Playboy Interview: Wade Boggs

The best hitter in baseball? Wade Boggs of the Boston Red Sox, we say. Want to make something of it?

As with all great baseball debates, it comes down to the stats. Check these out: At the end of the 1986 season, though his personal achievements were overshadowed by the Mets' thrilling world-series victory over the Sox, Boggs was hitting .357. He set an American League record for rookies in 1982 by batting .349 and has led the league in hitting for three of the past four years. He has already tied the major-league mark for hitting safely in most games (135) in a single season, and his 240 hits in 1985 were the most by a major-leaguer in more than half a century. Boggs leads all active players with a career batting average of .352 and, except for three guys named Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth and Ted Williams, has reached base more often in a single season than any other player in baseball history.

Flashy, he's not. At the plate, Boggs is almost obsessively methodical, and by now, fans have grown accustomed to the sight of him routinely spraying drives all over the ball park. "Wade's a machine," says Boston pitcher Roger Clemens, the American League's Most Valuable Player in 1986. "His bat is like a magic wand."

Williams, the Red Sox' Hall of Famer who played in parts of four separate decades, thinks that more than sleight of hand is involved. "Boggs is as smart a hitter as I've ever seen," he says. "The next five or six years will tell the tale, but if he keeps up like he's going now, he stands to be one of the greatest hitters of all time."

Still, that doesn't cut much ice among baseball's front-office types. The knock on Boggs is that he can't hit home runs, especially compared with that other powerhouse, Yankee Don Mattingly. And that's true. At the start of the current season, Boggs had a career total of just 32 homers. But he'd also banged out 178 doubles and 17 triples, so he can hardly be regarded as punchless. Boggs, whose favorite fare is fowl, has also been criticized for being no faster than a speeding pullet, and that's not true. Although he's built like a burly barkeep, he was timed in 1984 at getting from home plate to first base in 3.78 seconds--second only in the American League to Kansas City's Willie Wilson, who did it in 3.65 seconds. Boggs's defensive skills have also been taken lightly. In 1984, however, he led American League third basemen in starting double plays, and last year, he made only 19 errors; the Mets' third-base tandem of Ray Knight and Howard Johnson committed a combined 36. As he himself would readily admit, there's very little that Wade Boggs can't do.

Born in Omaha, Nebraska, on June 15, 1958, Wade Anthony Boggs was the youngest of Win and Susan Boggs's three children. His mother was a pilot, his father an Air Force master sergeant who was one of the fastest softball pitchers in the nation--he pitched for various Air Force units for more than 15 years. A Service brat, Wade grew up in Puerto Rico, Brunswick, Georgia, and Tampa, Florida, where the family settled after his father retired from the Air Force in 1967. Before Wade was two, Win Boggs recognized that the baby of the family was an athlete and began preparing him for a career in the big leagues. "I was ambidextrous, so my father used to tie my left hand behind my back and make me throw right-handed to increase the possibility of my playing more positions," Boggs recalls. "He worked with me batting left-handed, because he figured that would be to my advantage as a hitter. By the time I was six, I knew I wanted to be a professional ballplayer."

He never lost sight of that objective. At Tampa's H. B. Plant High School, Boggs was the only member of the baseball team who didn't use an aluminum bat. "I knew they didn't use aluminum in the big leagues," he says. In his junior year, he batted .522--the highest average among high schoolers in the state--and shortly before his graduation, he was drafted by the Boston Red Sox. After five seasons in the minor leagues, Boggs was hitting well over .300, but Boston's talent scouts were not impressed. In fact, in 1980, the Red Sox chose not to protect him from being drafted by other clubs--any of the 25 other major-league teams could have claimed him for a paltry $25,000. None did. "I didn't know anything about that rule at the time, and I'm glad I didn't," he says. "If I'd known that everybody had passed me up, I would have been crushed."

In 1981, Boggs won the International League batting title; and the following season, he finally made the Red Sox roster. He was used sparingly until the end of June, when starting third baseman Carney Lansford broke his ankle. After he became a regular, Boggs batted .361. Before the 1983 season, the Red Sox traded away Lansford and installed Boggs as their starting third baseman. "If Carney Lansford had never broken his ankle, no one would ever have found out about Wade Boggs," he says.

He believes that. For an All-Star who recently signed a three-year contract worth $5,200,000--counting incentive clauses, the Sox could wind up paying him $2,000,000 per season--Boggs often sounds like a man hanging on by the skin of his teeth.

To interview the American League's leading hitter of 1983, 1985 and 1986, Playboy sent Lawrence Linderman to meet with Boggs at his home in Tampa just prior to his departure for spring training. Linderman reports:

"Wade Boggs is a jock, no doubt about it. During the off season, he spends his time playing golf--his home is on the fairway of a golf course; fishing (he's building a fishing resort in northern Florida called Finway Park) and bodybuilding. This last activity is somewhat new for him. A few years back, Boggs was told that he was too pudgy; in 1982, he began a winter regimen of working out three times a week on Nautilus equipment, and he has since become relatively sleek.

"Boggs and his wife, Debbie (she was his high school sweetheart), have an eight-year-old daughter, Meagann, and an infant son, Brett. Their boy is named after Boggs's idol turned buddy, George Brett of the Kansas City Royals. The Boggs household is cluttered and comfortable--the only bits of ostentation are Wade's stuffed fishing trophies on the walls. Boggs seems more at ease about being a millionaire than any other highly paid athlete I've ever met.

"Beginning in December, he takes hitting and fielding practice five days a week, three hours a day, at his old high school. His workouts are conducted with a few old buddies who pitch batting practice and with members of the H. B. Plant High baseball team, most of whom ask him for hitting pointers. Boggs obliges; he enjoys the little bit of coaching that he does. He feels that baseball is a full-time job and can't imagine not picking up a bat during the winter. That's one reason he still lives in Tampa--Florida's weather allows him to play ball all year long. He feels that that alone gives him an edge over many players who live up North.

"The day I arrived, Tampa underwent a cold snap. When I drove out to meet Boggs the next morning, however, all was warm and sunny. The same was true of Boggs himself. Although he's an introvert, he loves to talk about baseball. After he introduced me to his wife and children, he sat me down in his living room and we began our conversation.

"The subject of Boston's world-series loss to the Mets was still on Boggs's mind, and that provided our opening question."

[Q] Playboy: So ... how is Boston going to do this year?

[A] Boggs: Great. Before I reported to spring training this season, I talked with Jim Rice, Marty Barrett, Roger Clemens and some other Red Sox players, and we all felt that losing the series has made us hungrier. Last year, we got to the world series; this season, we want to win it.

[Q] Playboy: But the Red Sox haven't won a world series since 1918. After last season's defeat, even their most ardent fans--especially their most ardent fans--think Boston's fate is to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Is it possible that the Sox really are jinxed?

