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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Feb 1, 2021 17:57:33 GMT -5
Two guys who know him well have the highest praise for Dustin Pedroia By Dan Shaughnessy Globe Columnist,Updated February 1, 2021, 1 hour ago
Theo Epstein and Terry Francona are busy guys with important jobs, not always eager to talk about their Red Sox years, which were important but did not end well.
Both responded immediately when I reached out Monday regarding the retirement of Dustin Pedroia.
“It’s a combination of sadness and real appreciation,” Epstein said of a player he drafted in the second round out of Arizona State in 2004. “It’s tough to see someone like him, whose heart would allow him to accomplish anything he wanted, not go out on his own terms.
“But at the same time, it gives everyone an opportunity to think back at everything he accomplished and everything he meant to the Red Sox and how this entire era wouldn’t have been possible without him.
Advertisement Related: Unable to get past injuries, Dustin Pedroia retires at age 37.
“He was the emotional epicenter of everything — the first homegrown guy from this generation to really make an impact and get us from the first time in ’04 to ’07 and everything good that happened beyond.
“No one has been around a player with bigger heart and determination, or a bigger chip on his shoulder.”
Pedroia was listed at 5 feet 9 inches, 165 pounds, which was generous. No one could believe the Sox “wasted” their first 2004 draft pick on the scrawny second baseman.
“That started right in the beginning, even in the draft room,” remembered Epstein, the Red Sox general manager at the time. “There were some strange looks, because he didn’t have the prototypical body to be picked up in the second round.
“When we first signed him and sent him out to Augusta [Ga.] in low A ball to work out with the team and play for a week or two, our coaching staff called and asked if we sent the right guy.
“He was not impressive physically and never put on a great show in batting practice. You expect your first pick to have a little more speed and athleticism, and he had none of those things. He was never going to be a workout warrior, so they were very skeptical.
“Then the games started. Back then, our people would call in and leave game reports on voicemail, and right from the first game, it was, ‘Yeah, Pedroia went 3 for 4 with two rocket doubles in the gap and made three diving plays and a heads-up baserunning play and dominated every phase of this game. Yeah, we were wrong. Can’t judge this guy by the workouts. He’s a pretty good player.’
“It was like that at every level. There was some skepticism and there was doubt until the game started, and then he was the manager’s favorite player. Right up to Tito.” Related: Dustin Pedroia opens up about Red Sox career and retirement: ‘I wish I enjoyed it a little more at the time’
“He was, I don’t want to say ‘pudgy,’ but he wasn’t real fast when he came to the big leagues,” said Francona, Pedroia’s first manager in the majors. “We pinch ran for him and that just pissed him off. I told him, ‘Hey, man, if you run better, I won’t.’ And the next year he came back and stole 20 bases. That’s just him.”
“He actually gained some speed,” said Epstein. “That’s almost impossible. I can’t ever remember it happening. It always goes in the other direction.
“No one did more with the physical ability he had. He just absolutely maximized his God-given abilities with sheer determination and great instincts.”
Pedroia had just turned 23 when he was called to the big leagues in August 2006. Batting primarily at the bottom of the lineup, he hit .191 in 31 games as the Sox fell from contention.
In 2007, he was American League Rookie of the Year and the Red Sox won the World Series. The next year, at the age of 25, Pedroia was MVP, batting .326 with 17 homers, 83 RBIs, and those 20 stolen bases in 21 attempts. He won a Gold Glove, with only six errors in 157 games.
As of 2008, Pedroia was one of only eight players who could claim an MVP, Rookie of the Year, World Series championship, and Gold Glove. The other seven were Willie Mays, Frank Robinson, Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Thurman Munson, Cal Ripken Jr., and Albert Pujols. Related: Dustin Pedroia’s greatest moments with the Red Sox
Among Red Sox MVPs, he stands with Tris Speaker, Jimmie Foxx, Ted Williams, Jackie Jensen, Carl Yastrzemski, Fred Lynn, Jim Rice, Roger Clemens, Mo Vaughn, and Mookie Betts.
“When he walked in the room, the lights got a little brighter,” Francona recalled. “He willed himself to be the ultimate team player. I probably put too much on him because I trusted him so much. He was like Radar O’Reilly. If you were thinking something and you said it, you’d look up and he’d be like, ‘OK, OK, I got it.’
“He was always mad for the right reasons when we lost. It wasn’t because he didn’t get hits. He cared so deeply about all the right things. He was just such a competitor and he’s so much of what’s good in our game.”
At his retirement Zoom presser Monday, Pedroia spoke of his love of baseball and being a Little Leaguer who’d be dressed and ready for a noon game at 5 a.m.
It was the same in Boston.
“Dustin and [his wife] Kelli lived near Fenway, and he would sit by the window and wait for the gate to open at Fenway and then come to the ballpark,” said Francona. “That kind of encapsulates him. He was a baseball player. He woke up in the morning to kick your ass, and it was nice being in the same uniform as him.”
In some ways, Pedroia was a pocket-sized Cam Neely. He was a rugged, stand-up guy, a valued teammate who had his career cut short by an opponent’s dirty play. Manny Machado was Pedroia’s Ulf Samuelsson.
“Dustin played with reckless abandon, and it’s not a surprise that he was a star who burned out relatively quickly,” said Epstein. “But look at that [expletive] career. How could you ask for anything more? We don’t even come close to winning the World Series without him.”
“I hope Boston fans understand what they had, because he’s as special as anyone I’ve ever been around,” added Francona. “I expect they do. If they don’t, they missed out on something pretty incredible.”
