Looking back at the month of April when Dustin Pedroia was barely hitting his weight, you wouldn’t have even thought that he could be the AL Rookie of the Year. Then as the season went on when he started hitting around Miguel Cabrera’s weight, you could definitely see him being the rookie of the year.

This afternoon, the BBWAA (Baseball Writer’s Association of America) made it official, Pedroia is your 2007 American League Rookie of the Year. He becomes the first Red Sox rookie to win the award since Nomar Garciaparra did it back in 1997.

Pedroia put up excellent numbers in his rookie campaign. His .317 batting average was the highest ever by a rookie second baseman, breaking the record of Jim Viox set back in 1913 when Viox played for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

He started out the season with a rough April, hitting .182 and Red Sox Nation was calling for Alex Cora to play second base. Terry Francona stuck with the kid and he responded by hitting .405 in May. He continued the trend by hitting. 333 in June, .299 in July, .346 in August and .302 in September. For the season, he hit .317 with 8 home runs and 50 RBIs. He also made only 6 errors on the season which was good for a .990 fielding percentage.

Pedroia will be holding a press conference later in the day today from his alma mater, Arizona State University.

Continue reading to find out the National League Rookie of the Year.

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Hopefully today will bring two things to the Boston Red Sox:

1. Mike Lowell signs with the Red Sox
2. Dustin Pedroia wins the AL Rookie of the Year

As I stated in an earlier post, this is the last day the Red Sox can exclusively negotiate with Mike Lowell or any of their free agents. When the clock strikes midnight tonight, the free agency frenzy begins and other teams can start throwing big money and longer contracts at him or any of the free agents on the market. So needless to say most of Red Sox Nation will be sitting on the edge of their seats all day waiting for what is hopefully good news on the Lowell front.

Pedroia is the favorite to win the AL Rookie of the Year and his hitting coach Dave Magadan didn’t think Pedroia would make through the end of the season with his broken hamate bone.

“We realized at that point, with two months to go in the season, what a huge part of the offense he was. We were never really able to relax with him. He may have been relaxed, I don’t know. But I was always on the edge of my seat wondering. It’s not like he takes a nice, easy swing. He’s pretty violent through the zone. We were just praying that it wouldn’t fracture any worse. We were very fortunate because without him at the end of the year, and even into the postseason, who knows what would have happened?”

So needless to say, Pedroia was risking a lot by playing with the injury. You can check out what else Magadan had to say by clicking in the first Boston Herald link below.

Magadan praises determined Dustin [Boston Herald]

A few select words [Boston Globe]

Lowell deadline tonight [Boston Herald]

Sox, spouses take a hit for charity [Boston Globe]

Bubble bursts on eBay sale of Terry’s chew [Inside Track]

Breakdown of Curt Schilling’s contract [Extra Bases]

For more headlines and stories, head over to the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Providence Journal, and Hartford Courant websites.

One of the best outfielders in Japanese baseball, Kosuke Fukudome, has filed for free agency from his team the Chunichi Dragons. The move paves his way to explore the possibility of coming over here to play in MLB.

Fukudome does not have to go through the same posting system that Daisuke Matsuzaka had to because he is a free agent. This will be of benefit to the teams who are interested in signing him because they will not have to pay the Dragons a dime.

Fukudome’s play has been compared to Akinori Iwamura’s and he possesses some power and likes to spray the ball in the gaps.

In his career with the Dragons, he has hit .305 with 192 home runs and 647 RBIs. He projects to hit about .280 with 15-20 homers and 80-100 RBIs. Those numbers are pretty similar to what J.D. Drew projected to this year for the Red Sox.

So who is interested and where does he end up? Only time will tell. The Dragons have offered him a 1-year contract and also a multi-year contract.

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Well his goatee that is.

From the girls at the Inside Track:

That Red Sox Golden Glover Kevin Youkilis will shave off his goatee tomorrow night to raise some dough for his Hits For Kids charity. Yooooouk will take it all off for a $5,000 donation from Gillette at the Cask ’n Flagon at 5 p.m.

I only wonder if he plans on growing it back for next season. Otherwise, we go back to this Youk.

It’s going to be a busy week for the teams in MLB as the deadline looms on the exclusive negotiating period with their free agents. When the clock strikes midnight tonight, free agents can talk to any of the teams about a contract for next year and years to come.

So what does this mean for the Red Sox? It means that they better hope their contract offer of 3-years $36 million is good enough for Lowell or they risk the potential of losing him. I fully expect Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein to be burning up the phones of Lowell’s agents, the Levinson brothers, all day today.

It will be interesting to see what happens with other free agents like Alex Rodriguez, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, Barry Bonds, Francisco Cordero and others.

