Last year she sent me Dustin Pedroia's autobiography because she really likes the guy she thought I might be interested. Of course, she couldn't resist sending a few items along with it:
To be honest, I probably never would have read Born to Play if someone hadn't bought it for me (as I previously mentioned, I can't ignore things loved ones gave me). I love autobiographies/biographies, but I have little interest in reading about someone's life who is my age. It feels like the only thing I'm going to get out of it is yet another "struggled against adversity to become successful" story, the idea of which bores me to dry heaves. Somehow, though, Pedroia's book is much worse than that.
Before I go on, I should make it clear that I love Pedroia as a ballplayer and am very happy he's playing for the Red Sox. He's fun to watch and is solid all around. I don't think I've ever been annoyed, exasperated, or angry watching him play. But dear god, he sounds like an insufferable person to be around in his book! The overall impression of him from the book is a relaxed, considerate, and friendly person, reading about how competitive he's been his whole life and how much he hates losing strikes me as a total lack of perspective on life in general. Thinking about being around that type of attitude puts me on edge.
But all that only points to a larger issue: the man has a MASSIVE Napoleon complex. Seriously, this seems to be the only reason the book was written. The adversity in Pedroia's life is that he's short and that feeds into everything in his life. At every stage, someone tells him "you're too short to be a ballplayer" (except, for some reason, his high school football coach put him in at starting quarterback). I get that he doesn't fit the mold for a professional baseball player, but about half of the pro ball players don't fit that mold. I love baseball to death, but there aren't many sports that have more variance in body types. So, Pedroia literally makes a list of all the people who doubted him so that he can rub his success in their faces. That's not really healthy behavior or a very good lesson to inspire with. He spends much of the book discussing how he trash talks to everyone (even coaches when he first meets them) like we're supposed to view that as an admirable trait.
Pedroia says in the Acknowledgments that "I want to share my story because I know a lot of fans will be able to relate to it in a positive way," but really, his story boils down to "I'm short and I worked hard." Sure, I guess there's a good message in there, but it's boring and totally unnecessary. Do you know how many pro-athletes worked hard to get there that didn't write books? Me either, but I do know it's lots. The short angle is really the hook for the whole book. His family was loving and supportive (which is awesome, for real) and his only struggles were broken bones that he obtained playing sports. Even his wife's battle with cancer seems artificial (I may got to hell for this). She spent her life baking in the sun and in tanning beds without proper protection. In a time when we know very well the danger of that, it feels like she knowingly brought on her struggles herself. Also, it just pushes forward the fallacy that if you work hard, you will be rewarded. That's the sort of mindset you can have when you're already successful (whatever your definition of success is). Many people work their asses off just to stay afloat.
Finally, because it's an autobiography, it has to detail his life to the point of writing except that the story was the same each step of the way so the book is incredibly redundant. I can't believe his co-writer, Edward J. Delaney didn't edit the text accordingly. Things will be repeated three times on the same page, even. Born to Play is a chore to read and kind of makes Pedroia seem a little insufferable. Fortunately, I only have to watch him play.
YOU ARE WRONG
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