I Eat More Chicken Any Man Ever Seen, Yeah!

My favorite baseball player of all time, Wade Boggs, hitter extraordinaire, is being inducted into Baseball's Hall of Fame tomorrow. Needless to say, Holly Go-Heavily, who is, I might add, not too hip to like professional sports, is quite excited.

Boggs played from 1982 to 1999 with the Boston Red Sox (1982-1992), the New York Yankees (1993-1997) and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays (1998-1999), spending most of his time as a third baseman (he play first base a few times, and even pitched on two occasions). While never a power hitter (he only hit more than 10 homers in a season twice), he consistently hit for a high batting average. In 18 seasons, he had only three seasons where he batted below .300, and two of those were at the end of his career. His career ended with a .328 batting average (only five players in the last 70 years have a higher career average).

His years of dominance ran from 1983 to 1989, where he became the only player in baseball history to have seven straight 200-hit seasons and 4 straight 200-hit, 100-walk seasons. He lead the American League in batting average five times in that span. His best season was 1985 when he batted .368 and had 240 hits (both career highs). Just think, he had 240 hits that year without the speed of Ichiro Suzuki, who broke the single-season hits record last year (262). If Boggs had Ichiro's speed (Boggs only had 24 stolen bases in his entire career), there's no telling how many hits he could have had. Boggs left the Red Sox for the Yankees in 1993, and with the Yankees, he won his only World Series (1996). He reached the 3,000-hit milestone in 1999 with Tampa Bay (the town he was born in), a milestone which only 25 other players have reached. The hit was a home run, making Boggs, not known for his power, the only member of the 3,000-hit club to hit a home run for his 3,000th hit. He retired with 3,010 hits.

Off the field, Boggs is known for his eccentric behavior. He ate chicken before every game and would draw the Hebrew word "chai" in the batters box before each at-bat. He was also known for a sex scandal involving a Penthouse Pinup named Margo Adams. Way to go Wade! Since his retirement, he has stooped to doing hair restoration commercials. Way to go Wade! And now he's in the Hall of Fame. Way to go Wade!