BREAKING NEWS: DUSTIN PEDROIA IS SHORTER THAN MOST MLB PLAYERS

Seriously, sports media- give it a goddamn motherfucking rest. This is not basketball, where height is usually integral to one's performance. This is not football, where height is a huge asset for QBs, WRs, CBs, and DEs. This is not boxing or MMA. This is a sport where players on opposing teams make physical contact with one another about once every 40 games. This is a sport where being short provides a key advantage to a hitter (smaller strike zone) and doesn't exact hurt a second baseman's ability to field ground balls cleanly. Hell, soccer has way more physical contact in it than baseball, and short guys thrive there as high paid/high profile finishers. Wayne Rooney and Lionel Messi are both like 4'7". Pedroia deserves plenty of press for being a good player. He deserves absolutely none because of his height. Let's keep it that way. Right after I tear apart this article that some clown named Tim Brown wrote for Yahoo.

Pedroia stands tall for Boston

There was a time when the soul of the Boston Red Sox would be found within broad shoulders and towering frames, amid men who filled the role as they did the uniform.

Men who were complete and total assholes, like Ted Williams and Jim Rice.

Now there’s Dustin Pedroia.

Such deft juxtaposition! My head is spinning. Also- Pedroia is the only short star the Red Sox have ever had in their 100+ year history.

So, the organization leans a little more toward Kevin Youkilis and, of course, to Pedroia, who might not fill the uniform, but does the role as the new soul of the Red Sox.

He does fill the fucking uniform. It's a slightly smaller uniform than most MLB players wear. WHAT PERSEVERANCE AND HEART HE SHOWS JUST BY TAKING THE FIELD. Jesus Lord of all that is holy in heaven. The guy went to Arizona State, pretty much the best college baseball program of all time. This is not an underdog story. Stop trying to make it one. At least when writers get all up in Eckstein's jock, they're talking about a guy who isn't particularly good at the MLB level. Pedroia is good. He's been good for three years.

It is one thing to be league MVP (Pedroia was two seasons ago), another to lead a clubhouse splashed in champions,

CHAMPIONS WHO ARE ALL SLIGHTLY TALLER THAN HIM!!!

another still to get behind and push from an exaggeratedly reported 5-foot-9, with sloped shoulders over a body that, kindly, is less-than-classically constructed.

Oh my! Billy Beane would cringe at this description. A non-classically constructed body? Send him to the glue factory.

“I don’t know,” Pedroia said. “I just try to show up every day and play hard. That’s pretty much all every player can do.

Besides be tall.

We show up, play to win. If we win, we win. If we lose, you know, we try to go get ‘em tomorrow. Your attitude always has to be good and you have to do the little things to be a championship team. That’s what I’ve had to do my whole life to be successful.

You mean you haven't constantly focused on your physical stature, and tried to overcome the rough hand life dealt you?

The little things, that’s the biggest part of baseball.”

Right. The little things, like you.

“He’s a competitor, man,” Lackey said. “The dude is one of the most intense, driven players I’ve ever been around. His baseball sense is as high as I’ve ever seen.”

About that size, Lackey said, “He’s doing all right with it, isn’t he?”

I doubt this is really the case, but I hope that was Lackey subtly telling Brown "Why don't you go write about something else, you clod. No one cares that he's two or three inches shorter than many HOFers who never got this kind of attention."

“We’re grinding, man,” Pedroia said.

Of course they are. They can only follow their soul.

You're atrocious. You make me want to read a Rick Reilly column about a dwarf long jumper who was born blind but still made his high school track team.