Perhaps, the first time you saw him, and after only a few minutes, a few swings, Dustin Pedroia was a victim of his surroundings. From your perspective.
His head tilted back, his chin in front, all tough guy, asking for his best shot. His gray eyes, shoulders bulged, legs arched. Black-stained cheeks. Carrying what looked like a goddamn steering paddle and walking like it was better not to be moved.
By himself, this guy was powerful. He was Herculean.
So, because he would have to stand next to a catcher, a first baseman, a referee, maybe a batboy, the real Dustin Pedroia came along. Maybe 5 feet-9. Maybe seventy dollars. So, the first time you saw it, you didn’t get it at all.
And then you did.
And after a little while, after a second look, you thought, “This guy is powerful. He’s Herculean. “
He retired on Monday after 14 seasons with the Boston Red Sox, aged 37. He barely played in the past three years because he had left the functional parts of his knee in some dirt around some second base. He was twice a World Series winner, an MVP and a Rookie of the Year, a .299 hitter with 140 home runs that in more than 1,500 games hit 30 times more than he walked.
However, there are a lot of numbers, all in one paragraph, so you could barely see the real Dustin Pedroia there. The guy who walked into Pat Murphy’s Arizona office for the first time wearing a tight white blouse, curled his arms in a dramatic motion and announced, “Do you like those guns, bro?”
Murphy looked at this boy who hadn’t eaten a hundred pounds yet, at the arms so pale and unworthy of a tight white T-shirt and said, “Can you get a ground ball?”
Almost 20 years ago. After the All-American teams. Eighteen hundred and some great league successes ago. Four All-Star games ago.
Murphy, who could also be a little stormy, watched the show for a while, considered everything that moved Pedroia and how he played and the influence he was having on the program and one day said to him, “Double it, Dustin” .
“He walked around like he was the best shortstop in the country,” said Murphy. “And soon he was.”
On Monday afternoon, Pedroia sat down at the computer to say that she was no longer going to play baseball. Your body wouldn’t accept it. He said he was fine with that. Occasionally, he wiped his eyes. His beard was coated with ash. Behind him, over his left shoulder, a hammock hanging from the ceiling, his batting cage, built to mimic that of Fenway Park.
He said he will raise his three children at home, the way his parents raised him. He will be a coach on the baseball fields and a rebound in the garage and, while he can, and depending on how difficult the math is, a tutor at the kitchen table.
“That education from the state of Arizona,” he said with a smile, “I need to talk to someone about it.”
Sam Kennedy, president of the Red Sox, told the story of the team that recruited Pedroia in the second round in 2004, his first choice, and then general manager Theo Epstein calling the new player with the news. Pedroia answered and Epstein introduced himself.
“Mano,” said Pedroia, “sixty-fifth? what took you so long? “
Thus was born a relationship of player, team and city that was rare and could only be. They went to October 6th together. They rode on duck boats. They lost some and won a lot. They arrived early, played a lot and drank beer and together, almost always, they added a little more than they should have. A manager’s most difficult task is to find nine guys on a list who want to play – and want to play hard – almost every day for six, maybe seven months. Dustin Pedroia was in uniform at 5:30 every night. And when the teammates bothered him, he would smile and say, “Hey, you never know if the game is going to start early, right?”
“I thought I was in love,” said Alex Cora, who played alongside Pedroia and then directed him. “I thought I loved the game more than anyone else. He arrived before me. “
Dustin Pedroia will continue to love the game, only now from afar and with a scar that goes, according to him, “from the shin to the quadriceps”. He’ll love his kids’ baseball and everything else they love. He’ll probably remember the big hits and the biggest moments, but more often from teammates and friends and the dark nights at Fenway when they were all there together, when they would be measured not by how tall, heavy or imposing, but who they were with.
“I never made a move, from Little League onwards,” he said. “And then at some point, you can’t play anymore. And this is the time. “
They stayed with him. With Dustin Pedroia, powerful, Herculean.
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Originally published