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Feb 1, 2021 17:59:28 GMT -5
Dustin Pedroia open to managing or coaching in future, but Boston Red Sox star ‘wants to enjoy being a dad and having fun with (his) boys’ first Updated 5:48 PM; Today 5:09 PM
By Chris Cotillo | ccotillo@MassLive.com
Now-retired Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia could see himself coaching or managing in the big leagues at some point down the road, but for now, he’s focused on his family.
“I’m worried about my middle son’s flag football practice at 4,” Pedroia said Monday when asked about his future. “Let’s start there.”
Pedroia, who retired at 37 on Monday after knee injuries limited him to just nine games over the last three seasons, has long been considered a prime future managerial or coaching candidate for the Red Sox. While he’s open to those types of roles, the four-time All-Star wants to be home with his wife, Kelli, and their three sons, Dylan, Cole, and Brooks, for the foreseeable future.
“I’ll be in the game somehow,” Pedroia said. “I’m always going to be around, always here for everybody in the Red Sox organization. They’ve done so much for me. Right now, my youngest son is six. I definitely want to be involved. I don’t know what capacity yet. I think when all my boys are out of the house, that’s when things will change to more of a greater role with the organization. Right now, I want to enjoy being a dad and having fun with my boys. Just being here, not worrying about rehabbing all day long or worrying about what game we’re playing or things like that. I want to just be normal for a little bit, but when that time comes, and it’s time, it’ll be 100 percent into whatever I choose to do.”
After playing 105 games in 2017, Pedroia spent much of the first half of the 2018 season trying to rehab his injured left knee before going home to Arizona in July. After attempting a comeback at the beginning of 2019 and appearing in three games before suffering a setback, Pedroia returned home in late May and, save for one weekend he spent visiting the Red Sox in Denver that August, has been away for the team for almost two full years.
In that time, Pedroia enjoyed coaching his sons and helping them with schoolwork, even if, in his words, some of it is “advanced” for an Arizona State education. In the coming years, at least before his sons graduate high school and move out of the house, he envisions himself being at home for the majority of the time.
If Pedroia does take on an official role with the Red Sox, it could be in the same special assistant capacity that David Ortiz, Pedro Martinez and Jason Varitek have held in recent years.
“I’m open to anything but I want to make sure my kids have the same upbringing I had when I was a kid,” Pedroia said. “Coaching or managing, that’s a lot of time. I’ve just played a long time. I was the first one to the field every single day. These years for my kids are the most important and I’m there for them in every single way. I don’t want to miss a thing in their life. They deserve that.”
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Feb 1, 2021 18:01:00 GMT -5
Dustin Pedroia retires: Coaching son’s team helped Boston Red Sox star realize ‘there’s something else I’m going to be able to do’ Updated 5:22 PM; Today 5:16 PM
By Christopher Smith | csmith@masslive.com
Red Sox star Dustin Pedroia said coaching his son’s baseball team helped him accept the fast approaching end to his own playing career.
“I was having a tough time up until my middle son, Cole, they wanted me to coach his baseball team,” Pedroia said, getting emotional during a Zoom call Monday. “Sorry for getting a little choked up. But that got me through the next step of understanding, ‘Hey, there’s something else I’m going to be able to do, and I’m good at it.’”
Pedroia announced his retirement Monday. The 37-year-old won three World Series with Boston. He was a four-time All-Star and four-time Gold Glove winner. He won the 2008 AL MVP and 2007 AL Rookie of the Year.
Pedroia and his wife Kelli have three sons, Dylan, Cole and Brooks.
“I think they were happy that they get their dad to be home all the time,” Pedroia said. “They need me. So it was hard, but I just don’t want them to see me having more surgeries and not being able to walk or get my oldest son’s rebounds. Now it’s good. I’m in a good place. I can move. I can get a rebound now and just pass it to him and stand there without hurting. I don’t have to ice my knee all day long to make it not look like a basketball. So I’m in a good place.”
Pedroia, who played just nine games from 2018-20, underwent a partial knee replacement in December. It marked his sixth knee surgery. He said he could walk without pain one week after the surgery.
“I couldn’t do much from my everyday life (before the knee replacement) and that was frustrating,” Pedroia said. “If I would go to one of my son’s games and just stand there for an hour, I had to ice my knee all day long. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t walk. It was too much. My leg wouldn’t even straighten out. It was bad. So I think the first part for me was to be able to just function, to move, to walk, to do normal stuff. My kids’ bedrooms are upstairs. I couldn’t even walk up the stairs.”
Pedroia can’t run anymore. But the knee replacement made him feel good again and helped him even more to accept retirement.
“It hit me that I’m gonna be OK,” Pedroia said. “I don’t have any regrets. And that’s what I’m proud of. Could it have ended better and I finished my career the right way? Yeah, of course. But there was a reason why I was the first one dressed at 5:30 for a 7 o’clock game. ... The biggest thing in my mind was, ‘This could be my last game. You don’t know.’ And that’s the way I approached it from Little League on. I played every game like it was my last one. I had the best time playing.”
Pedroia added, “I never took one play off from Little League on.”
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Feb 1, 2021 18:07:40 GMT -5
Pete Abraham @peteabe · 36m Xander Bogaerts on Dustin Pedroia:
“His mental toughness, his work ethic, and his energy were what I enjoyed seeing every day while playing next to him. He never took one play off. Definitely one of the best to ever wear a Red Sox uniform.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Feb 2, 2021 4:40:12 GMT -5
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Feb 2, 2021 4:41:58 GMT -5
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Feb 2, 2021 4:56:12 GMT -5
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Feb 2, 2021 8:24:23 GMT -5
Will Dustin Pedroia make the Hall of Fame? His overall numbers put him on the fringe of Cooperstown, says Chad Finn.