[A] Boggs: No, and I think we proved it. We certainly proved it to the so-called experts: Before the season started, they all predicted we'd finish fifth in our division. The Red Sox now have about 22 guys on the team who weren't around during the years when everyone was calling us chokers. Players like Don Baylor, Dave Henderson, Spike Owen, Marty Barrett, Bill Buckner and me are not chokers. We lost a game when Billy Buck let a ball go through his legs; the Mets lost a game when Tim Teufel let a ball go through his legs. Toward the end of the season, when Toronto got within two and a half games of us, everyone was convinced that we were going to fold--it was almost proper Red Sox etiquette for us to fold. Instead, we tightened our belts, won our division by five and a half games, then came from way back to win the American League play-offs.

[Q] Playboy: Still, you lost the series, and the St. Louis Cardinals sank like a stone after a bad loss in the '85 series. What's to prevent the same thing from happening to the Sox this season?

[A] Boggs: I think the only way we'll go South will be if the team doesn't sign Rich Gedman, our All-Star catcher--and your readers will know all about that by the time this interview comes out. Other than that, I don't see any comparison between this year's Red Sox and last year's Cardinals. In '86, St. Louis had a lot of injuries and several of its best players didn't have a great year. The main question for us will be whether or not everybody plays up to his potential.

[Q] Playboy: And whether or not Wade Boggs is hitting. Ted Williams once said that hitting a pitched ball was the single most difficult act in sports. Do you agree?

[A] Boggs: That's tough to answer, because hitting ultimately comes down to a question of natural ability. Although constant practice can help, I know players who hit .270 and say, "Listen, I want to get better--I want to hit .300 this year." And they'll work hard all season long, really beat their heads against the wall and still wind up hitting .270. There are players who couldn't hit curves or change-ups if they were standing at the plate with 40 bats in their hands. The ability to hit well is a definite gift, like being a great pianist or a great fighter pilot. There's really no secret to hitting. It's an instinct and a talent you're born with. One time, on Game of the Week, NBC showed a very old photograph of me swinging a baseball bat. Ted Williams was in the booth that day, and he said, "That's a perfect swing." I was 18 months old when that photo was taken.

[Q] Playboy: Has hitting always come easily?

[A] Boggs: That depends on how you look at it. People might say that Wade Boggs doesn't find it difficult to hit a baseball, but I do find it difficult. It's very difficult, but I practice so much that it's become second nature to me. Over the course of my lifetime, I've probably taken millions of swings at pitches. There's no secret to hitting. There's plenty of technique and mechanics involved--perfecting a good, fluid swing is almost like building a finely tuned machine--but your instincts have to be there for you to really excel. If they are, and if you practice hard, they'll come to the surface.

[Q] Playboy: When did you start to excel?

[A] Boggs: When I was five years old, I was able to hit well off little-league pitchers who were nine, ten and 11 years old. I played six years of little-league ball, then went to senior league and then played for my high school in Tampa, Florida. I was Florida's All-State shortstop in my junior year, and in my senior year, I was a high school all-American.

[Q] Playboy: Baseball scouts were not exactly clamoring for your services at that point--the Red Sox didn't draft you until the seventh round. What put them off?

[A] Boggs: Probably something I had told a sportswriter: I had said that if I didn't get drafted high enough, I would go to college instead of playing professional baseball. And I think that's why I was passed over. I had ten or 11 offers of college baseball scholarships, and I was offered football scholarships to Pittsburgh--Tony Dorsett was still there--The Citadel, Georgia Tech and a few other schools.

[Q] Playboy: Had you harbored any thoughts of playing in the N.F.L.?

[A] Boggs: If I had, they disappeared after my junior year. I was the quarterback on our high school team, and that year, running a veer offense, I got my brains beat in. In one game, I was knocked unconscious three times and had to get 39 stitches in my chin. I realized that if I wanted to play professional baseball, my body wouldn't stand up to another year of playing quarterback. So after that, I decided to stick to kicking; and in my senior year, I was an All-State punter--that's why I was offered those football scholarships. By the time I graduated, I'd decided I did want to play professional baseball. I was disappointed that I wasn't drafted higher, but when the Red Sox drafted me, off I went to Elmira, New York, to play in the Penn--New York rookie league.

[Q] Playboy: You spent six seasons in the minor leagues, and except for your first summer out of high school, you always hit well above .300. Why did the Red Sox wait so long before calling you up in 1982?

[A] Boggs: That's one question I can't answer, because I really don't know. In 1981, at Pawtucket, I led the International League in hitting, and I still didn't get called up to Boston in September, which is when a lot of rookies are brought up to the majors. I'd never even been invited to the Red Sox spring-training camp. Meanwhile, I'd see guys who'd hit .214 called up to the majors and, yes, it was frustrating. After my 1981 season, I signed up to play winter ball in Puerto Rico, where I hit .370. One day, I called my folks long-distance and they told me that the Red Sox had finally invited me to spring training in Winter Haven, Florida. When I got there, Ralph Houk, Boston's manager at the time, told me he needed a pinch hitter who could be a utility infielder. I told him, "I can do it all. I can play first, second, shortstop and third. Anything you want, I'll do." I had a good spring, and three days before the Red Sox left for Boston, I found out I'd made the team. At long last, I was going to be a major-leaguer. Like Ted Williams.

[Q] Playboy: Williams is a hitting consultant for the Red Sox. Did you get a chance to learn from him when you came up from the minors?

[A] Boggs: I picked his brain every chance I got. Williams told me I'd hit for a higher average in the major leagues because of better umpiring, better travel arrangements--instead of riding a bus for eight hours, you're on and off a plane--and better pitching. When you get to the big leagues, pitchers are around the plate more consistently, and you're not always dancing away from curve balls thrown in the dirt. Williams also said I'd benefit from better lighting, and I found that to be a real key. Unlike most players, I prefer to play at night.

[Q] Playboy: For what reason?

[A] Boggs: When you play at night, your pupils dilate much more than they do during the day, when you have to squint to compensate for the sun shining in your eyes. At night, when my pupils are wider, they produce a bigger image on the retina, which allows me to see pitches better.

[Q] Playboy: You're getting fairly technical here, Wade. On a practical level, what does that really mean?

[A] Boggs: To me, it means a difference of about 40 points in my batting average--I hit much better at night. Because of the lighting, I can recognize a slider the instant it leaves a pitcher's hand. A slider comes up to the plate looking like a fastball; but at the last second, just as you start to swing, it breaks in on your hands. As a hitter, you want to be able to tell a slider from a fastball as quickly as possible. Well, when somebody throws me a slider, I know it's a slider, because the ball rotates in such a way that I can see a little red dot on it.

[Q] Playboy: Are you telling us that if the American League used an all-white ball instead of one with red stitching, you'd have more trouble hitting sliders?

