Thank you, Mr. Pedroia

With Dustin Pedroia announcing his retirement, it was time I re-shared the story of when I first met him. It was originally posted on a long-since defunct website that I maintained to convince sportswriters why they should vote for Jim Rice to get inducted into Cooperstown.  But that website was taken down about 10 years ago, so it this is a perfect time to retell this, as many of my readers will be seeing it for the first time. 

This story starts sometime in the winter of 2004, when while still basking in the afterglow of a RED SOX WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONSHIP, our family decided that we would go to Disneyland for 2005 spring break. The plan was to leave Saturday morning, spend two days driving there (about a 2 500 km/1,500 mile trip from Calgary), get a five day multi park pass, and spend the next weekend driving back home. Coincidentally (honestly – we had decided on the trip before I found this out), the Red Sox were going to play their last two spring training games in Phoenix against the Diamondbacks at their home stadium on the Thursday and Friday of the week we were planning on being in LA.