By Chad Finn, Sports columnist February 1, 2021 | 6:19 PM
Welcome to Boston.com’s Sports Q, our daily conversation, initiated by you and moderated by Chad Finn, about a compelling topic in Boston sports. Here’s how it works: You submit questions to Chad through Twitter, Facebook, and email. He’ll pick one each weekday to answer, then we’ll take the discussion to the comments. Chad will stop by several times per day to navigate. But you drive the conversation.
Is Dustin Pedroia a Hall of Famer?
This question would be more fun – and easier – to answer if Manny Machado hadn’t wrecked Pedroia’s knee in April 2017.
Pedroia was very good that season, hitting .293 with a .369 on-base percentage and .762 OPS in 105 games. But it was in essence the last season of his career – the lingering effects of the knee injury limited him to nine games total in 2018-19 – and upon announcing his retirement Monday at age 37 he revealed doctors told him in ’17 that his knee could blow out at any moment.
If that dirty play had never happened? Well, maybe he would have broken down anyway, given the demands of the second base position and his no-holds-barred style of play. But if he’d stayed healthy and been able to put together two or three more Pedroia-like years – say, a .290 average with 30 or so doubles and excellent defense – he’d have a tremendous case for Cooperstown.
Cruelly, his Hall of Fame case probably comes down to something he heard in a different context through much of his career: He’s probably a little short.
Pedroia has some impressive accolades – the 2007 American League Rookie of the Year award, the 2008 AL Most Valuable Player, four All-Star appearances, four Gold Gloves, three championship rings.
But his overall numbers put him on the fringe of Cooperstown. He didn’t reach 2,000 hits (finishing with 1,805) let alone 3,000. The 3-for-30 performance in his nine games in 2018-19 dropped his career batting average to .299. His top career offensive comparison is Howie Kendrick.
But sabermetrics do like him. He provided 51.6 Wins Above Replacement in his career, more than Hall of Fame second basemen such as Nellie Fox, Bobby Doerr, and Bill Mazeroski. He’s 20th all-time among second basemen in JAWS, which averages a player’s career WAR with their 7-year peak WAR.
He would benefit from Lou Whitaker getting his overdue induction, and perhaps Bobby Grich too. Jeff Kent’s induction would also help. And there are still contemporaries at the position with a similar or better case, including Chase Utley and, believe it or not, Ian Kinsler (55.2) career WAR.
It would be a surprise if Pedroia makes the Hall of Fame. But I’ll say this: he becomes eligible the first year I have a ballot. So he has one vote coming his way.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Feb 2, 2021 8:25:51 GMT -5
What’s Next For Dustin Pedroia After Retirement? Red Sox Star Explains
Family is Pedroia's top priority
by Ricky Doyle
Dustin Pedroia was limited to just nine games over the final three years of his Major League Baseball career, which officially ended Monday when the Boston Red Sox second baseman announced his retirement.
He didn’t suit up at all in 2020, and the writing had been on the wall for a while that Pedroia’s playing days likely were over because of injuries.
Still, calling it quits never is easy, especially for someone whose entire life has been devoted to the game he so passionately loves.
“When I was in Little League, I would get ready at 5 in the morning for a noon game,” Pedroia recalled Monday during a video conference with reporters. “I did this my entire life, and to have it just stop, and then you fight to get it back, it’s tough. But everybody around me knows how hard I worked to try to get back, and that’s enough for me.”
Pedroia is fortunate he literally can walk away from baseball. Several knee surgeries in recent years disrupted not only his playing career but his everyday life, with extensive pain and rehab becoming the norm.
As such, Pedroia is at peace with turning the page, even if the fire still burns inside. And the 37-year-old fully intends to pay it forward after an excellent 15-year run with Boston.
“Now I just wanna be healthy. I wanna impact the younger generation with the stories I have and the things that I’ve gone through and the adversity that I’ve dealt with,” Pedroia said. “That’s what I’m supposed to do now and I look forward to it.”
So, what exactly is next for Pedroia? Time will tell.
While he acknowledged he’s interested in sticking around baseball, perhaps ultimately paving the way for him to assume a role within the Red Sox organization, he’s focused first and foremost on spending time with his family. Pedroia and his wife, Kelli, have three sons, Dylan, Cole and Brooks.
“Honestly, you know me, I’m worried about my middle son’s flag football practice at 4 (o’clock). We’ll start there,” Pedroia said when asked about his retirement plans. “But obviously I’ll be in the game somehow. I’m always gonna be around. I’m always here for everybody in the Red Sox organization. They’ve done so much for me.
“Right now, my youngest son is 6. So I definitely want to be involved (in baseball). But I don’t know in what capacity yet. I think when all my boys are out of the house, that’s when things will change to more of a greater role with the organization. Just right now, I wanna enjoy being a dad and having fun with my boys and just being here. Not worrying about rehabbing all day long or worried about what game we’re playing and things like that. I wanna just be normal for a little bit. But when that time comes, and when it’s time, it’s 100 percent into whatever I choose to do.”
Pedroia understandably was emotional while discussing all his family’s been through during his MLB career, namely the final few years as he fought to overcome injuries. But Pedroia is looking forward to coaching his middle son’s baseball team — “there’s something else I’m gonna be able to do and I’m good at it,” he said — and he’ll perhaps explore other options at the professional level when the time is right.
