Pedroia: "You've Created A Monster"

Hacks with Haggs has an exceptional interview with Arizona State University baseball coach Pat Murphy. Dustin Pedroia played for Murphy at ASU from 2002-2004.

One snip:

One time we're playing Fullerton or something like that and he's a freshman and he strikes out to lead off the game, which is something he rarely ever does, and I come over to Dustin and say 'Hey Dustin, how was that slider?' and he says back to me 'Coach ... that thing is so nasty.' Well the rest of the team heard him say that and they're going to start thinking it's nasty and if Pedroia can't hit that slider then the rest of them can't hit it either.

I pulled him aside and I said 'Pedroia, for the rest of your life if someone asks you about a pitch you say 'ah ... it's alright but I should have hit it.'

But now you've got the other side of it where you've created a monster and for the next three years every time ... every time you asked Pedroia how the pitchers stuff was he would say 'this guy sucks ... he's terrible.' ...

Oh my God ... when we were facing a pretty good pitcher from Wichita State or Duke or something he'd lead off the game and hit a line drive and come running past the pitcher yelling 'you better get used to it ... I'm going to be hitting rockets off you all day.' Then he hits a home run against [Mike] Pelfrey and he yells to him '97 mph coming in and 197 mph going out' as he's rounding the bases. He'd just be chirping the whole game.