Dustin Pedroia Has Suffered A "Significant Setback" With His Left Knee
Per a writer that covers Boston sports, Dustin Pedroia has suffered a “significant setback” with his left knee.
I mean, my stance on this isn’t going to change. It’s going to evolve a little bit today, but the root of it is not going to change. I support whatever decision Pedroia makes regarding his baseball career. The fans and media who are calling for Pedroia to retire have never once in their lives been given the choice of A) give up and forfeit $25 million or B) keep trying to fight for your dream job. It’s an impossible situation.
I’ve always been in the camp of supporting Pedroia in whatever he decides to do. If he wants to continue to undergo surgeries and battle through rehab in an attempt to step back on a major league diamond, then who is anyone to tell that man that he can’t do that or that he shouldn’t at least try? He’s under contract. It’s guaranteed money. That’s his money that he earned.
However, I’m just starting to get concerned with the mental health aspect of all this. I’m thinking of Dustin Pedroia the human being, not Dustin Pedroia the baseball player. We saw for years how crazy this man is, and I mean that as a term of endearment. When he broke his foot in 2010, he was taking ground balls on his knees and taking batting practice while kneeling on a folding chair. He’s a baseball robot. There isn’t much that can get him to stop playing baseball. Then, this happened.
He’s one of the fiercest competitors I’ve ever seen play the sport. So, to put myself in his shoes with this injury, knowing that he’s played just nine baseball games since the end of the 2017 season, and now seeing yet another setback after there had been so many prior to this, I just have a genuine concern for his mental state. It’s like climbing a mountain for two years and right before you get to the top, another mile worth of mountain appears. It would drive me insane. I just feel for the guy. All he wants to do is play baseball, and his body won’t let him. Why? Because he played baseball so hard for so many years leading up to this point.
His baseball resume came at the cost of his physical health, and what a resume it is. He’s a Rookie of the Year, an MVP, a two-time World Series champion, four-time All Star, four-time Gold Glover, a Silver Slugger award-winner, and the list goes on and on. Should he decide that it’s time, that resume speaks for itself. Should he decide that he still has something to prove, even if that something is simply suiting up one last time in a major league game, then I support that and will be rooting for him.
PS — Since every team is hiring popular former players to manage these days, the Red Sox should just hire Pedroia to manage on a two-year, $25 million contract. Boom, done. Everyone wins.