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Wade Boggs

Baseball is an outdoor sport in which a pitcher pitches a hard, fist sized ball to the hitting area of a batter. The batter hits the hard ball with a tapered, smooth, cylindrical bat made up of wood or metal. The batsman scores by running counter-clockwise within the four markers called the bases arranged at the corners of a diamond. Baseball is sometimes called hardball to differentiate it from similar games such as softball.

Wade Boggs was born on Sunday, June 15, 1958, in Omaha, Nebraska. Boggs was 23 years old when he broke into the big leagues on April 10, 1982, with the Boston Red Sox. His height is 6 foot 2 inches and his weight 197 pounds.

In his 18-year career, Boggs reached base safely in an incredible 80 percent of his games and was the only batter in the twentieth century to have seven consecutive 200-hit seasons. He appeared in twelve All-Star games as a third baseman, second only to Brooks Robinson. In the seven years between 1982 and 1988 he batted .349 or higher six times. In his off-year he hit .325. His easy left-handed stroke sprayed line drives to all fields, and while he was not known for his power in 1985 he set the AL, the American League record with 187 singles he stroked 24 home runs in 1987 and finished third in the league in slugging percentage. But various injuries slowed Boggs in his second decade. From 1990 to 1997 Boggs only averaged .307, and his low point came in 1992 when the Sox finished last for the first time since 1939

Boggs was back to his old .300 self in 1993 for the contending Yanks, and made his first of four consecutive All-Star starts in pinstripes. At the age of 36, Boggs won his first Gold Glove in 1994 and repeated the following year. The oldest first-time winner since the award was introduced in 1957 and Boggs proved that his persistence and hard work weren't just limited to his magic with the bat. Boggs made a splash by socking the first home run in Devil Rays history, and in the relatively low-key environment of his hometown he was an all-state kicker on the football team for Tampa's Plant High School Boggs seemed virtually assured of reaching the 3,000-hit plateau.

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