BASEBALL
Red Sox second baseman Pedroia retires
BOSTON -- Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia, who was the AL Rookie of the Year in 2007 and the MVP in his second season but played in a total of nine games in the last three years because of a knee injury, retired on Monday.
A four-time All-Star who was the longest-tenured player on the Red Sox roster, Pedroia played in two World Series over 17 seasons and collected a third ring in 2018, when he was injured. In his career, he batted .299 with 140 hone runs and 725 RBI.
"I never took one play off, from Little League on," Pedroia said on a videoconference with reporters on Monday. "At some point, you can't play anymore. And this is the time."
Pedroia, 37, is the only player ever to earn Rookie of the Year, Gold Glove and MVP awards along with a World Series championship in his first two full seasons. Only nine other players have accomplished those feats in their entire career.
But his career effectively ended early in the 2017 season when Baltimore's Manny Machado slid into second base, spikes-up, and connected with Pedroia's left leg. Pedroia played in 105 games that year but had surgery afterward. He admitted to rushing back in 2018, when he lasted only three games before going back on the injured list. The Red Sox won the World Series over the Los Angeles Dodgers later that fall.
"We had a lot of young guys. and at that time it was my job to help them come along and teach them things I was taught when I was a young player," he said. "I hope I did enough and set the right example in the city of Boston."
In 2019, Pedroia played just six games. He continued to speak of a comeback before having what the Red Sox said was a "significant setback" in the offseason. He did not play at all in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season,