[A] Boggs: That's exactly what I'm telling you. And I can see that dot more clearly at night, just as I can see the arc of a curve ball. The lighting's almost as good for me in domed stadiums. When we have afternoon games, I pray for cloudy days. My idea of hell would be to play for the Chicago Cubs--Wrigley Field is the only major-league stadium without lights.

[Q] Playboy: Did you and Williams compare notes on hitting?

[A] Boggs: Yes, but his philosophy and mine are different. Williams, a left-handed hitter like myself, always pulled the ball to right field. He had the innate ability--Mattingly has it, too--to pull outside pitches with power. I go the opposite way--mostly to the left side, though I work the ball from left center to right center, which is the largest part of the ball park. That's more in line with the new hitting philosophy of the Eighties that was popularized by the late Charlie Lau and his most famous student, George Brett. I make up my mind to pull the ball only when certain situations dictate that I do so. For instance, with a man on second and none out, I'll pull the ball to the right to advance our runner to third base. Or if we're tied in the ninth inning, I might try to pull the ball and hit a home run.

[Q] Playboy: Which brings us to the chief criticism one hears about Wade Boggs: You don't hit home runs. At 6'2? and 190 pounds, you certainly aren't built like a singles hitter. Why don't you hit more home runs, or is that simply beyond your capabilities?

[A] Boggs: Oh, no, I can hit the long ball. In Chicago a couple of years ago, I won a home-run-hitting contest between the Red Sox and the White Sox; and in batting practice, I can put on the greatest spectacle in the world. I've hit B.P. home runs into the fountains in Kansas City, onto the roof in Detroit, into the upper deck at Yankee Stadium, and I may have hit them as far as Reggie Jackson did in Anaheim. Visiting teams take batting practice after home teams, so when the Red Sox are on the road, people are already in the stands when we take B.P., and I like to put on a show. I have to admit that I'm an exhibitionist. I think Rene Lachemann, our third-base coach, phrased it best. He said that in a game, I'm Dr. Jekyll, but in batting practice, I'm Mr. Hyde.

[Q] Playboy: That still doesn't explain why you don't hit home runs during games.

[A] Boggs: The reason I do it in batting practice is that pitches are thrown to you at one constant speed, and all you do is lift. It's easy to do that when you're just gearing up for one pitch, but you can't do that in a game--you've got fastballs, sliders, curves, change-ups and, once in a while, knuckle balls and fork balls to worry about. As I get older and face the pitchers enough times, I'll be able to gear up for that one pitch and probably turn on it and hit the ball out of the park more often. For now, though, I'll continue to be a line-drive hitter, and line-drive hitters don't hit home runs, because the ball will carry only so far. Home-run hitters are your pop-up and fly-ball hitters. Wade Boggs does not hit fly balls and he does not pop up. In 1985, I hit two pop-ups, and last year I popped up three times. That's five pop-ups in more than 1200 times at bat, not counting walks.

[Q] Playboy: That's an interesting statistic; but still, doesn't Mr. Hyde ever rear his ugly head during a game?

[A] Boggs: He reared his head twice in Detroit last year, but only because the wind was blowing out to right field and Detroit has a short right-field porch. I think the day I hit 20 home runs in a season, my critics will be silent; but in the meantime, I work to minimize my mistakes and get base hits. If I really set my mind to it and decided, OK, I'm going to try to beat Roger Maris' record of 61 home runs, I think I could do it, but I don't think I could live with myself.

[Q] Playboy: Is there some special shame you associate with hitting 61 home runs?

[A] Boggs: Of course not. It's just that if Wade Boggs is going to start swinging from the heels and trying to pull every pitch for a home run, the outside pitches I've feasted on for five years by hitting to left field will wind up as ferocious ground balls to second basemen. My strike-outs will jump from 35 or 45 a season to 90, I'll walk only 30 times instead of 100 and my batting average may fall down to .240. I'll also pop up in situations when we have men on second and third or the bases loaded, and just the thought of that upsets me. There may come a time when I revert to being 12 years old and wanting to become Reggie Jackson--he was my idol then--but I don't see that happening in the foreseeable future. I've worked long and hard toward a different goal: I want to be the best hitter in baseball.

[Q] Playboy: And being the best hitter means having the highest batting average?

[A] Boggs: I've got three silver bats that prove it, and I would have had a fourth, but in my rookie year, when I hit .349, I was about 100 at-bats short of qualifying for the batting title--Willie Wilson of Kansas City won it that year by hitting .332. I want to mention something else on the subject of home runs: A lot of the doubles I hit off the top of the wall in Fenway Park would be homers in Seattle or Detroit or down the line in Yankee Stadium. I do hit with power. In one series at the Seattle Kingdome, I hit three line drives over Kirby Puckett's head and off the 410-foot sign in center field. I suppose that if I wanted to be like Babe Ruth, the home runs would come, but I'm more interested in hitting like Ty Cobb. There's an old saying that home-run hitters drive Cadillacs and singles hitters drive Chevrolets. I don't drive a Chevrolet.

[Q] Playboy: Considering the kind of money you make, that doesn't come as a surprise. In fact, you may be even tougher to deal with at the bargaining table than at the plate. Before you signed a three-year contract with the Sox in January, there was a lot of comment in Boston to the effect that you were a fairly greedy guy. How do you respond to that?

[A] Boggs: I don't think I've been greedy; I think I was just trying to find out what I was worth, and there are only a couple of ways to do it: arbitration or free agency. I've never wanted to be a free agent, because, like Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski, I want to play my entire career in Boston. What you're left with is to find out what other players are making, and based on that, you guess at what you're worth. In 1985, I asked for $1,000,000, the Red Sox offered $650,000 and the arbitrator awarded me $1,000,000. In 1986, I asked for $1,850,000, the Red Sox offered $1,350,000 and the arbitrator--and I have a lot of respect for baseball's arbitration bureau--ruled in favor of the Red Sox. This year, I again asked for $1,850,000, the Red Sox offered $1,600,000 and we were able to come to an agreement. I didn't want to go to arbitration for a third time, and I don't think they did, either. After going through it twice, I must tell you that arbitration is a very degrading process. The people who represent the owners act like divorce attorneys. They laugh at you and insult you and say you don't contribute to the team, and that leaves scars that have to heal before you go to spring training. People talk about whether the player or the club wins an arbitration, but in reality, no one wins. I thrive on positive thinking and building people up, rather than tearing them down. Even if you get what you ask for, you walk away feeling brutalized.

[Q] Playboy: No matter how nasty the 1986 negotiations might have been, few baseball fans would feel brutalized by earning $1,350,000 a year. Much of the sporting public, in fact, thinks baseball players are wildly overpaid. Are they?

