"'In 1941, who was the best shortstop in America?' Eddie Pellagrini was asking, and Eddie Pellagrini had the answer. 'I was!' he boomed. He was talking defense, mainly, and he believed it with all his heart. Eddie Pellagrini had range, hands, and, oh, what an arm. He liked to joke about catching a ground ball, holding it a while, just for fun, and gunning it across the diamond to beat the runner by a half-step. The way Pelly figured it, what's the sense of having an arm if you can't show it off? And a shortstop was what he saw when he looked in the mirror. 'After you've played shortstop,' Pelly loved to say, 'third base is just camping out.'" - Columnist Bob Ryan in the Boston Globe (10/13/2006)