Dustin Pedroia can't bring himself to say it, even now, even after going through a knee surgery that didn't really take, even after playing just nine games the past two seasons. He has diligently followed the recommendations of doctors and athletic trainers, and endured hours, days, weeks and months of rehabilitation, and it hasn't paid off.
He still can't play baseball. Imagine the frustration in that, and imagine what it has been like for someone with a Little Leaguer's craving for the game to watch other people play.
He can't utter the obvious. He won't, maybe ever. After his most recent minor league rehabilitation was truncated by persistent knee pain and he was placed on the 60-day injured list, Pedroia met with reporters Monday, and he was asked if he will play again.
"I'm not sure," Pedroia responded, refusing to state what seems obvious now, that this part of his professional life is over. The respect for him runs so deep in the Boston Red Sox organization that nobody will push him to say what he didn't say Monday. His playing career won't end on his terms, but he'll decide, and nobody else, when and if he acknowledges it.
Pedroia turns 36 in August, and while his contract with the Red Sox runs through two more seasons, 2020 and 2021, a medical miracle will likely be required for him to contribute more than abbreviated, ceremonial or congratulatory appearances as a player. His situation seems very much like that of the Mets' David Wright, a star player robbed of years on the field by injury. Wright had one final and glorious sendoff last September, after the Mets sorted through the insurance implications of his exit, and it's possible something similar could happen for Pedroia.
But maybe not. Maybe it's a more fitting ending for someone as willful as Pedroia to never acknowledge a finish line, just as he ignored all of his perceived physical limitations.
Not big enough. Not strong enough. Not fast enough. He never surrendered to any of that; hell, he blasted through with his remarkable hand-eye coordination, a relentless work ethic and competitive arrogance. Nobody around 5-foot-6 is supposed to mash 95 mph high fastballs thrown by monsters a foot taller, but he did. Nobody who weighs about 155 pounds is supposed to hit for power, but he did. After seasons of excellence at Arizona State, Pedroia was shocked he fell to the second round, because he figured at some point, prototypes shouldn't matter and results should. When Pedroia arrived at Fenway Park for the first time, he was miffed, and promised members of the Boston front office in so many words that he would reach the big leagues before any of the 63 players taken ahead of him, and that a laser show would commence thereafter.
Little more than two years later, Pedroia was summoned. When Boston hosted the Giants at Fenway Park and another notable Arizona State alum reached second base, Pedroia walked over to Barry Bonds and apologized for breaking his Sun Devil records, and Bonds laughed. Because with Pedroia, his peers recognized that the cockiness and the love for the game came from a great place, and was always pure.
If it hadn't been, then his first big league mentor probably wouldn't have helped Pedroia in the way that Alex Cora did. But Cora, the product of an old-school baseball family, immediately recognized Pedroia's passion and devotion to getting better. Otherwise he never would have pulled the second baseman aside in the midst of the brutal start to his career, and encouraged him to hit the ball to the opposite field, to use the big, open spaces.
After Pedroia won the Rookie of the Year award, the Red Sox and Pedroia's representatives began to talk about a long-term contract, but the initial offer from Boston was lower than expected. Front-office executives explained that Pedroia wasn't really a base-stealing threat, and when Pedroia told Cora, the older player assured Pedroia he could help him steal 20 bases, no problem. Just pick the right situations, the right counts, the right pitchers. Throughout the 2008 season, Pedroia would look over to the Red Sox dugout and look for a go-ahead from Cora, and that year, he stole 20 bases in 21 attempts. Cora never would've extended himself in that way if not for the earned respect for the way Pedroia goes about his work.
Pedroia has lived near Fenway and on most days has been the first player in the clubhouse, in full uniform hours before first pitch, taking extra ground balls, hitting as much as possible. You might be tempted to say he did all the extra work because he needed to, but it's probably closer to the root truth that he did it because he loved it.
The Astros' Alex Bregman tells a story about being a batboy for the University of New Mexico, when he was 9 or 10 years old, and on the final day of a home weekend series, the Lobos got absolutely pounded. A player on the visiting team came to bat in the last inning of a one-sided game, and as Bregman recalls, this player had already had a big day, with multiple hits. When he hit a ground ball in the last inning, however, Bregman watched as that player raced to first, hell-bent on beating the throw. Bregman can't remember whether he was safe or out; it was that effort that made an impression, and it was that player's intensity -- the intensity of Arizona State's Dustin Pedroia -- that Bregman and his dad talked about on the drive home, a moment Bregman would relive for Pedroia after reaching the big leagues.
"That makes me feel old," Pedroia said.
He is old now, in the baseball context, but nobody will try shove him into retirement. Dave Dombrowski, the head of baseball operations for the Red Sox, has handled Pedroia's situation with understanding and appreciation, and so has his manager, Cora. He wants time now, and they'll give him time.
When Manny Machado stepped on the ankle of the Brewers' Jesus Aguilar during the playoffs last fall, Red Sox players were livid, because it was a reminder that Machado's slide into Pedroia's knee on April 21, 2017, effectively ended Pedroia's time as an every-day second baseman -- their anger perhaps rooted more in what the play took away from Pedroia than the slide itself. Because he has been unable to accumulate the production necessary to reach important benchmarks, like 2,000 hits and 1,000 runs, Pedroia's resume for possible Hall of Fame induction might not have quite enough.
Nobody who has played baseball has cherished it more. The old saying is that Father Time is undefeated, and that winning streak will apparently continue with Dustin Pedroia's career. But he might never acknowledge it out loud, and that's the way it should be.