Dustin Pedroia talks Hall of Fame
BALTIMORE - Dustin Pedroia is officially getting into another Hall of Fame Wednesday. First it was Woodlands High. Then it was Arizona State. Mix in the Arizona Fall League's Scottsdale Scorpions. And now, he is a Red Sox Hall of Famer.
As he said on the 'Baseball Isn't Boring' podcast, "I played for one organization. Every team I have been in their Hall of Fame."
The irony of the day that even with Pedroia pausing his life to fly across the country for his induction with Jonathan Papelbon, Trot Nixon and Elaine Weddington Steward, he is keeping his baseball wheels churning.
Yes, Pedroia is making sure the 12-year-old youth baseball team he coaches - the 'Dirt Dogs' - get their practice in, with Manager Dustin holding a workout for his team at Fenway Park.
He has it planned out. The workout. The induction. And when his three sons are out of the house, maybe a reintroduction into the big leagues via coaching or managing. (One major league club expressed interest in him as a manager this past offseason.)
There is, however, one bit of baseball uncertainty in Pedroia's world: His candidacy for the next Hall of Fame, the one in Cooperstown.
"Whatever happens, happens," he said. "I just know I gave everything I could to baseball and I’m sure in the future I will be back in the game once my kids are grown up. My career of baseball is not over. But I’m just proud of everything I did and hopefully the fans the people I played against respect that."
Pedroia will be on the National Baseball Hall of Fame for the first time on this next ballot. This is not news to the former Sox second baseman.
"I actually thought about this recently because somebody came up to me and asked me the other day. ‘Oh, you’re going to get into the Hall of Fame,'" Pedroia said. "I don’t know that because, one, I don’t really know how the voting works and the criteria and all of this. I kind of said to him, ‘Listen man, I played as hard as I could every day and I didn’t take one play off. And I won three World Series. I won one as a rookie, leadoff hitter. I won one as a three-hole hitter and played the whole year with a torn UCL in my thumb and nobody has played another game, never mind 179. And then I won one when I blew my knee out and I had to help my teammates and communicate them and lead them and help them and do whatever I can not on the field.’ So I don’t know what the criteria is. And I won every award there is except Comeback Player of the Year. I couldn’t get through that knee thing. I had a great career, man. I’m so proud of it. I played with unbelievable players. The people who helped me along the way were amazing.
"I did it right and I think people respected that because when I started playing baseball I was too small, I wasn’t good enough. It was always a negative. And by the end they all looked and me were like, ‘That’s the best player on the field’ I’m pretty sure for a lot of the games in my career they said that then. I don’t know what the criteria is. I’m just proud of what I did as a player. I respected the game and I love baseball. I’m trying to teach my kids to play the right way and to respect their opponent and respect the game."
The case for Pedroia as a Cooperstown Hall of Famer is a complicated one, in large part because of how injuries derailed his carer, particularly after the 2017 Manny Machado slide-induced knee ailment.
A superb look at the candidacy can be found at the Web site Cooperstown Cred, with one passage in the breakdown potentially standing out:
If you take his seven best seasons (by WAR), he ranks 16th in history among all second basemen, behind 12 Hall of Famers, Bobby Grich, Chase Utley, and Robinson Cano. Using Jay Jaffe’s JAWS system (which combines career WAR and best-7 WAR), Pedroia is ranked 20th, behind 13 Hall of Famers and ahead of 7 others. It should be noted that the 7 Hall of Fame second sackers behind Pedroia on this list, none were voted into the Hall by the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA); all were Veterans Committee choices.
While there will be plenty of reflection and acknowledgement going on throughout Wednesday's induction, the milestone is also going to serve as the springboard for Pedroia's next chance to prove his naysayers wrong.
Let the Hall of Fame debate truly begin.
"I feel like I had a great relationship with the writers. You know me. There were sometimes I talked (expletive) to everyone and they were like, ‘This guy needs to be seen.’ But I have to have fun," he noted on the podcast. "I had great relationships with writers. I had great relationships with everybody. I’m pretty sure the 15 years I played there is probably a handful of guys that don’t like me and everybody else loves me. That’s the way I wanted to do it. I treated everyone with respect.
"I spent my whole life I can’t do something so when the media was telling me how bad we were I think it just added fuel to the fire. I loved it. I miss it every day, still. I miss it, man. I wish I could play, but I can’t."