[A] Boggs: I don't think so. Athletes are entertainers who are every bit as valuable as singers and actors. It's true, a lot of players are making big money now, but they won't be making it very long--I think the average major-league career lasts four years. And once we're out of baseball, we've all got to find other occupations, which is something other entertainers don't have to worry about. We're the bad guys, though, if we try to earn as much money as we think we're worth--and meanwhile, a lot of team owners are making megabucks.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think players are entitled to a slice of the profits?

[A] Boggs: I don't have any big arguments to make along that line, because we are making good salaries. Money wasn't really the main issue between me and the Red Sox. We'd never have gone to arbitration if the team had agreed to what I considered a very fair request: I wanted a three-year contract with a no-trade clause. The Red Sox offered me good money for three years, but they wouldn't agree to a no-trade clause, and that's what I was most worried about. The salary I agreed to accept for three years would not be enough to prevent another club from being able to afford me, and I just didn't want to wind up being traded to a team in Outer Mongolia.

[Q] Playboy: In baseball geography, where do you place Outer Mongolia?

[A] Boggs: Probably Pittsburgh and certainly Montreal, where it's cold all the time.

[Q] Playboy: Why were you so worried about being shipped off to another team?

[A] Boggs: Because I'd been on the trading block every year. One season, they said I was going to be replaced by an up-and-coming star named Steve Lyons--he wound up being traded to the Chicago White Sox. In 1984, I think I came very close to being traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers. In '85, the talk was that I was going to the Mets. The Red Sox definitely were shopping me around.

[Q] Playboy: Were you as adamant about not wanting to play for the Dodgers and the Mets as you were about the Pirates and the Expos?

[A] Boggs: I think L.A. wouldn't have been half bad, and if I'd gone to New York, I'd now be a member of the team that won the world series. I guess visiting a city and living there are two different things, but I don't like New York at all.

[Q] Playboy: Is Boston very different from New York?

[A] Boggs: They're both Northeastern cities, but when you compare Boston and New York, they're as different as night and day--especially from the viewpoint of a ballplayer. Number one, we don't throw knives at players in Boston. Last year, at Yankee Stadium, someone threw a knife at Wally Joyner, the Angels' first baseman. During the season, the guys in the Red Sox bull pen had darts and batteries thrown at them in Yankee Stadium--we're lucky none of the guys was seriously injured. At Shea Stadium, after the last game of the world series, our team's traveling secretary was hit in the head by a bottle thrown from the upper deck. And then, when the team was leaving, a small mob of Mets fans tried to tip our bus over. Bostonians aren't as violent. Red Sox fans will abuse you verbally rather than try to harm you physically. Boston's a great razz town.

[Q] Playboy: What has Boston got that makes you feel so strongly about playing your entire career there?

[A] Boggs: Fenway Park. I've always had the ability to drive outside and inside pitches to left field. For some reason that I really can't explain, I've never wanted to pull the ball. When I was drafted by Boston out of high school, the first thing I said was "Fenway Park was built for me," and so far it's worked out great.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think your hitting would suffer significantly if you played in a stadium without a short left-field wall, such as Fenway Park has?

[A] Boggs: No, but I'd have to make major adjustments--baseball players have to adjust their swings to their home team's ball park. If I were traded to the Yanks, I'd have to start pulling the ball to right--either that or go crazy watching outfielders catch every long drive I'd hit to left center, which is very deep in Yankee Stadium. I could do it, but I've got the luxury of Fenway Park, so I don't want to do it.

[Q] Playboy: According to your teammates, you're either the most superstitious or the most eccentric player in baseball. Is that a bum rap?

[A] Boggs: No, it's true. There's probably about 100 little things I do before a ball game, but they're all aids to concentration. If we're playing a night game at home, it all begins for me at two o'clock, when I sit down for lunch. I eat chicken every day--that's my biggest superstition. I didn't start consuming chicken on a daily basis until 1983, when I won my first batting title. Debbie, my wife, fixes chicken about a dozen different ways for me; but each year, I look for a good-luck chicken, a dish that every time I eat it, I know will pay off in hits for me that night. And I really have to believe that. In '83, my good-luck chicken was lemon chicken; in '84 and '85, I went with baked chicken, Italian style; and last year, it was barbecued chicken.

[Q] Playboy: Have you found your good-luck-chicken dish for '87 yet?

[A] Boggs: No, this year's good-luck chicken has yet to be determined, but it will reveal itself. Usually, on a 12-day home stand, I'll eat my good-luck chicken six or seven times. It's like a rabbit's foot to me, except instead of carrying it around, I have it inside me.

[Q] Playboy: Sounds logical to us, Wade. But what would happen if some truly diabolical Yankees fan found a way to cut off your supply of chicken? Would you be like Samson after Delilah cut off his hair?

[A] Boggs: I think of it more as Achilles and his heel. I probably could replace chicken with something else, but it's something I've grown accustomed to. When I eat my chicken, I want to feel like a Roman gladiator who's got a big turkey leg in his hand at a banquet before entering the arena.

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever had problems finding suitable chicken when the Red Sox were on the road?

[A] Boggs: Yes, and I really got to the point of paranoia when I couldn't find any. When I first got into the league and went into restaurants that didn't have chicken, I'd immediately get up and leave. Now that I've been in the league for five years, I know all the restaurants in American League cities that serve excellent chicken, and those are the places I frequent. I don't eat any fast-food chicken. They call me the Chicken Man, you know.

[Q] Playboy: Do you go through a lot of rituals when you reach the ball park?

[A] Boggs: Yes--far too many to list here. The object of all of them is to build a cocoon around myself, a shell in which I block out all outside interference and concentrate on nothing but the pitcher I'll be facing and the opposing team's hitters--I try to visualize both defensive and offensive strategies. Before every game, I go through several routines at the same exact times. I get to Fenway at 3:17 every afternoon, and at four o'clock, I'm out on the field with coach Joe Morgan. We play catch for about 15 minutes, and then he'll hit me grounders for maybe 20 minutes. At 5:17, I go into the locker room and get my helmet and bats.

[Q] Playboy: You keep your bats in your locker?

[A] Boggs: Right, two batting-practice bats and two game bats. I always carry my bats back and forth to my locker; I kid the guys that I don't want my bats sitting in the bat rack and picking up bad habits. It's a little unusual, but it's something I've always done. I feel it gives me a kind of personal relationship with my bats.

[Q] Playboy: Do you do a lot of relating to your bats?

[A] Boggs: Yes. It's weird, but there's a bond between me and my game bat. It's not just another piece of wood; I mean, if I treat it nice, it'll treat me nice.

[Q] Playboy: Besides trying to curry favor with your bats, what else do you do before a ball game?

