But mostly, he made it because 3,000 hits is THE magic number for hitters, the one figure which automatically separates the merely very good from the great.
And that’s why longtime Red Sox third baseman Wade Boggs—Mr. 3,010—should become a first-ballot inductee into the National Baseball Hall of Fame when the voting results are announced later today. A player must be named on at least 75 percent of the ballots submitted by the members of the Baseball Writers Association of America in order to earn enshrinement.
Every single player who has reached 3,000 hits and is eligible for the Hall of Fame—that would be everyone except Pete Rose—has reached Cooperstown, and only four members of the 3,000-hit club—Nap Lajoie, Eddie Collins, Cap Anson and Tris Speaker—failed to get in on the first ballot. However, the last 14 members of the 3,000-hit club to earn induction all did so during their first year on the ballot.
Boggs should be no exception—especially with no other slam-dunk candidate on the ballot this year—though Chris Lynch makes an impassioned and well-researched plea to reconsider Boggs’ candidacy here on BostonGM.com.
With all due respect to Chris, though, if Boggs isn’t a Hall of Famer, then there shouldn’t be a Hall of Fame. Boggs’ resume is mind-boggling in terms of both its consistency and its uniqueness.
To reach 3,000 hits means averaging a hit a game for nearly 19 seasons. That’s remarkable in and of itself, but a case could be made Boggs reached 3,000 hits in a shorter amount of time than any player in history. He played in 2,439 games, the second-fewest of any player with 3,000 hits. Boggs played in six more games than Roberto Clemente, whose life was tragically cut short when he was killed in a plane crash in 1972.
And as someone who was buried in the Sox’ minor league chain for seven seasons before his call-up in 1982, Boggs had less time to reach 3,000 hits than anyone else who has hit the milestone. Boggs was 24 years old during his rookie season; no one else in the 3,000-hit club made his debut later than his 23rd birthday. (Consider this: Rickey Henderson, another member of the 3,000-hit club, was drafted in 1976, as was Boggs, but reached the majors for good in 1979 and already had 410 hits by the start of the 1982 season).
By the time Boggs finally got a chance with the Sox, the chances of him reaching 3,000 hits were already remote, but Boggs beat the odds with a historical flurry of base hits. He was the only player in the 20th century to notch 200 or more hits in seven straight seasons (1983-89). He hit .357 or better four times in five seasons (1984-88), won five batting crowns in a span of six seasons (1983-88) and hit .352 during the 1980s, which, as Jayson Stark of ESPN.com noted Monday, was the highest single-decade mark since the 1920s.
And even after his historical seven-season burst ended in 1989, Boggs was barely halfway to 3,000 hits (1,597) and already 31 years old. Boggs never again reached 200 hits, but he was still a consistent hit machine during the second half of his career. Between 1990 and 1996, he hit .300 or better and averaged more than a hit per game six times. The hiccup occurred in 1992, when he hit .259 with 133 hits in 143 games for the Sox, who believed he was on the downside of his career and let him walk after the season in favor of the inimitable Scott Cooper.
Even in his final three seasons, when Boggs was nowhere near the hitter he once was, he still hit .290 for the Yankees and Devil Rays. Overall among players with 3,000 hits, Boggs ranks eighth with an average of 1.234 hits per game, behind only Ty Cobb (1.38 hits per game), Cap Anson (1.35), Lajoie (1.31) and Tony Gwynn (1.29) and incrementally behind Paul Molitor (1.237), Paul Waner (1.236) and Clemente (1.236).
Boggs was also a “Moneyball” player before Billy Beane ever met Michael Lewis. Boggs led the AL in on-base percentage six times in seven years between 1983-89, including five years in a row from 1985-89. He finished in the AL’s top 10 in on-base percentage 11 times overall. He also led the AL in runs scored and walks in both 1988 and 1989. If Boggs had been born in 1978 instead of 1958, Theo Epstein and Co. would be tripping all over themselves today to offer him a four-year deal.
Boggs averaged 1.90 walks per strikeout (1,412 walks, 745 strikeouts), the third-best ratio among 3,000-hit club members who began their careers after the Dead Ball Era (1901-1919).
Throughout his career, Boggs’ detractors often said he was selfish, overly concerned with his offense at expense of his defense (though he did win two Gold Gloves for the Yankees in 1994-95) and something less than a great teammate. And sure, it’s hard to forget how he sat out the final two games of the 1986 season to ensure he’d beat Don Mattingly in the AL batting race.
But paradoxically, Boggs’ selfishness helped the team. Between 1982 and 1997, Boggs’ teams finished first or second in the AL in on-base percentage 12 times and among the top four in runs scored nine times.
Speaking of Mattingly, another criticism of Boggs is he was nowhere near the player Mattingly was at the latter’s peak, so how can Boggs be a Hall of Famer when Mattingly remains an afterthought in the Hall of Fame balloting (Mattingly’s numbers have dropped precipitously since he garnered 28% of the vote during his first year on the ballot in 2001).
And it’s true Mattingly, at his peak, was a far better player than Boggs. But after a five-year run as the game’s best player from 1984-89, Mattingly’s back gave out and he was barely adequate the rest of his career.
Among pre-requisites for Hall of Famers, longevity is second only to greatness. And Boggs’ status as an all-timer—and the historical significance of the 3,000-hit mark—has become more apparent in the five years since he retired.
Since the start of the 2000 season, two players—Cal Ripken Jr. and Henderson—have reached 3,000 hits, and only four more players have even an outside chance at joining Ripken Jr. and Henderson by the end of this decade.
Rafael Palmiero, who will begin 2005 just 78 hits shy of 3,000, is a lock to reach the mark this season. Barry Bonds needs 270 hits to reach 3,000 and should be knocking on the door by the end of 2006 (even as he shattered every walk record known to man, Bonds racked up 268 hits the past two seasons).
Craig Biggio is 361 hits away, but the last time he had 361 or more hits in a two-season span was 1998-1999. He’s also 39 years old and unsigned beyond 2005, so there’s no guarantee he’ll be active long enough to make a serious run at 3,000.
The only other player with a chance to reach 3,000 hits this decade is the most striking example of how difficult it is to maintain the remarkable consistency needed to hit the magic number.
Among active players at the start of the 2002 season, Roberto Alomar appeared to be the most likely to reach 3,000 hits. He already had 2,389 hits in 14 season—an average of 171 hits per season—and at the age of 34 and fresh off an MVP-caliber season with the Indians, it seemed certain he’d blow past the 3,000-hit mark sometime during the 2005 season.
But Alomar fell into a funk upon being traded to the Mets before the 2002 season. He’s notched just 335 hits the past three seasons, including only 45 during an injury-plagued 2004, and remains 276 hits shy of 3,000. Interest in him is so low this winter he appears likely to sign a non-roster deal with the Cardinals in hopes of winning the starting second baseman job. Three thousand hits, once a mere formality for Alomar, is now a long shot, and his spot in the Hall of Fame is no sure thing either.
But enshrinement is a certainty today for Boggs, and a well-deserved one at that.
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