“I’m open to anything, but I wanna make sure my kids have the same upbringing I had when I was a kid,” Pedroia said. “And coaching or managing, that’s a lot of time. And I’ve just played a long time, and I was the first one at the field every single day, and I wanna make sure these years for my kids are the most important and I’m there in every single way. I don’t wanna miss a thing in their life. They deserve that.”
They deserve that, sure. And so does Pedroia, a guy who played the game the right way until his body just couldn’t handle it anymore.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Feb 2, 2021 8:28:33 GMT -5
Bradford: Trying to explain Dustin Pedroia Download the RADIO.COM app
By Rob Bradford
I knew for a while this column needed to be written. Dustin Pedroia was going to retire a whole lot sooner than later and it only made sense to have something ready to go. The story wasn’t going to change.
But this was one that wasn’t going to roll off the fingertips. Truth be told, the Pedroia Appreciation Column wasn't gong to come easy.
The problem was that I wasn't quite sure I could catch the spirit of the thing. From my perspective, after the last 16 years there was just too much to accurately paint this picture. Just being honest.
Sure, we can go down the road of a player who epitomized what fathers hope their kids evolve into. Or perhaps there were the signature moments in a Red Sox uniform that everybody saw, along with the behind-the-scenes shenanigans that only a few were privy to. We get it. He was short. He played hard. He was funny. He was really, really good. Anyone on social media Monday had been drenched in all those reminders, and rightfully so.
For me, it was an overload of experiences and information.
So, I didn’t write. I waited and hoped the correct message for a guy I had covered probably closer and longer than any player in my career would emerge.
Ultimately, thanks to about three seconds on a Zoom call, it did.
By the time Pedroia’s virtual press conference took place at 1:30 p.m. we had about two hours of digesting the news. The first person I called was David Ortiz, or as Pedroia religiously called him, “Big Pun”. Ortiz had already been asked by the Red Sox to offer a statement regarding his former teammate, so my seven minutes were going to serve as a test run. As it turned out, it took the former Red Sox slugger all of 20 seconds to offer be-all, end-all definition.
That was about as good as it was going to get ... and it still wasn't good enough.
I knew I wasn't alone in my analysis paralysis. Those former players with those quotes surfaced by the Red Sox -- Jonathan Papelbon, Alex Cora, Mike Lowell, Jason Varitek and Jon Lester -- were all struggling with the same issue. I guarantee you. This isn't a one paragraph guy.
I had watched all of these teammates with Pedroia. For a collection of human beings coming from so many different backgrounds, carrying such different personalities, it was amazing to see how this kid 5-foot-7 California kid -- (we had him stand back-to-back with Hall of Famer Joe Morgan to confirm his height one day in the dugout) -- seamlessly befriended each of them. And not just "I'm you're friend because I have to see you every day" type of stuff.
When the likes of Cora, Lowell and Papelbon moved on, along came guys like Nick Punto, Cody Ross, Mike Napoli, and David Ross. There were more. A lot more. Put it this way: So many players could give a lot of paragraphs Monday when it came to Pedroia. Each of them, however, probably would have fallen short, just like I feared would be the case in this space.
But then came that Zoom call.
Red Sox media relations man Justin Long: "Next question comes from Rob Bradford."
(Thirteen seconds of static.)
Me: "Can you hear me?"
Pedroia: "Yeah, I can hear you Rob. What have you got, dial-up?"
Me: "Don't worry about ... AOL. How did you tell the kids?"
To be honest, I felt a little bad because I hadn't led off my question like most everyone else: "Congratulations Dustin." Did I whiff on protocol? That feeling, however, came and went. It was replaced by something else.
That "Don't worry about it ..." was a quip Pedroia had peppered me with a million times. He had ingrained the tone and tenor in my mind. That's what 16 years of Pedroia did. The short back-and-forth had allowed me to find the foundation.
I knew there would be too many anecdotes to clearly paint the picture. For me, one of my first memories was a wide-eyed rookie turning to Cora in the Red Sox' dugout, asking "Is it always this great?" There were moments like when he ripped off his shirt at Athletes Performance after bench-pressing, ran over to taunt a collection of college football lineman. (The first story I wrote for the Boston Herald was Pedroia proudly recalling pounding ping-pong balls off the forehead of former first-round quarterback Brady Quinn.) Or the very serious off-the-record conversations we had over the past few years since the Manny Machado slide, one which included Pedroia breaking out his phone to show a folder that encompassed what seemed like 100 MRI images of his knee.
But it was the kind of back-and-forth that quick Zoom interaction offered which showed what we were leaving behind.
It is what it is. Pedroia represented something the kind of athlete we probably won't get a chance to cover ever again. He evolved, as did I. Our in-season interactions became less and less, with the second baseman seemingly becoming more wary of some liberties taken by media during his clubhouse rants, leading to fewer appearances out in the open.
Even before the injury, Pedroia's priority became his three boys, not living the majority of his days as the guy who put on his uniform on six hours before first pitch. And that also was put on display during this one question, as was evident by the words "Sorry for getting a little choked up" in the midst of is answer to my one question. This was another reason why the exercise of explaining this guy was always going to be so difficult.
But that one snippet allowed for the meat and potatoes of the Pedroia story. For the most part, it was just more enjoyable covering this guy than most. That's all.
That's the story. I guarantee I won't ever write another one like it.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Feb 2, 2021 8:31:25 GMT -5
Mastrodonato: Dustin Pedroia worthy of Hall of Fame consideration
By Jason Mastrodonato | jason.mastrodonato@bostonherald.com | Boston Herald February 2, 2021 at 5:55 a.m.
