edgar never was a poseur or a poser.

He never acted like he was bigger than his game. He never stood at home plate and admired his work when he hit a sure-thing home run. Like a great actor, he never felt the need to milk the applause.

In the early years, when he first began clubbing doubles off the Kingdome's walls, his teammates called him "Casper" because he was as quiet as a ghost. They even made a nameplate with that nickname and hung it over his locker.

"It's the warmth of the man," Jenkins said. "Without knowing him, you see that he just exudes warmth. He's a great hitter and certainly that's some of it, but the love of Edgar has very little to do with his huge success. There is something that says to you that he is an amazingly nice man and a good man.

"And as a performer there is an intensity about him. He reminds me of the singer Leonie Rysanek. She gave everything. If there was 125 percent to give she would have given that. And we see that with Edgar, too. And the audiences pick this up. The public never makes a mistake. It picks up when you're giving everything you have."

ROD MAR / THE SEATTLE TIMES Martinez sits in one of two stadium seats given to him by former teammates and members of the Mariners grounds crew. The seats are from the Kingdome and Safeco Field.

His pregame and postgame rituals are legendary in big-league clubhouses. He couldn't run, but he hit more than 500 doubles. He never got leg hits, but he hit .300. He overcame vision problems and hamstring tears and sore knees and bad feet. And he never complained. Never.

He has the rare ability to communicate so completely, through his mannerisms and dignity on the field. Edgar is a guy who is so sure of himself and so comfortable with himself that he doesn't need to preen or act. He is himself and the crowds who have come to watch him also have come to understand him.

"Edgar has that knack. It's a comfortable look he gives that is really remarkable," Jenkins said. "He's an icon in this town for a reason. You feel that everything he does, he does for the best interests of the team."

And, of course, there are the numbers. The .300 career average. More than 300 home runs, more than 1,200 runs batted in, more than 500 doubles.

Procaccino remembers something his father told him when they sat together along the third-base line at Cincinnati's Crosley Field when the Reds were playing the Pittsburgh Pirates.

"When Roberto Clemente came up, my father turned to me and said, 'John, watch this guy because he's really dangerous.' And that was a good thing. That this guy was really, really good, and anything could happen. That's the way I always felt about Edgar.

"With him, every time he came to the plate anything could happen. He was really dangerous. That's what makes good drama. And Edgar always had a flair for the dramatic. In drama and sports there's a sense that anything can happen at any moment, and it's live. And with Edgar you get the sense that when he came to the plate anything could happen. That's drama."

And nothing in the team's history was more dramatic than the double down the left-field line that scored Ken Griffey Jr. and beat the New York Yankees in the Mariners' first playoff series.

"Look at all the dramatic hits he's had," Procaccino said. "We have a tendency to talk about Junior and A-Rod and Randy Johnson as the guys who saved baseball and got Safeco Field built. But who's the guy who got the hit? Who hit the double? As a performer that's what you remember."

Edgar Martinez is unforgettable. The player, the person, the guy who hit the most indelible double we'll ever see.

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com.