Dustin Pedroia Completes The Hat Trick: Gold Glove, Silver Slugger, and MVP

Arizona State University coach Pat Murphy recalls the first time he met Dustin Pedroia, "He walked into my office in a cutoff-white t-shirt, his skin as white as the t-shirt, and he had the body of a sixth-grader." Pedroia flexed his biceps and said, "Hey, coach, how do you like these guns?" Pat Murphy's scouting reports on Pedroia had comments like, "He's a mouthy, cocky kid who's only about five foot six, but he can really play."  And, "He really believes he's Babe Ruth." In his first team meeting at ASU coach Pat Murphy was reminding the players that no individual was more important than the team.  Pedroia interrupted the coaches speech to chime in with, "I got to be honest, coach, you're going to win a lot more games with me than without me." Fastforward to 2007, Pedroia's first full season in the big show, the Red Sox won 97 games during the regular season.  Having only won 87 games in 2006 and 95 games in 2005, could there be truth to the statement he made as a ... (link)