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Sports Illustrated's cover story on Dustin Pedroia is available on line. Sometimes we throw the term 'must read' around lightly, but this is truly a must read. Fantastic job by Tom Verducci.
I'm not ashamed to say that it gave me goosebumps more than once. Read it, read it, read it, read it, read it. Read it.
Here's a smattering of some quotes and anecdotes from the story.
Before Game 3 of that Series, the Red Sox were walking into Coors Field when a security guard sized up Pedroia, took him for an intruder rather than a ballplayer, and insisted that he produce I.D. Pedroia didn't break stride. Recalling the bomb he hit with his first Series swing, he barked, "I'm the guy who took Jeff Francis onto the Mass Pike. How's that?"
"Scrappy is the word he can't get away from," Epstein says. "It's bull---- because it undersells him, [says] that all he's doing is outworking people. He's a great baseball player."
"I love that little [guy]," says White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen. "It looks like he escaped from Cirque du Soleil and they put a uniform on him."
After Pedroia and Murphy finished talking, Pedroia sent his coach a text. The 5'8" rookie who was hitting .180 and getting hammered in the press typed out this message: I'm about to put Red Sox Nation on my back.
After his second season with Boston, he signed so quickly and so cheaply for such a long-term deal (six years, $40.5 million, with a team option for a seventh year) that even Epstein admitted, "We almost felt guilty adding an option year. He said, 'I love it here. I want to be here.' He encouraged [us to make] it as long as possible."
Says Francona, "I have never met anybody like him. Not Pete Rose, not anybody. That kid is everything about baseball wrapped up in that little f------ body."
If you didn't appreciate Dustin Pedroia before (and if you have a pulse and enjoy baseball in the slightest, I don't know how that's possible), you certainly will after reading that. Kinda makes you wanna give the little guy a hug.
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