*Photo from the Boston Globe*
2018 World Series MVP Steve Pearce has retired from baseball, according to an announcement Pearce made on Boston sports radio station WEEI. The 37 year old Pearce said he was "unofficially retired" earlier in the offseason when he hit the free agent market, but has since decided to officially retire. Pearce had a 13 season MLB career.
Pearce played in just 29 games for the Boston Red Sox in 2019 due to injury. He hit .180 with one homer and 9 RBI in those 29 games. In his 13 year career, Pearce is a .254 hitter with 91 homers and 303 RBI, with 13 career stolen bases. Pearce has suited up for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Baltimore Orioles, Houston Astros, New York Yankees, Tampa Bay Rays, Toronto Blue Jays, and the Red Sox in his career, spending time with every AL East team.
Pearce is happy with his playing career, saying on WEEI that "It has been a good run. I have 10 years of MLB service time in there. Right now, I am officially retired." Pearce was acquired by the Red Sox in July of 2018, prior to the trade deadline in order to bolster their depth, but Pearce played a key role in their world series run. Not only experiencing a surge in the regular season, Pearce had several clutch moments in the world series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, including homering twice in the 5-1 game 5 win for the Red Sox that gave them their 4th title in 15 years. He took home World Series MVP honors as a result of his performances.
Pearce didn't just announce his retirement on the radio. He also offered his take on the 2018 Red Sox being under investigation for alledgedly stealing signs during their world series run. He was adamant that the Red Sox did nothing wrong, and that when the report by Rob Manfred is released, the team and their title will be proven innocent. The investigation into the team is complete, but MLB hasn't released the results due to the ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic worldwide. The accusations came after their manager in 2018, Alex Cora, was found to be the mastermind of the 2017 Houston Astros sign stealing scheme.
Pearce said of the investigation that "That's such a joke to us, when it came out, we were all kind of joking about it. We just want this to pass us. We won it fair and square. Whatever they accused us of, we were all kind of like, 'I can't believe this is even an issue.' Once the report comes out, we're all going to be free. You don't like it, especially that we were the champions and, individually, I have that award, and we have this floating over our head when we just had such an unbelievable season. We had the perfect team and great camaraderie with everybody and then this gets thrown out here. We're just like, 'What the heck?' ... We just want this to pass us. We just want to play some baseball. Another bump in the road, I guess."
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