BOGGS HAS A BLAST; DEVIL RAY MAKES MILESTONE HIT A RARE HOMER : CLEVELAND 15, TAMPA BAY 10.Byline: Larry Guest Orlando Sentinel The Orlando Sentinel is the primary newspaper of the Orlando, Florida region. It was founded in 1876 and is currently in its 131st year of publication. The Sentinel is owned by Tribune Company and is overseen by the Chicago Tribune. Mired mire n. 1. An area of wet, soggy, muddy ground; a bog. 2. Deep slimy soil or mud. 3. A disadvantageous or difficult condition or situation: the mire of poverty. v. in the Boston Red Sox The Boston Red Sox are a professional baseball team based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Red Sox are a member and currently champions of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball’s American League. From to the present, the Red Sox have played in Fenway Park. farm system 20 years ago, Wade Boggs He was a veritable hitting machine, setting records for singles and doubles and batting average batting average n. Baseball A measure of a batter's performance obtained by dividing the total of base hits by the number of times at bat, not including walks. Noun 1. all through his extended, six-year grooming in the bushes, but the Sox seemed unimpressed. One year he hit .311 at Double-A Durham, N.C., and found himself back there the next summer. He hit .322 at Pawtucket, Boston's Triple-A farm team, and seven other teammates were promptly invited to Red Sox spring training. He didn't come up to Boston until he was nearly 24 years old. ``Guys who were hitting .230 were being shipped to the big leagues,'' Boggs recalls. ``But they could hit homers.'' It was sweet irony that the 41-year-old Boggs celebrated his grandest moment in the sport Saturday night by launching a home run - just his second of the season - to reach the fabled 3,000-hit plateau. He is just the 23rd player in history to reach that mark, but the first to get there in a home run trot. ``Now they'll call me a home run hitter,'' Boggs giggled afterward. With fans standing and cheering, flashbulbs popping on every pitch, Boggs rifled a 2-2 curveball from Cleveland reliever Chris Haney Christopher Deane Haney (born November 16 1968 in Baltimore, Maryland) is a former left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball who played from 1991 to 2002 for the Montreal Expos, Kansas City Royals, Chicago Cubs, Cleveland Indians, and Boston Red Sox. six rows deep into the right-field stands to punch his ticket to Cooperstown. The two-run homer wasn't enough to avoid an eventual 15-10 victory by the AL Central-leading Indians. But that hardly mattered to the near-sellout throng that had come to witness history. Although the approach to 3,000 by Boggs and Tony Gwynn
n. A drug used in cancer chemotherapy and composed of purinethol (6-mercaptopurine), Oncovin (vincristine sulfate), methotrexate, and prednisone. than the recent record chases of sluggers Mark McGwire Rounding second amid the cacophony he pointed skyward sky·ward adv. & adj. At or toward the sky. sky  wards adv. and mouthed a
salute to his late mother, killed in a 1986 car wreck. A fan jumped on
the field and raced Boggs for home, only to be leveled by a security
officer's flying tackle 20 feet short of home plate and at the
heroic hitter's feet.
``That was the key block that allowed me to score,'' Boggs said. ``The Bucs should look into that guy. It was a great body block.'' Unfazed un·fazed adj. Not fazed or disturbed. by the intruder, Boggs simply stopped and pointed skyward again, then dropped to his knees to kiss home plate. Engulfed by his happy teammates, Boggs hugged player after player until his father, Win Boggs, stood before him, tears of pride streaming down his 76-year-old face. It was the former career military sergeant who had first toned Wade's baseball skills in the family's Tampa backyard. Reaching 3,000 in the presence of his father had been a high priority for Boggs, who kept returning to Win for another embrace and another in the joyous scrum that broke out in front of the Devil Rays' dugout. There, too, was wife Debbie, who stood by him through the public scandal of his infidelity a decade ago and successfully worked with her husband to save their marriage. Debbie was wearing the wide smile and tears of the moment as she departed the field clutching an armful of roses. In the dugout after the celebration wound down, Boggs implored his teammates: ``Let's go win a game.'' ``I finally put my flag in that mountain. So many guys have tried and come up short,'' Boggs said. ``It was like the longest mile to walk up to the plate.'' BY THE NUMBERS 2 - Home runs hit by Boggs this season for Tampa Bay. 3 - Hits it took for Wade Boggs to reach 3,000 hits Saturday. 5 - Batting titles won by Boggs in the American League 6 - Number of times two players reached 3,000 hits in the same season. 23 - Players who have reached 3,000 hits in the major leagues. CAPTION(S): 4 Photos PHOTO (1--Color) Tampa Bay's Wade Boggs salutes the fans after getting his 3,000th hit with a home run against the Cleveland Indians in St. Petersburg, Fla. Robert Rogers/Associated Press (2--Color) No. 2,998 (3rd inning) (3--Color) No. 2,999 (4th inning) (4--Color) No. 3,000 (home run in the 6th inning |
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