Former Red Sox 2018 World Series MVP (and future sports trivia answer) Steve Pearce Retires

Hello friends, how are you holding up during the Covid-19 pandemic? On a lighter note, do you remember baseball (or sports in general)? Other than what would have been MLB's opening day a few weeks ago (in late March which is always dumb) and the Fenway opener shortly after that, odds are that you haven't been thinking about the rebuilding Red Sox too much lately with more pressing matters in all of our daily lives. Still, hearing the news that utility/journeyman Steve Pearce had retired today from MLB at the age of 37 (poor guy had his birthday yesterday) took me away for a brief moment to his career highlight and basically the last great time with the Sox-the 2018 World Series victory vs. LA.

We don't have to review the myriad ways that baseball is trending towards irrelevance around the U.S. and especially with younger people but I'm willing to bet that many casual MLB fans outside of Boston have already forgotten that Pearce was the 2018 World Series MVP (and thankfully not that spoiled child David Price who was also nails in the gentleman's sweep of the Dodgers). The fact that a nobody like Pearce-who played for seven MLB teams including all five in the AL East-could capture such a big award is one of my favorite aspects of baseball. The inherent randomness of the game especially when it comes to best-of-five or best-of-seven playoff series is endearing and almost unheard of in the NBA or NHL. Granted, those leagues along with the NFL have plenty of unlikely heroes from time to time but to have that carry through for longer than a game or two only really happens in MLB.

Pearce wasn't a bad player (lifetime .254 hitter with 91 homers and 303 RBIs) but his body could never hold up for the rigors of the typical absurd 162-game regular season. In fact, due to injuries and lack of playing time, he only appeared in over 100 games just once in his entire 13-year MLB career (102 games in 2014 with Baltimore). Of course, we have to note that the Red Sox made a regrettable mistake signing him to a one-year deal worth $6.25 million dollars after his flash in the pan postseason run in 2018. Predictably, he only appeared in 29 games last season for Boston as surprise (!) they couldn't come anywhere close to the franchise-best 119 wins the year before (regular season + playoffs) and he battled numerous ailments.

He wasn't signed by anyone in the abbreviated spring training and with the coronavirus putting the 2020 MLB campaign in serious jeopardy barring any outside of the box idea coming to fruition (all games in Arizona and Florida or Japan), you can't blame Pearce for realizing that now is as good a time as any to officially call it quits. Haha let's not forget how grossly overpaid any half decent baseball player that sticks around as long as Pearce can be. For his professional career (this is where you grab the nearest barf bag), he made just under $30 million dollars ($29,435,000). I'd argue that it's harder to make it to MLB than any other professional sports league in America simply because of all the minor league levels you have to get through to reach the big leagues but maybe that should serve as a reminder to those with young boys to try and get them into baseball. Then again, that ship has probably already sailed and they prefer the excitement of basketball, football, soccer, lacrosse or hockey over the boring slog of baseball.

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