[A] Boggs: I take my four minutes of batting practice right at 5:30. Infield practice starts at 6:50, and usually, from 6:40 to 6:50, I throw a baseball against the tunnel wall that leads to our dugout--it's a little like what Steve McQueen did in The Great Escape, and it's my final quiet moment before we take the field. At 7:17 precisely, I run my wind sprints. When the game starts, I step over the third-base line on my way out to the field and step on it coming back. The last little act I perform takes place just before I get into the batter's box--I stick my bat into the dirt and draw the Hebrew word chai to wish myself good luck and good health. And then I step up to the plate.

[Q] Playboy: What are you feeling then?

[A] Boggs: At that moment, I'm all concentration, totally into my cocoon; but I also feel combative, almost as if I were a boxer. Baseball is a team sport, but when you go up to hit, it's just you and the pitcher--nobody can set a pick or throw a block for you or pass you the puck. It's you against him, and I like that.

[Q] Playboy: Do you play any mind games with pitchers?

[A] Boggs: The main thing I try to do is work the pitcher so that I can see all of his pitches. I don't think I swing at the first pitch more than 15 times a year. Taking the first pitch allows me to gauge a pitcher's speed. The more pitches you see, the better your chances are of getting a hit. I average 4.3 pitches per at-bat, which means that I either walk or get at least one or two good pitches to hit. I try to swing only at strikes, and I can tell if a ball is three inches outside the strike zone.

[Q] Playboy: Don Baylor says that when a pitcher gets two strikes on you, you have him just where you want him. Since it sounds so off the wall, it's probably true. Is it?

[A] Boggs: Certainly is. That's when I go to work. Most of my doubles and a few of my home runs have come on one-two counts. I haven't analyzed all my statistics for last year, but in 1985, I got 63 percent of my hits with two strikes on me. I think I'm more aggressive when I have two strikes, and there's no reason I shouldn't be: By then, I know what the pitcher can do, and I make contact with the ball on 95 percent of my swings, so I don't have any fear of striking out. I think I concentrate harder when I have two strikes. I know I concentrate harder when I'm at bat and we have runners on second or third. My batting average with runners in scoring position is usually somewhere between .390 and .410.

[Q] Playboy: What do you think of the Red Sox pitching staff?

[A] Boggs: Well, if Roger Clemens has another year like he had in '86--he won the Cy Young Award--and if Bruce Hurst picks up where he left off, I don't see how the Red Sox are going to have any long losing streaks. In the biggest pitching match-ups of the world series, Clemens and Hurst each went up against Dwight Gooden, and they were practically untouchable. Dwight wasn't.

[Q] Playboy: As it turns out, the reason may well have been his involvement with drugs. What was your reaction upon learning about Gooden's cocaine problem?

[A] Boggs: I was just surprised that a guy that young would jeopardize his future. I mean, when you're at the top of your profession and making the elite money--I'm really amazed that anybody would want to throw all that away on something as idiotic as drugs.

[Q] Playboy: Last year, baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth, after instituting a set of reforms, declared that baseball's drug problems were pretty much a thing of the past--but, obviously, they're not. How widespread do you think drug use is among major-leaguers?

[A] Boggs: You know, when Ueberroth first came out and said baseball had a drug problem, I didn't realize it. I'd been in the big leagues for four years, and I could look around at the guys I'd associated with and players I knew about and feel sure there wasn't a drug problem. I was wrong about that, but I don't think drug use is more widespread among baseball players than in any other segment of society. Doctors, lawyers, air-traffic controllers, truck drivers--to some extent, everybody's involved, and it's not just athletes who are the isolated few. The only reason we seem to come off that way is that we're under a microscope. Doctors and lawyers aren't on television every night demonstrating their talents; we are. For me, this whole thing would be a lot easier to deal with if there were outward signs of drug use, but there aren't any--you just don't see that.

[Q] Playboy: You don't think that Gooden's over-all performance in 1986--way below the standards he'd set for himself--was an indication that something was wrong?

[A] Boggs: No, because a 17-and-six record is not exactly shabby. By no stretch of the imagination did Dwight Gooden have a bad year. If he didn't win 20 games, well, no one else on the Mets' staff did, either. Everyone said that he didn't pitch like the Dwight Gooden of old, but I didn't think that was the case. Even if he'd fallen off in a more dramatic fashion, I wouldn't have linked that to drug use--I don't make that kind of judgment. If a guy goes out one year and wins 20 games and then comes back the next and wins only ten, someone's automatically going to say, "Well, he's on drugs." But you really can't make that assessment.

[Q] Playboy: Why not?

[A] Boggs: Because pitchers are a strange breed--they really are. It's a tough occupation. A hitter can go out and have one bad game, but he can come back the next night and have a good one. If a pitcher has a bad outing, he's got five days to think about it before his next start, and it can eat at him mentally and physically and just tear him down. Pitchers are on such a high at the start of a game, but if the other team gets to them early, they're taken out of the game, and that's very demoralizing. Dwight was shelled twice in the world series, and that alone was going to be on his mind all winter. This drug thing is going to make it very tough for him to come back.

[Q] Playboy: Even if he has no problem getting off cocaine?

[A] Boggs: His confidence is still going to suffer. The main thing in this game is fan involvement--if you don't have the fans behind you, it makes it much more difficult to perform well. Dwight will now probably have to work twice as hard to come back. What's so strange about this sport is the fact that a pitcher can win 20 games one year and only ten the next. It's really unexplainable. I mean, it could happen to Bruce Hurst, too.

[Q] Playboy: Would that surprise you?

[A] Boggs: Yeah, that would really surprise me, because I expect Hurst to become as dominating a pitcher as Roger Clemens. Hurst's confidence level is so high now, and it should be. Bruce has perfected the split-fingered fastball--he calls it a fork ball--which is the pitch of the Eighties. Like Jack Morris of the Detroit Tigers, he learned how to throw the pitch from Roger Craig, who's the guru of the split-fingered fastball. It's a very difficult pitch to hit, mostly because it's a very deceptive pitch.

[Q] Playboy: What kind of deception are we talking about here?

[A] Boggs: On its way to the plate, it looks like a fastball; but at the last split second, a fork ball drops down. That means you have to watch out for two things: If it's a low pitch, the ball's going to break down and out of the strike zone, and you'll wind up swinging on top of it and beating it into the dirt. Or else it'll start out as a high fastball. A hitter's tendency will be to lay off it, but then it'll break down into the strike zone. Any way you look at it, it's a tough pitch to handle.

[Q] Playboy: How do you handle the split-fingered fastball?

[A] Boggs: Sometimes I can recognize it coming. A few pitchers throw it in such a way that the ball seems to come in with an oblong rotation--it'll look uneven. But that's not true about the guys who've absolutely mastered the pitch. When a Jack Morris, a Bruce Sutter or a Bruce Hurst throws the fork ball, it looks exactly like a fastball, and the only way to hit it is to make contact before the pitch breaks down. You have to commit yourself early and then hope for the best.

