Boston Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia, who hasn’t played since 2019 because of a knee injury suffered two seasons earlier, announced his retirement Monday.
“Could it have ended better and I finished my career the right way? Yeah of course,” Pedroia said on a Zoom call with the media. “But there was a reason I was the first one dressed at 5:30 for a 7 o’clock game. I always tell my teammates that you never know if the game is going to start early. My biggest thing in my mind was that this could be my last game and you don’t know. That’s the best way I approached it from Little League on. I had the best time playing.”
As a Red Sox fan, Pedroia’s retirement is no surprise. He hasn’t been physically able to play for years, since he got injured by a Manny Machado slide at second base. It is sad nonetheless. In his prime, he was fun and exciting to watch, and embodied the quality I enjoy seeing the most as a fan: “the love of the game.”