The first time this reporter tried interviewing Dustin Pedroia was as an intern in 2011.
“Who the (expletive) are you?” Pedroia said, offering a warm welcome to the big leagues.
Ten years later and the reporter is leaning toward voting for Pedroia to be enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
There was one thing Pedroia cared about: winning.
In his final press conference with Red Sox reporters on Monday afternoon, when the 37-year-old joined a Zoom call to officially announce his retirement, Pedroia said the word “win” or “winning” 14 times, one for each year of his big league career.
“Every day I woke up looking to find a way to help our team win a baseball game, and I got to do it in front of the best fans, in the best city,” said Pedroia, who sported a bushy beard reminiscent of the one he wore in 2013.
He’ll have to wait five years until his name first appears on the Hall of Fame ballot. A lot could happen between now and then. But as of right now, if someone asked me if I’ll check the box next to Pedroia’s name on my ballot, I’d have to nod my head up and down.
“Honestly, I don’t think about any of that,” Pedroia said. “My main focus was, ‘Did I do enough in my environment to make a difference on people or my teammates?’ If I did that, I did my job. That was the only thing that I thought of.”
In an era defined by efficiency, statistics and a roster-building model that has more to do with computers than humans, Pedroia still stood out. He didn’t pass the eye test; he created it.
Ask anyone in Boston who the most exciting player on the field was during the Pedroia years and he’ll end up on par with, if not ahead of, David Ortiz and Mookie Betts.
He was the first to arrive and last to leave Fenway Park on most days. He understood game situations better than anyone and knew how to execute in those moments. He became one of the best coaches in the organization, fixing hitters’ approaches and altering pitchers’ mechanics. He was an elite defender who probably should’ve won more than four Gold Gloves but was robbed by existing in the same era as Robinson Cano. He controlled the strike zone as well as anyone in his generation.
Count the little things; Pedroia did them all.
He spent 901 days on the injured list, a remarkable number. But just 191 of those days occurred before Manny Machado’s spikes-up slide at Camden Yards on April 17, 2017.
His left knee was destroyed. His wrist was a mess. And yet somehow, he managed to play 105 games with a .293 average, .369 on-base percentage and more walks (49) than strikeouts (48).
“I tore my UCL in my thumb on Opening Day, 2013, and I played the whole year that year, and that was like a massage compared to (2017),” Pedroia said. “I had to be out there for my teammates. That’s how I looked at it: 50% of me can find a way to help us win a game.”
Because of his multiple efforts to return in 2018 and 2019, despite being told by several doctors he’d never play again, Pedroia’s career average fell from .300 to .299.
He finished with a .365 on-base percentage, .805 OPS, four Gold Gloves, four All-Star appearances, one Rookie of the Year award, one MVP award and three World Series rings.
It’s worth repeating: three World Series rings, even if the last was earned more as a coach than a player.
Throughout baseball history there have been 16 Hall-of-Fame eligible second basemen to finish in the top-10 in MVP voting three or more times, as Pedroia did, and 14 of them are enshrined in Cooperstown. Only Jeff Kent, who is still on the ballot, and Gil McDougald, who retired in 1960, are omitted.
There have been just 13 retired second basemen to win an MVP, and all but Kent and Larry Doyle, who retired in 1920, are in the Hall.
Pedroia is 22nd all-time in WAR among second basemen, according to Baseball Reference. Of the 19 above him who are eligible, 16 of them are in, and one, Kent, is still on the ballot.
Pedroia’s peak seven-year WAR total ranks 16th all-time at his position. Of the 14 eligible second baseman ahead of him, 13 are in the Hall.
Perhaps the Pedroia-type of player will soon be a dinosaur that once roamed the infield but got pushed to extinction by bigger, stronger, faster players who are more interested in putting the ball over the fence than advancing a runner from second to third with nobody out in a one-run game.
In Boston, Pedroia will always be celebrated. He’s one of the greatest ever to wear the uniform. His ability transcended statistics, but his statistics still make him one of the best second baseman in baseball history.
Though it’s tempting to do so, we don’t need to ask what Pedroia’s potential was or wonder what could’ve been had he stayed healthy.
He was pretty (expletive) good, just as he was.
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Post by scrappyunderdog on Feb 2, 2021 10:29:06 GMT -5
What’s Next For Dustin Pedroia After Retirement? Red Sox Star Explains
Family is Pedroia's top priorityby Ricky Doyle I appreciate that. Everyone is different, but I never understood some of the richer players hanging around on low-wage contracts, and even some in the minors, if the alternative was raising your family. If there is anything better than watching your kids play sports, or chess, or whatever their hobbies are, I can't think of it.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Feb 2, 2021 14:36:09 GMT -5
Tomase: The best all-time quotes from the always chatty Pedroia 58M ago / by John Tomase John Tomase RED SOX INSIDER
Most of Dustin Pedroia's best quotes never saw sunshine, because he reserved his most pointed barbs for teammates, opponents, and especially former manager Terry Francona, and he kept them mostly behind closed doors.M
But when you talk non-stop motormouthed crap like Pedroia did, even the B material occasionally bestowed upon the rest of us qualified as solid gold.
And so in that spirit, here are my 10 favorite Pedroia quotes one day after he announced his retirement, as well as a little of what they told us about him. Tomase: Pedroia was a one-of-a-kind Boston treasure
1. "Couple years ago, I had 60 at-bats, I was hitting .170 and everyone was ready to kill me, too. What happened? Laser Show."
The Laser Show is probably the first phrase that comes to mind when considering Pedroia's winkingly performative braggadocio, but the context of this quote tells us as much about him as the vivid imagery it conjures.
