Biography for Wade Boggs

It was rare indeed to see Wade Boggs swing away at the first pitch, in sharp contrast to former Red Sox shortstop Nomar Garciaparra, and his patience and steady play at the plate helped him collect over 3,000 hits in his 18-year career in baseball, spending his first eleven seasons with Boston. Methodically, he was as consistent at the plate as he was in his everyday routine, perhaps one of the most superstitious players ever to wear a major league uniform. As part of his game preparation, he would eat a meal of chicken, earning the moniker "Chicken Man" from teammate Jim Rice; he would also perform drills at the same exact time every day, whether it was taking ground balls, stepping into the batting cage, or running wind sprints before the start of the game. As a rookie in 1982, Boggs impressed the Boston organization enough (118 hits, .349 average) that they shipped Carney Lansford, who had won a batting title with the Red Sox in 1981, to Oakland and moved Boggs permanently to third base. Boggs responded by averaging .352 at the plate for the next seven years and winning the American League batting title five times. He also collected 200 or more hits in each of those seasons, the only player in the 20th century to accomplish this feat (Wee Willie Keeler had eight straight seasons between 1894 and 1901). He continued his Red Sox career through 1992 and finished with a .338 average, second only to Ted Williams in the franchise record book; he also sits third all-time on the team in on-base percentage at .428 and fifth with 2,098 hits. Boggs played seven more seasons with the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Devil Rays and ended his career with more than 3,000 hits to his credit. In recognition of his career accomplishments, he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2005 on 91.9 percent of the ballots.