[Q] Playboy: Have you been working on ways to hit the pitch more effectively?

[A] Boggs: There's no way of doing that, because the only guys who can throw it are specialists at it. You can't get batting-practice pitchers to come out and throw you fork balls--they just can't.

[Q] Playboy: You've been hitting lead-off for quite some time. Does that make sense, considering your batting average?

[A] Boggs: On one level, yes, it makes sense. I get more than 200 hits and more than 100 walks a season, and my on-base percentage is .450, which means I'm usually out there lighting a fire for hitters like Baylor and Jim Rice. But I also think a lead-off man should steal 60 to 100 bases a year--and last season, I didn't steal one. By using me to lead off, I don't think the team is getting the most out of me that it could. I'd like to bat third and have Baylor and Rice behind me.

[Q] Playboy: Have you expressed this to your manager, John McNamara?

[A] Boggs: Oh, yeah, I talked with Mac about it. He said, "We'll see." It all depends on whether or not the Red Sox can come up with someone else to stick in the lead-off spot, and I'm not sure they can. It's just as tough finding a good lead-off man as it is finding somebody who can bat third in your line-up. Whoever bats first is a vital part of the team; he has to get everything going. We'll see what happens.

[Q] Playboy: You became a symbol of the team in the final moments of last season, when there was a TV close-up of you sitting alone on the Boston bench, watching the Mets celebrate their victory while tears cascaded down your cheeks. Was that an example of what Jim McKay would call "the agony of defeat"?

[A] Boggs: No, I remember very vividly what was going through my mind at the time. The reason for the tears wasn't just because we'd lost the world series or because the Mets were jumping up and down on the field--we did the same thing when our team beat the California Angels in the play-offs. What truly got to me was the realization that that was the culmination of the worst year of my life. From October of '85 to October of '86, so many negative things happened to me and my family that there actually were times when I thought, How much pain can a man stand? At that moment, my only outlet was to just sit there knowing there was no more baseball to play and that I was finally going home.

[Q] Playboy: What happened during that year?

[A] Boggs: [Pauses] It began in October of '85, when my sister, Ann, became paralyzed from the waist down. We've always been very close, and I'd seen her just a few days before, and she'd been fine. Suddenly, she was in the hospital and the doctors didn't know what was wrong with her. Their first diagnosis was encephalitis; but about ten days later, after further testing, they discovered Ann had multiple sclerosis. It was very depressing to see just how fast this disease could hit a person between the ages of 25 and 35.

[A] I decided to dedicate my life to fighting M.S. and to do everything possible to get Ann to walk again. Bobby Doerr, who played second base for the Red Sox during the Forties and early Fifties, contacted me. His wife has M.S., and he gave me the names of several doctors in Houston. So I flew Ann to Houston, where she went through a period of peaks and valleys. She'd get better for a week and then regress for two weeks. Ann is bedridden again.

[Q] Playboy: And you had problems with your own health, didn't you?

[A] Boggs: I always have problems with my back. Every season, the pain gets so bad that I have to take a couple of days off at a time, but last year I began treatment with D.L.P.A. and amino acids, and my back felt much better. I always start out slowly--I'm a warm-weather hitter and Boston's very cold in April--but in May, I hit .471 and I was really on my way. At the beginning of June, though, I had an accident that was so freaky, I'm almost embarrassed to talk about it.

[Q] Playboy: What happened?

[A] Boggs: Well, I wear boots, and they're just not easy to take off--I've actually fallen out of chairs taking off my boots. After a night game in Toronto, I went back to my hotel room and was pulling off one boot while standing up, and I lost my balance. I fell against the arm of a couch. I think Canadian couches jump up and bite you--I was in so much pain, I thought I was going to die. I could barely breathe for five minutes. When I went to the ball park the next day and I came up for batting practice, I could not swing.

[Q] Playboy: What was the problem?

[A] Boggs: Dr. Pappas, our team physician, told me that cartilage had been pulled away from the bone. No X rays were taken. A couple of weeks later, I found out I'd broken a rib.

[Q] Playboy: Why didn't you insist on X rays?

[A] Boggs: If our doctor didn't think they were necessary, I wasn't going to question him. As long as I could breathe, I was going to go out there and play. I guess I felt that if I didn't have a punctured lung, then I didn't have a broken rib. But I was getting to a point where I really couldn't breathe. A few days later, in a game against Milwaukee, I led off an inning with a double; and when I got to second base, the pain was so intense that my legs started throbbing and I could hardly stand up. After I went to third on a ground ball, Jim Rice hit a fly ball to center field. While it was still up in the air, I turned to third-base coach Rene Lachemann and told him I couldn't score on it--I couldn't run. Luckily, Don Baylor, who was up next, hit a single, and I walked home. When I got to the dugout, I went up to McNamara and said, "Mac, I got to come out of the game. I can't breathe." And then I went into the clubhouse and Dr. Pappas gave me a shot of cortisone, hoping it would get me ready for a three-game series with the Yankees in New York.

[Q] Playboy: Did it?

[A] Boggs: No way. I was on the bench for the first two games of that series, both of which we won. I went out to Yankee Stadium early the next day, feeling a little bit better and thinking maybe I could play that night. Around 2:45, Charlie Moss, our trainer, was icing down my back and putting hot packs on my ribs when the phone rang. The call was for me. It was a doctor at a hospital in Tampa, and the first thing--the only thing--he said was, "Your mother has died." He may have said more, but I don't know, because I blacked out.

[Q] Playboy: How did your mother die?

[A] Boggs: She was killed in a car accident. My mother had been driving my grandmother to the library in a new Chevrolet Blazer I'd just bought her, and a man in a cement truck ran a red light and broad-sided the Blazer at an intersection. My mother died a day before her birthday. My grandmother was in the hospital for about four months with a broken collarbone, a broken hip, a broken leg and a lot of internal injuries. She's fine now and moving around like crazy.

[A] You know, you sit back and wonder how something like this could happen and people say, "Well, it's meant to be." But I can't figure out how it was meant to be, because the truck driver was supposed to be making a delivery 35 minutes away on the other side of town and instead had gone downtown to visit his mother. It was the first time I'd visited home during 11 summers of playing pro ball, and I wished I'd never come back. I went home on a Monday, my mother's funeral was on a Thursday, and I returned to Boston the following Sunday. I was still having trouble breathing, so on the Friday before I left, I had my ribs X-rayed. I'd broken the second rib up from the bottom on the right side. The doctor told me that if I'd been playing that week, the rib would have broken in half and ruptured a lung.

[Q] Playboy: How long did you stay out of the line-up after you returned to Boston?