He said it in 2010 when franchise icon David Ortiz was enduring one of the few rough patches of his Red Sox career, hitting just .149 in early May. Pedroia rose to the defense of an embattled teammate and maybe it's just a coincidence, but Ortiz responded with two hits the next day and hit .288 for the rest of the season with 29 homers and 96 RBIs.
We remember that quote for what it said about Pedroia's confidence, but by the end of that campaign, Ortiz was Big Papi again.
2. "What do I care? I'm rich as (expletive)."
I was in the midst of conducting what I suspected would be a bit of a contentious interview when Pedroia dropped this gem. His $110 million extension in 2013 was generally viewed as team-friendly, a criticism that had also been leveled at the $40.5 million deal he had signed five years earlier.
Now, early in 2014, I was asking him about the $240 million extension his former Yankees rival, Robinson Cano, had signed with the Mariners. In light of their respective career accomplishments, did Pedroia feel underpaid?
Nope. He had already guaranteed he would retire with more than $150 million to his name. How much more did he need? And the best part is, he clearly meant it.
3. "Whoooooo!"
Pedroia loved himself some Nature Boy Ric Flair, and I happened to be standing at his locker when the signature screecher of that exhortation surprised Pedroia in 2011, rendering the former MVP dumbstruck and momentarily speechless. It only took Pedroia a split second to drop a, "Whooo!" on his hero.
What made this quote was the way Pedroia could use it at any moment, typically on a sleepy morning before a matinee in, like, SkyDome. It would put a jolt in teammates, coaches, and reporters before we all returned to our haze and Pedroia, in full uniform, would sprint out to the cage, maybe stopping to slam his bat on a trash can on his way out the door.
He had a natural WWE presence and would've made an incredible heel of a manager who occasionally got body slammed when his mouth got him in trouble.
4. "Tito, am I a table setter or a table?"
Another personal favorite, Pedroia relayed this one to Francona in 2011, when injuries forced him into the cleanup spot for 25 games. Pedroia considered himself the spark plug who fought his way on base for the Ortizes of the world to drive in, but necessity forced him into a new role and he liked complaining about it.
Here's the thing, though. Pedroia started 34 games at cleanup over his career, and he was an absolute monster, hitting .369 with seven homers and a 1.036 OPS. Extrapolate that home run rate over his full career, and he would've finished with 304 long balls instead of 140.
The Red Sox needed it, so he delivered.
5. "Ask Jeff Francis. I'm the guy who took him onto the Mass. Pike."
There are a million different versions of this quote, usually with more colorful language, but I'll go with the rendition Pedroia joked about delivering after the fact. It came after a security guard asked to see his pass when he tried to enter Coors Field before Game 3 of the 2007 World Series.
Pedroia had led off Game 1 with a homer to left off the Rockies ace, kickstarting a sweep. Deep down, I'm sure Pedroia actually loved the disrespect, because nobody played that card better.
6. "I'm the strongest 160 pounds in baseball. You're looking at 160 pounds of USDA Grade A beef!" Advertisement
When Pedroia reached the big leagues in 2006, he wasn't exactly cut. He still had some baby fat, and he didn't necessarily look like Rookie of the Year material. We quickly came to recognize that he played so far beyond the sum of his parts, it hardly mattered that he wouldn't win any bodybuilding competitions. Tomase: Pedroia doesn't hold back in farewell to Sox fans, baseball
Except as the years passed and Pedroia became fanatical about his offseason conditioning, he developed into a chiseled little machine. And he never missed an opportunity to flaunt his biceps in the face of bigger, more naturally muscular teammates.
That dedication to strength and conditioning would've extended his prime, at least until one bad slide started him on the road to retirement in 2017.
7. "You thought my parents would name me (bleeping) Peewee?"
At a roast of David Ortiz after the legend's retirement, Pedroia relayed the story of the man he called "Big Pun" -- short for "Big Punisher" -- not actually knowing his first name until nearly a decade into his Red Sox career.
In Pedroia's retelling, the Red Sox were playing the Indians when the rival catcher said, "What's going on, Dustin?" in the on-deck circle. Ortiz demanded to know what he had called him, and when Pedroia informed him he had called him by his name, Ortiz said, "I though your name was PeeWee."
When Pedroia told a joke, he liked nothing more than being the put-upon butt of it.
8. "That's not how we do things around here."
The marriage of Bobby Valentine and the Red Sox in 2012 was doomed from the start, a cartoonish overreaction to the failures of 2011. It didn't take long for Pedroia to make that clear to the world when he called out Valentine for publicly rebuking Kevin Youkilis in a TV interview.
While a case could be made that Pedroia acted inappropriately towards a superior, the reality was Valentine never should've occupied the manager's office to begin with, and the Red Sox righted that mistake a year later by hiring John Farrell and winning a World Series.
Leave it to Pedroia to speak for his teammates, the fans, and the media in sending a clear message -- the man is unfit for the job.
9. "You owe Dylan an apology. You cost his daddy an RBI. That's the worst baserunning I've ever seen."
That was Pedroia to right-hander Josh Beckett in 2012, after the latter ran into an out on the bases in a 5-1 victory over the Phillies. Pedroia loved going after sacred cows, and Beckett was the alpha male of the pitching staff, a swaggering Texan who carried himself like some kind of sheriff. That's exactly the kind of guy Pedroia enjoyed cutting down to size, but the beauty of Pedroia is that Beckett loved it.
Oh, and Dylan was his then-2-year-old son.
