Dustin Pedroia's long-anticipated departure from Major League Baseball became official Monday when the Boston Red Sox announced their second baseman was retiring, an end hastened by a litany of leg ailments his last five seasons.
Pedroia, 37, played just nine games from 2018-2020, sitting out all of last season with a chronic knee injury, and he won't attempt to play in 2021, the final year of an eight-year, $110 million contract.
Yet the slow goodbye can't diminish Pedroia's lightning-quick and unprecedented start to his career, nor his greater import to the Red Sox since they drafted him in the second round of the 2004 draft out of Arizona State.