[A] Boggs: I didn't take any time off. When I got back, Mac said, "Take as long as you need." I said, "OK, I'll think about it and let you know." We had a Monday-night game, and I went to Fenway Park a little after three, which is when I always get there. McNamara walked into the clubhouse around four o'clock and said, "What are you doing?" I told him, "Life goes on. I'm not going to sit around doing nothing. I've got responsibilities to uphold here." We were in first place at the time and I told him, "Put me in the line-up tonight. That's all I want." Mac let me play.

[Q] Playboy: What did your wife think about all that?

[A] Boggs: Debbie thought I was crazy. But as it turned out, I wasn't. I don't know if you want to call it a minor miracle or just the result of a week's rest--I'd done nothing during the week of my mother's funeral--but when I went out onto the field, I could pick up grounders, throw and hit. I mean, I wasn't to the point where I could go full bore, but I could play. Mac came up to me and asked how I felt. I said, "I'm OK."

[Q] Playboy: But you weren't.

[A] Boggs: I wouldn't tell him that. If I had your basic nine-to-five job, I probably wouldn't have gone back to work for six months. I needed the outlet baseball gives me to get out of myself. When I went up to the plate that night, the fans at Fenway gave me a five-minute standing ovation for coming back so soon--they knew about everything by then. I got all choked up and kept backing out of the batter's box, because trying to catch your breath with a broken rib isn't the easiest thing in the world. When I got a hit, they gave me another long ovation. Came up again, got another ovation, got another hit and another ovation. I'll never forget that night.

[Q] Playboy: How long did it take before you were back to normal again?

[A] Boggs: The pain was completely gone about a month later. But just as that happened, I went into a deep depression. One morning in Chicago, before a game against the White Sox, I woke up and I didn't care if I went to the ball park or not. When I got to Comiskey Park, I found myself just going through the motions. Nothing really mattered to me.

[Q] Playboy: Were you thinking about your mother?

[A] Boggs: No, that wasn't it. I was trying to block the whole thing out of my mind and think of cheery things, but it didn't work. I'd always enjoyed our team's bus rides from airports to hotels, because everyone spends the time telling jokes, carrying on and laughing. For the first time, I found those rides annoying. I didn't want to be around people. I didn't know what I wanted, except for this down feeling to be over. I made the American League All-Star team, but I didn't really enjoy the game. I had no desire to do anything. That July, I hit .212. It was especially tough on my wife, because Debbie was trying to comfort me during that period and I was acting like a zombie.

[Q] Playboy: How long were you depressed?

[A] Boggs: About three weeks--until the end of July. At that point, we were again in Chicago. I visited my agent in a suburb north of the city. Someone in our agent group knew how I was feeling and drove me back down to Chicago mainly to play a positive-thinking tape--You Become What You Believe, by Napoleon Hill--for me in his car. One phrase on that tape stuck in my mind: "progressive realization of reoccurring ideals." I needed to hear that, because I'd always worked very methodically to be the best I could, and I obviously had gotten away from that. That afternoon, when I got to Comiskey Park, I went up to Walt Hriniak, our batting instructor, and said, "Walt, I'm back." I got three hits that night and wound up hitting over .400 for the rest of the season.

[Q] Playboy: Was it all smooth sailing from then on?

[A] Boggs: Mentally, yes; physically, no. In a game against Baltimore--just before our last series of the season--I tore my right hamstring muscle. When Dr. Pappas examined me, he was able to stick his thumb halfway down into my hamstring--I had a tear in it the size of a quarter. We'd already clinched our division championship, and there were only four games left in the season--against the Yankees. Dr. Pappas told me to sit out that series. I took his advice, but I really didn't want to.

[Q] Playboy: Was that because you and the Yankees' Don Mattingly were in a close battle for the American League title?

[A] Boggs: Right, and I knew I'd get ripped in the press if I sat on the bench. Don had a chance to catch me, and those games were being played at Yankee Stadium. I've never backed into anything in my life, and I didn't want anyone thinking that's what I was trying to do. But the doctors warned me that if I sprinted down to first, I might really tear that hamstring up, which would finish me for the year. I didn't want to jeopardize my taking part in the American League play-offs and a possible world series, so I sat on the bench. I wound up winning the batting title with a .357 average; Mattingly was second, with .352.

[Q] Playboy: How did he feel about your not playing in those last four games?

[A] Boggs: Don said, "If I was in your situation, I'd have done the same thing." The New York Post ran a story calling me a chicken for not showing up against the Yanks, but the play-offs meant more to me than trying to please sportswriters. The hamstring was still in bad shape when we started our play-offs against the California Angels. I had my leg wrapped, and it bothered me at the plate. I wound up hitting only .212 in the play-offs, and it carried over into the series, where I hit .290.

[Q] Playboy: Before you got to the series, you were in one of the most dramatic play-off games ever. The Angels were ahead of the Red Sox three games to one; in the fifth game, you were losing five to two going into the ninth inning. At that point, did (continued on page 152)Wade Boggs(continued from page 62) you think your team had any real chance to come back?

[A] Boggs: We knew it was as close to being over as it could be. We were playing in Anaheim, and after our first two guys up in the inning struck out, the crowd started going crazy. The thing that really sticks out in my mind is that, after our second out, I saw Reggie Jackson take off his sunglasses and hand them to the trainer and then go over and put his arms around Gene Mauch, the Angels' manager. After that, the rest of the Angels took off their caps and got ready to run out onto the field and celebrate.

[Q] Playboy: How did your teammates feel?

[A] Boggs: Like a patient who's had a heart attack--the doctors try to revive him, get no heartbeat and send in the priest to perform last rites. Rich Gedman, our next batter, was hit by a pitch; and then--just before the patient drew his last breath--Don Baylor hit a home run. The score was now five to four, and we could hear the faintest heartbeat: We weren't dead yet. Up comes Dave Henderson. He gets two strikes on him, but we're all holding our breath, thinking the same thing: A home run would tie the game up. Then Henderson pulls the ball deep and I find myself standing on the top step of the dugout, blowing as hard as I can to lift that ball out of there. Boom! Home run! We're tied!

[A] When Henderson's ball cleared the fence, there was pandemonium in our dugout--and the rest of the stadium was so silent you could have heard a pin drop. The crowd was completely quiet. Two innings later, Henderson came up again, with the bases loaded, and knocked in the winning run with a sacrifice fly. We had what we wanted: the chance to take the play-offs back to Boston. We felt there was no stopping us now, and when we got the Angels back to Fenway Park, both games were blowouts: We beat them ten to four and eight to one, and we were going to the world series.

[Q] Playboy: Your opponents in the series, the New York Mets, had a well-publicized reputation for being an arrogant, cocky collection of ballplayers. Did you find that to be the case?

[A] Boggs: No, not at all. I didn't socialize with them, but they didn't strike me as cocky and arrogant.