10. "There's one guy on planet earth who could turn it. And you're talking to him." Advertisement
We'll take this one from Pedroia's retirement press conference. He sent most of the 45 minutes reflecting on his career and humbly thanking the coaches, doctors, and teammates who'd help him spend such a rewarding 14 years in the big leagues.
But he couldn't resist one final bit of bravado, when asked if he harbors any resentment over the play that ended his career, a bad slide up the back of his leg by Baltimore's Manny Machado while stretching to anchor his foot to the bag.
"I'm not upset about anything anymore," he said. "That play could've happened my rookie year. When you play second base and you play second like me, you hang on the last possible second to get the ball because, you watched it, if there's a slim chance at a double play, there's one guy on planet earth who could turn it. And you're talking to him."
That seems as fitting a sendoff as any.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Feb 2, 2021 14:41:14 GMT -5
Dustin Pedroia never played with Nomar Garciaparra, but they sure share plenty in Red Sox lore
By Jon Couture February 2, 2021 | 1:38 PM
I hope you understand just how good Dustin Pedroia was. I wish I didn’t have to wonder if you do. I wish it didn’t feel so long ago, so foreign a place. Featured on Boston Featured on BostonTracker Here's why the Bruins' Trent Frederic was glad…
"Two guys have to agree on it. It’s almost an honor thing."
I wish his didn’t feel like one of those careers most memorable for what it could’ve been, when it was so much.
“I don’t have any regrets, and that’s what I’m proud of. Could it have ended better and I finished my career the right way? Yeah, of course. But there was a reason I was the first one dressed at 5:30 for a 7 o’clock game,” Pedroia said during his retirement Zoom debrief on Monday. “I’d always tell my teammates, ‘You never know if the game is going to start early, right?’ My biggest thing in my mind was, ‘This could be my last game.’ You don’t know, and that’s the way I approached it from Little League on. I played every game like it was my last one. I had the best time.
“I’m proud of every single step my baseball career had to offer.”
That last game was a random Wednesday in New York, April 17, 2019, two years to the week after Manny Machado’s spike began Pedroia down the road that led to knee replacement at 37. Two years ago, Pedroia told WEEI’s Rob Bradford that “I think about it all the time.” He was 13 months removed from knee surgery No. 3 then, deep in rehab, and about 13 months from being told he’d need knee surgery No. 6.
That replacement was prescribed last January and performed in December. All he can’t do now, Pedroia said Monday, is run. That’s good enough for him.
“When you play second base, and you play second like me, you hang on to the last possible second to get the ball. If there’s a slim chance at a double play, there’s one guy on planet Earth that could turn it, and you’re talking to him,” Pedroia said, asked directly about the Machado play. “It happened, and unfortunately, I just got caught in a wrong position and that was it. . . . The way it ended, it ended that way, and that’s OK.”
He was far more than OK. From 2007-2016, Pedroia won a Rookie of the Year, an American League MVP, four Gold Gloves, a Silver Slugger, two world championships, and was — by Baseball Reference’s WAR calculation — the fifth-best player in all of baseball behind only Robinson Cano, Adrian Beltre, Albert Pujols, and Miguel Cabrera. And the next year, after Machado literally shredded his knee, he played 89 of Boston’s final 145 games, hitting .299/.376/.413 and walking more times than he struck out.
“I had to be out there for them. That’s the way I looked at it,” he said Monday, basically rehashing what he said about the times he took ground balls with a broken foot, or the whole season (2013) he played with a torn thumb ligament. “Fifty percent of me can find a way to help us win a game.”
The manifestation of hard working, chest-puffing New England. “Our” guy, in the face of the big city to the southwest. Picking up the baton dropped by another middle infielder, just about the same time Pedroia arrived, and holding it higher than ever before.
Pedroia became a Red Sox on June 7, 2004, his selection 65th overall buried behind news that Nomar Garciaparra was about to play his first game of the season. By then, the Nomar dream was over. He’d refused a four-year, $60 million extension before the 2003 season, wanting $68M, then four and $48 million after it. (“Market correction,” it was declared.) He called into WEEI from his December honeymoon upon learning (off television) the team was planning to trade him for Magglio Ordonez. He opened 2004 spring training lashing about the hurt and the lack of communication, and he finished it on the disabled list with Achilles’ tendonitis.
By mid-July, he wanted a trade. By August, he was a Chicago Cub. But not before Red Sox fans, despite Garciaparra not playing a game, nearly voting him into the All-Star Game. (He finished second to Derek Jeter.) That’s what happens when you’re the face of a franchise. Humble and committed. The great athlete, better person. The one your kids would mimic. Hell, the one you would mimic.
Jeter? Please. Nomar was better. Nomar was the best. Nomar was a Hall of Famer. Nomar was forever. And then, he wasn’t.
Not unlike Pedroia, though the injuries took him off the Cooperstown path in Boston colors because he actually took the below-market deal to stay.
They never played together, but they’ll turn double plays on a lot of all-time Red Sox teams, especially the “What if?” ones. The 2004 championship happened between Garciaparra and Pedroia, but they both feel like spiritual members, don’t they? Nomar was the climb, part of the reason people around here people really did start to believe. Pedroia helped make it so, a linchpin of the dominant (and relatively forgotten) 2007 juggernaut and, in so many ways, the manifestation of what it meant to be a Red Sox in the last two decades.
“I just hope I set the right example for their kids or anyone. I just hope I played the game the right way, and they can look back on my career and say, ‘He did everything he could for his team.’ That’s what I care about,” Pedroia said Monday. “I didn’t play for anything else, other than winning and winning with your teammates.”
