Well, I am a huge fan of Dustin Pedroia aka Dustroia, after seeing him play up in Portland in 05, and then in Pawtucket, you could tell he was a gamer. He brings it all on every play of every game.
So it is being reported by a few different sources that he played the final month or so of the season, with a broken bone in his left hand. Fortunately for all of us Sox fans, this was not his throwing hand, but his glove hand. The bone that was brone is the hamate, a wedge-shaped bone at the base of the hand. Supposedly this is an injury that is rather common, and the bone is just removed from the hand.
It was discovered during an MRI on his hand on September 10th, and he played through the rest of the season before he decided to have it taken care of with Surgery.
I am not sure when this injury happened, but I am guessing it probably was right around the time when he was hit by the pitch in the Tampa Bay game in August, and he just played through it and then finally got it looked at when it got worse.
Some mornings, and especially on cold nights he had the most problems, and actually had trouble holding a bat to hit with, but he adjusted his grip and his swing to accomodate the pain and help him continue to play for the team.
So a thank you to Dustin for working through the pain, and thank you also to Tylenol for helping him with some of the pain.
A link to a story about it:
http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/baseball/red_sox/view.bg?articleid=1043783