[Q] Playboy: What did they strike you as?

[A] Boggs: Mostly, they struck me as surprised. The Mets were big favorites to beat us in the world series, but we went into Shea Stadium and ate 'em up, one to nothing and nine to three. I was sure we had better hitters, but our defense really caught them off guard, especially in game two. Henderson and Dwight Evans both made diving catches in the outfield; Spike Owen, our shortstop, made a great play on a ground ball up the middle; and I made three strong plays in one inning. That shook up the Mets and a lot of others.

[Q] Playboy: In what way?

[A] Boggs: It was like--ding!--lights went on and bells went off: Wade Boggs was not a butcher at third base.

[Q] Playboy: You had that reputation?

[A] Boggs: It had followed me from the minor leagues, and I'd never been able to shake it, no matter how well I played.

[Q] Playboy:Were you a lousy fielder in the minors?

[A] Boggs: I wasn't nearly as lousy as the fields I played on. In the minors, you play on some very ratty infields and, naturally, the balls take bad hops. When they do, not only don't you catch them, you get gun-shy--you don't stay down on them as long as you should. If you do, the ball comes up in your face and you periodically find yourself visiting a dentist. Since coming up to the majors, I've worked hard at making myself a good third baseman, but I think most of my improvement is due to experience--as the years have gone by, I've learned where to play hitters. Baseball people often talk about a third baseman's "range," but I don't think third basemen can have any range: After the ball's hit in your direction, you have time for only two steps and a dive. When I first came up and didn't know where to play the hitters, I'd take my two steps and dive, and I wouldn't come close to the ball. Now that I know where to play the hitters, I' take my two steps and dive and I do catch the ball. I've been doing it for years, but it took a spectacle like the world series to wake people up to that fact.

[Q] Playboy: In the series, after Boston went ahead three games to two, there was a moment when you and everyone else thought the series was yours, wasn't there?

[A] Boggs: Yeah. When we flew down to New York again, we were very confident about winning the series. Little did we know that we'd suffer the same death as the Angels: I'm sure they felt the same thing at the end of the play-offs as we did at the end of the world series.

[Q] Playboy: Which was?

[A] Boggs: Shock. Great disappointment. Game six went into extra innings, and in the top of the tenth, with the score tied three to three, I drove in our fourth run and scored our fifth. When we came out for the bottom of the inning, we all felt, "Here we go--we've got it now." After we got two quick outs, the Mets' management flashed a message on the scoreboard that read, Congratulations 1986 World Series Champions, Boston Red Sox. Harry Wendelstedt, the third-base umpire, came over to me and said, "Throw me your cap before you go out on the mound and start celebrating"--he wanted a souvenir. I told him, "Harry, it's not over yet." I got that right.

[A] Gary Carter hit a single to left center. The Mets' next batter, Kevin Mitchell, got jammed on a two-strike pitch and blooped a single to center that sent Carter to third. Ray Knight then blooped another single to left center, scoring Carter and moving Mitchell to third. The score was now five to four, and Mac brought in Bob Stanley to relieve Calvin Schiraldi. Bob had had an up-and-down season, but he was just tremendous in the play-offs and the world series. He went two and two on Mookie Wilson, and then an inside pitch got away from him and I still can't believe it didn't hit Wilson. I don't know how he got out of the way, but he did, and the ball rolled to the backstop and Mitchell scored to tie it at five to five.

[Q] Playboy: What were you feeling?

[A] Boggs: I felt like I was on the outside looking in, because I didn't have a play the entire inning. The roof was caving in, and I was just watching players run by me. On the passed ball that scored Mitchell, Knight went to second, and he was standing there when Mookie hit a little grounder to Billy Buckner at first base. Just as I started to think, Whew, at least we're out of the inning, the ball went through Billy's legs. Knight scored the winning run. NBC had set up its cameras in our dressing room, there were cases of champagne on ice, and the world-series trophy had been brought down to be presented to us. Between the time the ball rolled through Billy's legs and the time John McNamara walked into the clubhouse, everything had been cleared out.

[Q] Playboy: Did you begin to suspect that 1986 wasn't the year of the Red Sox?

[A] Boggs: Well, it was a tough game to lose, but we had come back before. All we had to do was win the seventh game. With Hurst pitching his third series game, we were feeling really loosy-goosy. And after we jumped out to a three--nothing lead, everyone in the dugout started saying, "Snowball!"--meaning just keep pushing for more runs. We were glowing, thinking, Well, the wait was worth it.

[A] And then--boom!--here come the Mets. They tied the score, and then Ray Knight hit a home run to put them ahead for good. The score was eight to five when we came up in the ninth inning, and with two out and Marty Barrett at the plate, somebody threw a red smoke bomb onto the field. A red cloud literally descended upon the Red Sox, and after Barrett struck out, that was all she wrote. We got to game seven, and we lost. It would have been the greatest thing in the world to win, but we didn't.

[Q] Playboy: Maybe this year. And just one more note on your hitting: As most fans know, no major-leaguer has hit .400 since Ted Williams did it in 1941. Your career batting average is higher than Williams', and it seems to us that you just might be the next man to break the .400 barrier. Is that a goal of yours?

[A] Boggs: No, the only goal I set for myself is to be the best; and if that should entail hitting .400 because another player is hitting .399, then to be the best, I'd have to hit .400. It could also become a goal if there were maybe three days left in the season and I was hitting about .400. Otherwise, no. I mean, it's just not realistic to sit down at the start of a season and say, "Well, I'd like to hit .400 this year." Sure, I'd like to hit .400, but we're talking about something so difficult to achieve that I think the next guy who does it will be considered immortal. It would be the biggest thing that had ever happened to baseball. My personal goals don't really stretch that far: I want to be the league's best hitter, and I want to play until I'm 40 years old.

[Q] Playboy: If you're able to play that long, what would you hope to have accomplished by the time you left the sport?

[A] Boggs: What I set out to do: to be the best player I could be. And to give as much enjoyment to people watching me as I get out of playing the game.

[Q] Playboy: That's modest. Are you sure you wouldn't want people to remember Wade Boggs as the greatest hitter in modern baseball history?

[A] Boggs: I'd love it. I'd also love to meet Kathleen Turner, but I don't walk around thinking about either of those things. I'm much more of a year-to-year person, and I know what I want this year: a world-series title for the Red Sox. It's great to win individual honors, but if you check with the Mets, you'll discover that nothing feels as good as being able to collectively say, "We're the best"--that's when you know you've really accomplished something. This year's Red Sox want to go one step beyond 1986 and win the world series--we've got the talent and we've got the appetite. And our fans deserve it. Why should the Celtics be the only team in Boston that goes to the play-offs and championships every year?

"There are players who couldn't hit curves or change-ups if they were standing at the plate with 40 bats in their hands."