FORT MYERS, Fla. – This is not the first time that Dustin Pedroia has attempted to return from a major, immobilizing injury. Indeed, as painful and devastating as the broken navicular bone he suffered last June 25 was, the Red Sox second baseman may have faced an even more traumatic injury as a ninth grader – while also experiencing a recovery that bodes well for his comeback from last year’s foot fracture.

Pedroia was a ninth grader at Douglass Middle School in his native Woodland, Calif., outside of Sacramento. While most of his childhood had been spent on baseball fields, he was a talented multi-sport athlete.

Despite the suggestion by Woodland High baseball coach Rob Rinaldi that he weighed no more than 120 pounds, Pedroia held his own as a point guard and he also was asked to serve as the starting quarterback of his freshman football team. Given his size, it may seem hard to imagine the diminutive Sox star in such a role, but his sports instincts permitted him to play the position well.

“As you’ve seen, he’s certainly the quarterback of the infield. He directs traffic. He’s got great instincts whatever sport he plays,” said Rinaldi. “He’s so talented and such a leader that [playing quarterback] was natural for him.”

Yet while his talent and aptitude for the gridiron were evident, disaster struck against Elk Grove High School, a powerhouse that produced Bears linebacker Lance Briggs among other NFL players.

Pedroia was crushed on an option play. Literally, crushed.

“You’ve got to keep the linebackers away from the second baseman,” mused Rinaldi.

Pedroia needed to be helped to the sideline for a damage assessment. The injury that he discovered was horrifying.

“They pulled down my socks and my leg looked like it was the size of a basketball. Bones were shattered. It was awful,” Pedroia recounted in Born to Play: My Life in the Game. “They rushed me to the doctor and during that thirty-minute ambulance ride the only thing I kept thinking was, I’ll never be able to play baseball again.”

(While reports over the years suggested that the punishing tackle was delivered by Bears linebacker Lance Briggs, that narrative is likely grounded in myth. Briggs did go to Elk Grove, a football powerhouse, but he was two classes ahead of Pedroia, and thus would not have been playing freshman football at the time.)

The fractured leg required immediate surgery, and so it was easy to draw a conclusion that his high school career might be in some jeopardy even before it started. At the least, thought Rinaldi, Pedroia would miss the entirety of the season on the freshman team.

But Pedroia proved maniacal in his efforts to get back on the field. He was incredibly diligen in his rehab, working, Rinaldi recalled, with a trainer from the Sacramento Kings. In a harbinger of the way in which Pedroia approached his rehab from his foot injury last year, he also went to remarkable lengths to remain in baseball shape once the season started.

“He was out there every day, his normal self, taking grounders without moving and hitting off a tee in a chair,” said Rinaldi. “You’re never going to hold him out. He’ll never take days off. He’ll always find a way to do something. He spent that first half-year doing anything possible to get on the field.”

He missed part of the season – by Rinaldi’s estimate, about half of it – but was ready to re-enter games by the second half. His leg was declared structurally sound, but the months in a cast had taken a toll on his athleticism. The agility, quickness and fluidity that he normally displayed on a diamond were absent, but he still found a way to compete and contribute.

“When he finally got out there, he could barely move. His leg was still not 100 percent,” said Rinaldi. “But he could still hit line drives and field anything that got near him.”

That summer, Pedroia began working out with the Woodland High varsity team that Rinaldi coached. Pedroia had been around the program for years – his older brother, Brett, had played for Rinaldi – and there was little question that his talent justified a spot on the varsity roster.

Despite the physical strikes against him – both his size as well as his injury-diminished speed – it became clear that the future AL MVP deserved to be Woodland’s varsity starting shortstop, surpassing older and more experienced players for that role. 

“It took all of one weekend. We played him all of it, looked at ourselves and said, ‘Everybody else is going to have to move. We have our shortstop,’” said Rinaldi. “He never left that spot again.”

Pedroia was able to stand out while limited. Then, as the summer wore on, the restrictions fell by the wayside. By the middle of the summer, Pedroia’s hard work had paid off.

He had seemingly regained what he had lost while recovering from the surgery. And he had received a meaningful lesson in the work that would become essential to allowing him to maximize his talent.

“I would say halfway through the end of that summer going into his 10th grade year, he was back where he started,” said Rinaldi. “He worked so hard that whole fall and has continued to improve on his speed and agility to this day.”

The episode also helped to establish Pedroia’s priorities. The injury marked the end of his football and basketball careers, not because he feared injury in its own right, but instead because he realized that he could not do anything to risk his time on the baseball field.

“He loved football. He loved basketball. But to have baseball taken away while playing another sport, that hit home to him. He didn’t want that to happen again. He stuck with baseball,” said Rinaldi. “Getting hurt in football got him to where he said, ‘Baseball’s my dream, and I can’t afford to play these other sports and risk injury.’”

Clearly, the choice was a good one for Pedroia. Beginning in his sophomore year, he started amassing a long list of tremendous on-field accomplishments that, for a time, made him one of the country’s most underappreciated amateurs, and that eventually established him as one of the top players in the game as a member of the Red Sox.

A Rookie of the Year trophy, World Series ring and MVP plaque all serve as reminders that Pedroia is capable of overcoming a major injury. Perhaps that played into the confidence that the second baseman displayed on Friday, in his first spring training workout.

“My foot is repaired. There is a screw in there holding it together. It’s a ton better. I feel great. There’s not going to be any setbacks or anything like that,” Pedroia said. “It’s exciting [to be ready to play without health concerns]. It’s been a long time. I learned a lot from it. I’m excited about it.

“I don’t really think about it anymore,” he added. “I’m just going to go out there and do what I do and that’s it, man.”

For some, those sorts of declarations might seem like false bravado. But to Rinaldi, the claim represented a statement of fact rather than an idle boast.

“He will do everything possible to rehab, regain strength and improve his strength and agility,” said Pedroia’s high school coach. “I expect that he’ll come back not just 100 percent, but better than he was before the injury. No doubt about it. He’ll work as hard as he can work.”