More Pedroia...

I awoke this frigid Wednesday morning eager to open up the sports section and devour all of the MVP news...but it hasn't arrived yet. But the glow of the MVP award is still lighting Red Sox Nation, especially my little corner of it. The man himself, Dustin "Pedey" Pedroia, had this to say followed by a few syllables from the Boston skipper, Terry Francona...

"I'm not the biggest guy in the world. I don't have that many tools," he said. "If you saw me walking down the street, you wouldn't think I'm a baseball player."

"He's such a good player," Red Sox manager Terry Francona said. "When the game's on the line, he's a better player. I thought his whole game got better. I think he got more dangerous at the plate," Francona said. "He never gives away an at-bat."

Well said, Tito. Pedey joins the past Fenway MVPs Tris Seaker, Jimmie Foxx, Ted Williams (twice), Jackie Jenson, Carl Yastrzemski, Fred Lynn, Jim Rice, Roger Clemens and Mo Vaughn. Great company indeed. On another note, it seems that it happens every year when the writers are called upon to evaluate the players and list their MVP picks...and it happened again. One voter left Pedey off his ballot completely. Nada. He is none other than Evan Grant, who covers the Texas Rangers for the Dallas Morning News. Hey Evan, WAKE UP AND GO TO SLEEP! Here's what he sheepishly said after his monumental screwup. Oh, by the way, he had YOUK as his number one pick, so he's not ALL bad...my comments will be bracketed in caps.

“Where I may have [MAY HAVE?] screwed up,” said Grant, “is that I obviously didn’t give enough value [OR THOUGHT] to how much Dustin moved around and how timely some of his hits were. While I gave an awful lot of credit to Kevin Youkilis, I should have balanced that out more with credit to Pedroia [DUH!]. All the numbers I was looking at said, to me, that Youkilis picked up the slack when the injuries to Mike Lowell and David Ortiz hit, and I didn’t put enough value into what Pedroia did by moving around the lineup. Based on the votes of all my other colleagues, I misinterpreted how valuable Dustin Pedroia was [YOU SURE DID, DUMMY!]. If my statistical analysis was wrong [IT WAS], I am happy to see it didn’t prevent him from winning the award that my colleagues thought he deserved.”

Peter here, and yes Evan, I'm very happy your voting idiocy was monumentally unimportant. If it had been a closer race and Pedey lost by a handful of votes, your name would be mud in all parts of Red Sox Nation and Red Sox International. With a bounty on your head! But all's well that ends well, and this one truly did. Last year...rookie of the year. This year..the AL MVP. What's next, Pedey? I think I know the answer, so here goes. Continued excellence on the field and a "never give up at all costs" attitude at the plate. We love you, Pedey. We really would be lost without you.

Have a great Hump Day Wednesday as the air here in the northeast is a consistantly wind-driven COLD one. But such is life in mid to late November in this unpredictable northeastern part of our nation. Click on the title of this post for all of the MVP news and as always, BE WELL...forever, or longer...you can do it!