More photos » by Charles Krupa - AP

7 months ago: Boston Red Sox first baseman Chris Carter (54) is congratulated by teammates Jacoby Ellsbury, left, and Dustin Pedroia, right, after fielding a drive off the bat of Minnesota Twins' Denard Span to end the fifth inning during their spring training baseball game in Fort Myers, Fla., Thursday, April 2, 2009.(AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

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In a recent issue of Boston Magazine, Tommy Craggs wrote a fantastic feature on our second baseman, our MVP, our Scrappy Doo -- Dustin Pedroia. Here are a few excerpts to get you reading it:

People will scoff, but this has the virtue of being at least reasonably official, not to mention mostly consistent with the last measurement his father took, more than five years ago, when he leveled a yardstick on Pedroia's head and snicked a line onto the wall of the family garage. We can now say with some authority that, though he is not 5-foot-9 (as the media guide would have it), he is certainly not 5-foot-6 (as everyone else would have it) or 5-foot-5 (as he told reporters the other day) or 4-foot-8 (as a teammate told reporters during the 2007 American League Championship Series). He is not "part midget" (as one of his old coaches described him) or a "goddamn jockey" (as White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen called him). He is an inch shorter and a few pounds lighter than the American mean, and an inch taller and a few pounds heavier than the game's greatest second baseman, Joe Morgan, which suggests that he is as tall and as heavy as he needs to be.

Earlier in the month, when news broke that a Rodriguez sample from 2003 had tested positive for Primobolan, an anabolic steroid that cannot be sold or marketed in the United States, Pedroia was in Arizona, working out at Athletes' Performance, a sort of Muscle Beach for major-sport athletes. "When the Sports Illustrated report came out, we were sitting there," Pedroia recalls, "and this humongous football player laughed and looked at me and goes, 'You don't have to ever worry about that.' And I'm like, You know what? That pisses me off. Like, No shit. But my body's not that bad, know what I mean?"

And my favorite part of the story:

As it happened, the two teams met in the 2000 National Classic, one of the premier events in high school baseball. The squads were booked into the same hotel, and shortly after Woodland checked in, sure enough, in walked Patrick's team. Pedroia turned to Rinaldi. "Which guy is he?" he demanded. "Who?" "Patrick. Which guy is he?" Rinaldi pointed him out. "Go get him right now. Tell him I want to take ground balls in the parking lot right now. We'll see who's better."

The more and more I know about this guy, I can not help but be completely in love with the fact he plays for us. He is a Boston Red Sox and we need to be proud of that fact alone.