SoxSpace Book Review: by Jared Carrabis
Born to Play: My Life in the Game by Dustin Pedroia


I’m going to try out a new feature on SoxSpace and start doing book reviews.

I graduated high school three years ago, and made it all the way through all four years without ever reading a book. I guess that’s because forcing students to read something that they don’t want to read is never going to end well.

Anyway, since I graduated, I picked up reading baseball books as a hobby during the off-season to keep me from going insane when there was no baseball to be watched or played. I’ve enjoyed it so much that, despite a busy schedule, I’ve continued to read baseball books during the regular season.

I liked this most recent book that I read so much that it inspired me to start doing book reviews here on SoxSpace. Who would have thought!

The book is called Born To Play: My Life In the Game, by Dustin Pedroia, with Edward J. Delaney.

When had first gotten word that Pedroia was coming out with a book, I immediately preordered a copy, and had it in my hands on the first day that it hit shelves. However, since I always commit to reading books, as if they can hear me make them these promises, I didn’t get around to reading it until recent weeks.

Just to give you an idea of how awesome this book was, I always put sticky notes on the pages that have the best quotes that I like to refer back to. By the time I had finished Born To Play, the book had more sticky notes than a stack of actual sticky notes.

Before you begin the book, you have to understand Pedroia’s sense of humor. If you picked up this book without any prior knowledge to who he was, you may find him to be arrogant and cocky, but he is neither.

The book tells his tale from diapers to the World Series, as Pedroia exemplifies what it means to overcome adversity and to never give up. For those who have a dream, baseball or not, this book will help motivate you to a level that you did not think was possible.

It will have you laughing, and it will get your heart pumping, as you relive the great moments of his baseball career that Pedroia has shared with us as Red Sox fans.

By far, my favorite quote from this book was, "From then on, I made it perfectly clear that whoever was going to crush me was going to get crushed, too. And I turned all that s--t people were throwing at me into motivation. I was going to prove everybody wrong. And if they didn't like me, then f--k them. I am who I am."

If that doesn’t get you motivated to get out there and be somebody, then you might need to check your pulse.

To order Born To Play: My Life In the Game, click HERE!

I can’t promise that I can make this a weekly, or monthly feature. It’ll more than likely going to be random. Basically whenever I finish a book, I’ll write about it.

Next up: Beyond Belief: Finding the Strength To Come Back, by Josh Hamilton, with Tim Keown

Published on July 22, 2010

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