August 17, 2010
Appreciating Pedroia's impact
by Lenny Megliola/
Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia has erased all the doubts that followed him early in his career. (photo: Getty Images)
There are plenty of reasons for Red Sox fans, heck any baseball fan, to favor and appreciate Dustin Pedroia, and it’s not just because he’s David mixing it up with the Goliaths.
Fans are accustomed to seeing Pedroia turn a single into a double, or lay out to stab a sizzling grounder destined for the outfield and turn it into a 4-3 in your scorecard. Where David Ortiz was once the hitter Red Sox fans wanted to see up in the clutch late in the game, that designation is now Pedroia’s, lifted from the biggest player on the team to the smallest.
But here’s the thing about Pedroia that really grabs you, if you appreciate the little things and not just the little guy. It’s the way he runs everything out like it’s the start of the 50-yard dash. No matter if he hits a two-hopper to an infielder, or taps one back to the mound, Pedroia goes all out. It’s the only gear he has. The only way he’s ever played the game.
He was playing the game that way when he came up to the Red Sox, and struggled mightily. During that time, before a Saturday game, I was co-hosting a show from the WEEI studio at Fenway Park. Over the next three hours, callers lambasted the little punk playing second base. Who was this guy, anyway, and how could the Red Sox brass think he was major league-ready? He was barely hitting his weight, slight as it was.
The callers implored Sox manager Terry Francona to play Alex Cora instead. Pedroia, the yakkers insisted, needed to go back to Pawtucket.
It was a serious matter back then. It seems laughable now.
He is the most popular Red Sox player, agreed? He’s wrested that honor, too, from Big Papi. Check out the number of PEDROIA 15 jerseys at Fenway Park next time.
To get to where he is, with Rookie of the Year and MVP hardware already gleaming off the shelf, Pedroia had to spit in the eye of every naysayer he encountered along the way. He was too small; he swung too hard; he’d never make it. The doubters drove him, of course. His cockiness wasn’t a front. He really believed he could do great things.
He’s no natural. It was all about hard work, and dedication to the little things, like taking an extra base, making a terrific relay, a slide just out of the reach of the fielder. He plays the game with the glee of a Little Leaguer, and he pretty much still looked like one.
When Pedroia beat the Dodgers with a walkoff hit in June, he did it against the behemoth closer, Jonathan Braxton. At his locker later, Pedroia said when he stepped into the batter’s box, the 6-foot-4, 270-pound Braxton “looked nine feet tall.” WBZ reporter Johnny Miller quipped, “everyone must look nine feet tall to you.” The media crowded around Pedroia filled the big room with its laughter.
All Pedroia said was, “Geez, Johnny.” Ordinarily, a wise-guy response could have been expected from Pedroia, if some other reporter had made that remark. But Miller, who has covered the team for decades and was born with a slight case of cerebral palsy, is somewhat of a Boston institution, and has been known to say things to the players where other reporters fear to tread.
Days later, Miller told me he knew he could “get away” with saying what he did to Pedroia.
A few days after his game-winning hit against the Dodgers, Pedroia had the game of his life, at Colorado’s Coors Field. He went 5-for-5 with three homers, including the game-winner in the 10th inning of a 13-11 win. The game lasted 4:48. “I’m just happy we won,” said Pedroia.
If that was the high point, the lowest came less than 24 hours later, in San Francisco, when Pedroia fouled off a pitch and fractured a bone in his left foot. To see the hyper Pedroia in the dugout with crutches and wearing a walking boot was depressing. He’d gone from the 5-for-5 performance to the disabled list in a blink of an eye.
Pedroia had been on a tear too, raising his average from the .250s to .292. He’d hit 12 homers already. His career-high is 17. Defensively, he was brilliant. This might have been a season in which Pedroia would have finished in the top five in Most Valuable Player voting. The injury put a halt to that.
No doubt, though, that he is the Red Sox’ MVP. They couldn’t wait to get him back. Pedroia was probably counting the days, and on at least one of them he ditched the crutches, dropped to his knees and fielded some grounders. Who does that?
As obvious as his passion for the game is, this gesture might have even surprised some of his teammates. But it also reinforced the notion that there’s nobody quite like him. If Francona ever gets around to writing his memoirs, you already know whom his all-time favorite player will be.
Dustin Pedroia is on the fast track to one day stand aside Bobby Doerr as the best Boston second baseman ever. And Doerr’s enshrined in Cooperstown.
Get the picture?