There is a fantasy baseball impact on this as well as many of you out there participate in fantasy baseball leagues. Some of you participate in AL-only and NL-only leagues as well as mixed leagues. With some of this AL and NL-only leagues being keeper leagues, your hoping that your star free agent on your team doesn’t switch leagues. I’ve had this happen to me when Jim Thome was a free agent with the Indians. He ended up signing with the Phillies and it hurt my team for the following season.

Today also marks the start of the big four awards in MLB, the AL & NL Rookie of the Year, the AL & NL Cy Young, the AL & NL Manager of the Year and the AL & NL MVP’s. This is how the schedule breaks down this week and next.

Nov. 12: AL and NL Rookies of the Year
Nov. 13: AL Cy Young
Nov. 14: AL and NL Managers of the Year
Nov. 15: NL Cy Young
Nov. 19: AL MVP
Nov. 20: NL MVP

I will also be guest blogging today over at Crooked Pitch, hence the fantasy spin on this post.

The outcome of this game was never in doubt as the UConn women came out with their guns blazing on their way to a 98-35 win over the Stony Brook Seawolves in the season opener at Gampel Pavilion.

Mel Thomas led the way for the Huskies with 21 points and Maya Moore had a double-double in her first collegiate appearance as she scored 21 points and pulled down 10 rebounds. Moore also had 4 assists, 4 steals and 2 blocks. Tina Charles rounded out the Huskies in double figures as she had 16 points and had 8 rebounds. Dana Ferraro led the Seawolves with 15 points and 9 rebounds. Joia Daniels added 6 to the cause as well for Stony Brook.

The Huskies started out the first half with a 9-0 run before Stony Brook finally got on the Gampel scoreboard. Then the Huskies went on a 17-0 run in the next 4 minutes and 50 seconds to go up 26-2. They closed out the first half with a 10-0 run to go into the locker room leading 50-14.

More of the same for the Huskies in the second half as they started with a 11-0 run. The Seawolves finally ended the 21-0 run and 8 minutes scoreless streak when Ferraro converted a layup. Another 11-0 run put the Huskies up 72-16 with 12 minutes to go in the game. From that point on, UConn worked on it’s offense and continued it’s stellar defense in the game as they finished off the Seawolves.

Next up for the Huskies is a date on Wednesday against the Holy Cross Crusaders at 7:30 PM at Gampel Pavilion. The game will be broadcast on CPTV. After that, the Huskies will be off for 8 days until they take on Stanford in the Paradise Jam in the U.S. Virgin Islands on Thanksgiving night.

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University of Hawai’i quarterback Colt Brennan came into Saturday night’s matchup with the Fresno State Bulldogs needing two touchdown passes to tie Ty Detmer’s record of 121. Brennan had already broken the Hawai’i record of Timmy Chang, who had 117 career touchdown passes.

Needing two touchdown passes to tie and three to pass Detmer, Brennan got things started quickly in the game as he threw a 67-yard TD pass to Jason Rivers just a 1:26 into the game to move within one. With 11:26 to go in the first half, Brennan tied Detmer’s record as he hit favorite target Devone Bess for a 5-yard scoring strike.

Fresno State would keep the Warriors out of the end zone the rest of the game and knocked Brennan out of the game with a concussion. For the game, Brennan was 28 of 39 for 396 yards with 2 touchdown passes and 1 interception. He also had a rushing TD. Brennan has thrown 28 touchdown passes on the season.

Look for Brennan to break the record this Friday night, as the Warriors travel to Reno, NV to take on the Nevada Wolfpack at 11:00 PM ET on ESPN2. See all you favorite teams on satellite dish tv! You will be able to see the sweat on the helmets! See for yourself, find the best satellite tv with InternetLion!

The best football players do the most training. If you take your sport seriously make sure to use the best exercise equipment to train. You can set up a home gym in almost no time and get on the track towards sports glory. Maybe pick up some golf equipment for the weekend!

D-day is approaching for the Red Sox as the window for exclusively negotiating with Mike Lowell is running out. The window closes tomorrow night at midnight. As far as the negotiations go, things are still quiet on that front. I know this isn’t something we want to think about but what happens if Lowell isn’t re-signed. Who do the Sox go after? Tony Massarotti has a look at that in the first link. So with the Patriots off today and the UConn women starting at 2:00 PM, let’s take a look at the headlines from the Boston media on this Veterans Day morning.

Plan B begins with A [Boston Herald]

In the projection room [Boston Globe]

Beckett for brief rest [Boston Herald]

Man gets new Ranger after Red Sox rioting [Pro Jo]

For more headlines and stories, head over to the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Providence Journal, and Hartford Courant websites.