MVPedroia
Tuesday, November 18, 2008 16:59Stand shortly and carry a big stick.
Going in the 2008 season, if someone told you that a member of the Boston Red Sox would win the American League MVP award, you wouldn’t have been surprised. Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, Mike Lowell… the Red Sox had plenty of strong options. But would you have put money on Dustin Pedroia, Boston’s diminutive 5′ 9″, 180-pound (if that) second baseman? Hats off if you did. And hats off to Pedroia, who capped off a fantastic offensive season by winning his second piece of personal off-season hardware in two years (he won the AL Rookie of the Year award in 2007).
Pedroia became the first AL second-baseman in 49 years to win the award and only the fourth in junior-circuit (tenth in major-league) history. Much like his counterpart at first base, Kevin Youkilis (who finished third in the balloting himself), Pedroia did anything and everything the Sox asked of him. Although he didn’t move across the diamond like Youkilis did in replacing the injured Lowell at third, Pedroia moved up and down the line-up, occasionally batting lead-off and clean-up in addition to his normal second spot.

Cassel’s numbers were excellent by any measure, let alone for a quarterback just figuring out his sea legs. He completed 30 of 51 passes for 400 yards, rushed for 62 yards on 8 carries, and threw 3 touchdowns. But what stood out the most was the poise he showed when the Patriots got the ball back down by 7 with 1:04 on the clock and no timeouts. Cassel engineered a perfect drive, calmly marching his team down the field and tying the game with one second remaining on a beautiful sideline touchdown pass to Randy Moss.









