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Rays to celebrate a blast from the past: Wade Boggs’ historic home run

 
Published Aug. 24, 2018|Updated Aug. 24, 2018

ST. PETERSBURG — That Wade Boggs reached the career milestone of 3,000 hits on the Devil Rays' early August 1999 homestand really wasn't surprising. He had gotten to 2,997 on the previous road trip, and even after an 0-for-3 the first night back, the Tampa product had five more games to get the final three hits at home, where his 75-year-old father could watch.

But it was how Boggs did it, and how emotionally he was in celebrating, that made it so special, a top-five moment in Rays history at the Trop, one that will be celebrated with a bobblehead and a first pitch on Saturday.

For a player who liked everything in order, who ate chicken every day, took the field at the same time, basically put the super in superstitious, the uncertainty was unsettling.

When his then-12-year-old son, Brett, told him on the drive over the bridge for that Saturday, Aug. 7, game that he was going to get all three hits that night, Boggs wasn't so sure: "I said, 'All right, at least you're the positive one in the family.' "

But after grounding out in his first at-bat against Cleveland's Charles Nagy, Boggs drilled a bases-loaded single in the third for 2,998, then another RBI single in the fifth for 2,999.

"Getting the first two out of the way, knowing I had at least one or two more at-bats to go ahead and get it that night took a lot of the pressure off,'' Boggs recalled Thursday. "I didn't have to sit there with an 0-for-2 or 0-for-3 and think how long is this going to drag out.''

What Boggs had for so long viewed as a career achievement award — the "holy grail of 3,000 hits,'' the "mountain I wanted to stick my flag into" — was now right in front of him. And, of all things, he hit out of the park. Literally.

After laughing off manager Larry Rothschild claiming he was going to pinch-hit for him against lefty Chris Haney, Boggs took two balls and two strikes, then launched a curveball into the rightfield seats, the first of the then 23 players with 3,000 hits to get there with a home run.

"As far from the script as anybody could imagine,'' Boggs said. "When the ball left the park, I was like, 'Oh, my God.' "

There was a plan to celebrate a single or a double, with Brett, working as a bat boy, set to pull out the base and give it to dad. But now Boggs was freestyling.

As he watched the ball go out (and now marked by a yellow seat in Section 144), he pumped his fist, double high-fived first-base coach Billy Hatcher, pointed up and blew a kiss to salute his late mom on his way to second, did so again just before home (dodging a fan who ran onto the field), then, for reasons he still doesn't really know — "never in my wildest dreams" — dropped down to his knees to kiss home plate.

"It was all nonscripted,'' Boggs said. "I was sort of winging it. I never imagined that would be the way to get to 3,000.''

Boggs' hit remains the most significant individual milestone reached by a Rays player, and it certainly ranks in our top-five moments at the Trop. The bigger debate is for the No. 1 spot, whether it's the final out of the 2008 AL Championship Series or Evan Longoria's Game 162-ending home run. Here's what we came up with:

1. FINAL OUT, ALCS GAME 7, Oct. 19, 2008: Obviously if the Rays had gone on to win the World Series, this would not rank as high. But given the improbability of their worst-to-first turnaround, the fierceness of the rivalry with the Red Sox and the drama of the series going seven games after the Rays blew a 7-0 lead in Game 5, all of that set the stage for this moment like no other. Anyone who was there will attest to the tension in the building and the incredible release when rookie David Price threw the pitch, Jed Lowrie hit the ground ball and Akinori Iwamura made the play, raced to second base for the forceout and took the leap that serves as the iconic image of the remarkable accomplishment.

2. GAME 162 WALKOFF HOMER, Sept. 28, 2011: What had already been a tremendous game on a remarkable night of baseball came to a stunningly dramatic ending when Rays third baseman Evan Longoria hit the modern day shot heard 'round the world, a walkoff homer in the 12th that sent the Rays into the playoffs, joining Bobby Thomson of the 1951 pennant-winning Giants in history. As if that wasn't thrilling enough, consider that it came after the Rays had rallied from a 7-0 deficit in the eighth to tie on a two-out, pinch-hit homer by Dan Johnson in the ninth and that the Red Sox blew a 3-2 lead with two outs in the ninth at Baltimore to set the stage.

3. FIRST PITCH, FIRST SEASON, March 31, 1998: That Wilson Alvarez's fastball to Detroit's Brian Hunter was low and inside, or that the Devil Rays would go on to lose 11-6, hardly mattered, because this truly was the start of something. The 20-plus year effort to bring a major-league franchise to the Tampa Bay area, and the three years of building the team, came to glorious culmination on a day of celebration at a festive and sold-out Tropicana Field, with a quartet of Hall of Famers — Monte Irvin, Al Lopez, Stan Musial and Ted Williams — throwing out the ceremonial first pitches.

4. BOGGS 3,000TH HIT, Aug. 7, 1999: Being a local guy wrapping up his Hall of Fame career with his hometown team made it all the more special.

5. PLAYOFF CLINCHER, Sept. 20, 2008: Realistically, it had become a matter of when and not if by then. But anyone who watched the Rays struggle from their 1998 inception will attest to the feeling of watching Longoria grab Minnesota's Joe Mauer's foul pop by the stands behind third base to clinch their first post­season berth and set off an epic wet-and-wild celebration on the field and in the clubhouse that was 10 years in the making.

RUNNERSUP: Matt Garza's July 26, 2010, no-hitter, still the only no-no by the Rays; Johnson's tying homer in Game 162; Jose Lobaton's walkoff homer to extend the 2013 ALDS another day; Scott Kazmir's first pitch of the 2008 World Series, which really was being played in St. Petersburg; Carl Crawford's walkoff homer in Lou Piniella's 2003 managerial debut.