Listening to Dustin Pedroia talk about playing in Boston, it's hard to imagine anyone who wouldn't be wooed to the city.
It's a reality that was put on display once again when Pedroia appeared on the Bradfo Sho podcast this week, helping set the scene for the 2021 season.
"Last year was tough, especially at Fenway. That’s the best place in the world to watch a baseball game and best fans in the world," he said in the latest installment of City of Boston Credit Union's "Uniquely Boston" series. "To play a season without fans in the ballpark, it’s going to be a lot better last year.
"There is really nothing like it. Obviously I have never played anywhere else but I have played at other parks enough to know that Boston is one of a kind. I went to every city multiple times over a long career and there is nothing like Fenway Park. It doesn’t matter if it is a Tuesday, Sunday or Friday. It doesn’t matter what day it is. It’s the best place on the planet to play baseball. As a player you get up for every single game. There’s nothing like it. I’m sure the few guys that haven’t been a part of being there, they are going to experience it a little bit this year because it’s not full capacity. But it’s going to be soon and when that time comes it’s a bolt of energy through you as a player."
But there was one who got away.
Every year, the Red Sox would use the second baseman as a recruiting tool. But it was the offseason heading into the 2015 campaign where Pedroia simply didn't have the answers ... in large part because his recruit, Jon Lester, didn't have any questions.
"Oh yeah. Every offseason," said the now-retired Pedroia when asked if he part of the plan when it came to drawing in offseason talent. "I think there are 750 or more players in the big leagues, but it’s a close-knit family. Shoot, you talk to guys all the time about certain players and certain people because everything is intertwined in baseball. There are people everywhere. We are all intertwined. People who are free agents or other players looking to get traded, you’re always talking. That’s just part of the game.
"I only lost one recruiting job and it was Jon Lester and I’m probably the closest to him as any of the guys I recruited. Everybody else but him."
Lester, of course, chose to the sign with the Cubs, going on to win a world championship while spending six seasons in Chicago.
It was a failed pitch Pedroia will never forget.
"To him, it was more like selling that we wanted to get back to doing what we were trying to do," he said. "Obviously we traded him (to Oakland). It’s different when you’re recruiting someone you’re so close with. We came up through every level together. I didn’t need to sell him on anything. He had been offered a contract. He had been traded. There was a lot going on and it was personal. All I can do is support him. He called me up and he was in tears saying he was signing with the Cubs. I was happy for him. We will be close forever. That was a tough part of the business, but that was the only one I was recruiting heavily that didn’t come. Trust me, I think he did enough for the Red Sox.
"I’m honest with everyone of them. I’m not here to pitch something that isn’t something. I said, ‘Listen man, it’s the best place on Planet Earth to play baseball.’ Does it have some downsides? One hundred percent. Our field is 120 years old. We don’t have the whirlpools, the big lockers and all the fancy stuff that I frankly don’t give two you-know-whats about because I care about playing baseball. We don’t have the sauna and all of that crazy stuff because we don’t have the space for it, which is fine. We do the best that we can with what we have. Once that game starts and once you go home and you’re in that city for a baseball season, you feel something you’re not going to feel anywhere else. It’s honestly like Little League, man. You get ready for a Little League game and you know how excited you are every single game. It’s like that for your job. That’s what I sell on. Once a baseball player hear that, that’s what they want."