On September 20, 2004, with the Red Sox soon to embark on a cliffhanger, never-to-be-forgotten postseason run, a minor league infielder named Dustin Pedroia was invited to visit Fenway Park and take some pregame cuts with the big club.
This kid Pedroia, a shortstop out of Arizona State, had been selected in the second round of that year’s amateur draft, the 65th overall pick. The Red Sox said he was 5-foot-9, as did ASU, to which we all said: har har. He didn’t look close to that. But the Sox also said he was a hitter, and he looked allof that: Pedroia ushered in his professional career by hitting a combined .357 for Boston’s Single-A Sarasota and Augusta farm clubs, and now he was getting a late-summer chance to work out with the Sox before heading home to California.
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Pedroia was confident when he spoke that day: “Every day, people are still doubting me. A guy my size, ‘He can’t do it, he can’t do anything.’ I’ve got to prove people wrong.”
Later in the evening, while seated in a luxury suite with club officials, he continued that haughty narrative. When somebody mentioned he was the 65th player taken in the draft, which presumably was meant to be a compliment, Pedroia dismissed selections 1 through 64: “I’ll get to the big leagues before those guys.”
OK, so nine of those guys, including future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander, the second overall selection, made it to the big leagues before he did. But let’s not quibble over scorekeeping. What matters is that Pedroia backed up that bravado, all of it, and in ways that will never be forgotten. The modern-day ballplayer tends to be brawny and overstuffed, but in the matter of Dustin Pedroia, just 5-foot-9 but not really, it was the lackof bulk that lifted him, inspired him, fired up his engines, and, in the end, made him a Boston legend.
We all knew this day was coming, but now, with Pedroia on Monday having decided to retire, we can at last do a final accounting of his years in Boston. He was Rookie of the Year in 2007, Most Valuable Player in 2008. He was a four-time Gold Glove winner. His slash line was .299/.365/.439. Most importantly, he was a member of three World Series-winning teams and a major contributor to the 2007 and 2013 titles.
The bottom of his stat package reveals he played 14 seasons with the Red Sox, but we all know the last two seasons were just cameos. Pedroia’s left knee no longer was up to the rigors of big-league baseball, limiting him to just three games in 2018 and six more in 2019. If that’s the only Pedroia you know, it’s akin to having seen Babe Ruth play with the Boston Braves, or Willie Mays with the Mets, or Bobby Orr with the Chicago Blackhawks. No, Pedroia does not fall into “greatest” territory, as is surely the case with Ruth and Mays and Orr — and we’ll get to Pedroia’s grim Hall of Fame forecast in a moment — but what he shares with these iconic players is that they all tried to keep the party going after the lights had been dimmed and the band was packing up.
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Ruth and Mays were at least allowed the dignity of growing old and slow the old-fashioned way. For fans who saw them in their prime, and then saw them in their dotage, it was easy to understand. We all get old. But it was terrible on the eyes to watch Bobby Orr those last couple of years, partly because he got some terrible advice and wound up with the Blackhawks but also because No. 4 was only 30 years old. We knew his knees were battered, but, still, this was Bobby Orr. Knowing the whydidn’t make it any easier to watch his decline.
Again, Dustin Pedroia wasn’t the greatest baseball player who ever lived, and he wasn’t the greatest second baseman who ever lived. He’s not even the greatest second baseman in Red Sox history, an honor that belongs to the late Bobby Doerr. But like the Babe, like Willie, like No. 4, there was the brilliant young performer and, sadly, there was the old warhorse who seemed to age a decade in the blink of an eye.
The convenient dividing line for Pedroia is April 21, 2017, that being the date Manny Machado came crashing into him at second base in the eighth inning of a Sox-Orioles game at Camden Yards. After the game, Pedroia attached no great significance to what had happened: “It’s not the first time I’ve been hit, it won’t be the last. It’s baseball, man.”
But, man, baseball was tough on Pedroia. He managed to lumber through the rest of the season, even hitting .293, but the pop was gone, and so, too, was a good deal of Pedroia’s calling-card feistiness. He would even be blamed for the manner in which he reacted when the Red Sox finally sought vengeance against Machado. He mouthed the words, “It’s not me, it’s them,” after right-hander Matt Barnes damned near beaned the Baltimore third baseman.
It wasn’t a good look for Pedroia, but here’s the reality: The Sox botched the handling of the entire incident. It could have ended quickly had Eduardo Rodriguez simply drilled Machado in the back pocket, but the young lefty didn’t get the job done and so Barnes wound up throwing one near the head.
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If you were just coming into your Red Sox fanhood around then, you need to know there was a younger, quicker, feistier Dustin Pedroia, and that’s the Dustin Pedroia who should be celebrated and remembered. In the roll call of great Red Sox players during the first two decades of the 21st century, he’s right up there with Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz, Pedro Martinez and Curt Schilling, and, of course, Mookie Betts.
Alas, he’s also likely to be added to a list that includes Tony Oliva, Don Mattingly, Mo Vaughn and Nomar Garciaparra. There’s some inexact science at play here, but, to me, these are players who were on a Hall of Fame trajectory after they’d been in the big leagues for a few years. You’d watch them play and then remark, “Gee, that guy’s gonna wind up in Cooperstown.” But then things happened — Oliva’s knees, Mattingly’s back, etc. — and here we are.
Pedroia set the tone for the Red Sox in the 2007 World Series with his homer in the first inning of Game 1. (Nick Laham / Getty Images)
The early Pedroia was mopping up — Rookie of the Year, MVP, Gold Gloves, World Series rings — and he accented it all with that Rhode Island-sized chip on his shoulder. For he was an ordinary-looking guy even in his prime, which is probably why a security guard at Coors Field tried to stop him from passing through the gate after the 2007 World Series moved from Boston to Denver. “Why don’t you ask Jeff Francis who I am,” Pedroia is said to have said, referencing the Colorado Rockies pitcher against whom he’d homered at Fenway Park in the first inning of Game 1.
Pedroia is something of a quixotic Hall of Fame candidate now. People will say the overall numbers just aren’t there. Then again, it’s possible that future Hall of Fame voters, in dismissing Robinson Cano’s candidacy because of all the failed drug tests, will view Pedroia as the legit best second baseman of his era.
That’s a story for five years from now.
For now, Red Sox fans should celebrate Dustin Pedroia for all that he contributed to the Boston Baseball Experience. Celebrate the range, celebrate the toughness around the bag, celebrate the man’s ability to uncork that little body of his and send fastballs over fences.
And celebrate the attitude. Pedro Martinez had it. David Ortiz had it. Baseball needs more of that. Baseball needs more Dustin Pedroias.
(Photo: Hannah Foslien/Getty Images)
Steve Buckley is a columnist for The Athletic. He was previously a sports columnist for the Boston Herald and The National Sports Daily. Earlier stops include covering baseball for the Hartford Courant, Tacoma News Tribune and Portland (Maine) Press Herald. Follow Steve on Twitter @BuckinBoston