We’re cleaning up after the party in New England, aching the morning after a 20-year championship bender. Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski are about to play a Super Bowl for Tampa Bay. The ‘B’ in Mookie Betts is turning Dodger blue. Zdeno Chara is slamming home goals from just inside the blue line in Washington Capitals red. The nation is savoring our comeuppance.
Good for them. But having Dustin Pedroia around was better.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Feb 2, 2021 14:47:30 GMT -5
To appreciate Dustin Pedroia and what he gave to the Red Sox, let’s go back to the beginning By Chad Finn Globe Staff,Updated February 2, 2021, 10:11 a.m.
The official ending came Monday. Unofficially, it ended long before that.
Dustin Pedroia retired from the Red Sox Monday at 37 years old. The record shows his final major league game was a 5-3 loss to the Yankees on April 17, 2019. He flied out to right field in the top of the second inning off J.A .Happ, then departed before the bottom half with “left knee soreness.”
The knee, ravaged by a dirty slide by the Orioles’ Manny Machado in April 2017, wasn’t right. It never would be again.
Pedroia’s goodbye came 657 days after that final appearance, further confirmation of just how agonizing it must have been to stop fighting the internal rage against reality. The knee was shot, never to cooperate again. There was no miracle to be mustered.
“You’ve got to understand, they’re the best fans ever,” he said during a Zoom call Monday, during which he revealed he’d undergone a partial knee replacement. “On a Tuesday night, there’s 37,000 people there, and they’re going crazy.
“And I got a chance to do it as long as I did. To do it one more time, yeah, of course, I’d do anything to have that opportunity. But I can’t. I can’t run. That part will always hurt me.
“I wish I had one more time, but I don’t regret anything. It is what it is. I’m OK. I just have to take everything I’ve learned and built up and all the energy I have, I have to give it to other people now. That’s how I can help. But I’m OK.”
In his 14-season career, Pedroia played the way you knew you would if only you had the gifts — all-out all the time, with passion for the game as the fuel. It was said he played with a chip on his shoulder, but it’s more precise to say the chip played with a Pedroia.
He was Tanner Boyle with elite hand-eye coordination, a supreme defender at second base and a line-drive machine as a hitter — oh yes, he will have a very real Hall of Fame case in five years — who just happened to look like the short, follicle-challenged guy in front of you in the Dunkin’ line every morning.
It’s a bummer it ended this way, with a scar on his knee and a much smaller one on his image, the result of a misguided comment during a brushback battle with Machado’s Orioles during that fateful 2017 series. Pedroia has been a fading shadow for two seasons, someone discussed in regard to the spot he held on the 40-man roster and his salary’s effect on the payroll rather than as one of the great players in Red Sox history.
Perhaps now that his career is formally in the past tense, the achievements — 2007 American League Rookie of the Year, 2008 AL Most Valuable Player, four Gold Gloves, four All-Star appearances, three World Series titles (though he played just three games for those 2018 champs) — will be appreciated in full, and the conclusion that he is one of the greatest players in franchise history will be agreed upon without much debate.
A career .299 hitter with an .805 OPS, he provided the Red Sox with 51.6 wins above replacement (according to Baseball-Reference), putting him right on the Hall of Fame fringe. I’ll vote for the first time right around the time he becomes eligible, and I can assure you he has one vote waiting.
At the very least, he is one of the finest, most determined, and easily appreciated players in Red Sox history, and his No. 15 should someday have a place on the right-field facade.
But in this moment of finality, as we tug on threads of context in the attempt to provide perspective, it’s not so much the end I’m thinking about as the beginning. I’ll admit it if you will: I wasn’t sold on him in the beginning, and don’t try to tell me I was alone.
He never rated higher than 77th (Baseball America, 2006) in the annual top 100 prospects ratings. He struggled mightily in his first big-league trial, hitting .137 with a .450 OPS through his first 19 games in September 2006. He finished that season at .191 with a .561 OPS in 98 plate appearances, and wasn’t much better to start 2007, hitting .180 through May 2.
There’s probably evidence out there somewhere of me referring to him around this time as a cockier Jeff Frye.
Then, it clicked. Over the next four games, he went 9 for 14, raising his average to .267. For the next decade and then some, even through the injuries, he never really stopped hitting. The laser show was spectacular, wasn’t it?
While Pedroia’s 2008 MVP season was his individual crowning achievement, that ’07 breakthrough was special, his bat and his mouth cracking equally loud. My long-held contention is that the ’07 Red Sox roster — with the Manny Ramirez/David Ortiz/Jason Varitek core from the world-changers in ’04 bolstered by Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury, Jonathan Papelbon, and the first gleaming products of Theo Epstein’s player development machine — was the most complete in franchise history.
The World Series win in 2007 — a 4-0 sweep of the Rockies — was almost an afterthought, with some of the specifics having faded from mind over the years as Boston sports teams overflowed the mental scrapbooks with so many championship memories.
But there’s one thing we all remember, right? Pedroia’s tone-setting leadoff home run in Game 1 against Rockies lefty Jeff Francis, then his totally in-character declaration the next day when a Coors Field security guard questioned whether he was really a player.
“Ask Jeff Francis who I am,” said Pedroia, and I don’t include the expletive he deployed there because this is a family publication and I’m not certain whether he utilized it as a verb, noun, or adjective.
Dustin Pedroia talked a good game. He played a better one, until his body would not cooperate any longer. His goodbye came Monday, nearly two years after his last appearance in an MLB game, and 15 years after his first.
We wish it could have lasted longer. But were we ever lucky to have all of that time to enjoy who he was.
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