Rays

Florida enshrinement is a 'steppingstone'

Cooperstown "the final piece of the puzzle," ex-Ray Wade Boggs says.

ST. PETERSBURG - At least Wade Boggs didn't have to bother himself over his baseball cap's logo. The Florida Sports Hall of Fame presented him with a trophy. It didn't unveil a plaque. That will be Cooperstown's job.

"Y'know, I've got to get the phone call first," said the former third baseman for the Red Sox (1982-92), Yankees (1993-97) and Devil Rays (1998-99). "There's a lot of great players out there who've never gotten the call." True, although every eligible National Baseball Hall of Fame candidate with 3,000 or more hits is in it. Boggs had 3,010, a career .328 batting average and five batting championships.

Boggs was inducted Sunday into Florida's Hall with two-time World Cup soccer champion Michelle Akers, four-time tennis Grand Slam winner Jim Courier, ESPN broadcaster and former FSU football player Lee Corso, and former Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino. The Super Bowl champion Buccaneers received the president's award.

They are the Class of 2000, supposed to have been enshrined in 2001. By then the Hall was in financial difficulty. No ceremony, no 2001-02 elections. The Hall, then in Lake City, closed in 2002. It is looking for funds and a new home. Boggs got his 3,000th hit Aug. 7, 1999, at Tropicana Field, the first to do it with a home run. Like hitting 500 homers or pitching 300 wins, 3,000 hits all but guarantees enshrinement in Cooperstown. He may be the only player enshrined in 2005, but he's campaigning for commissioner Bud Selig to make Pete Rose eligible.

Boggs called Sunday's induction "a steppingstone" to Cooperstown. "That'll be the final piece of the puzzle."

While he waits, Boggs helps coach at Wharton High, where his son, Brett, plays. He travels, hunts, fishes, plays in golf tournaments, makes appearances and basically avoids the regimen he followed during 24 years of pro ball.

"I'm just recently out of the game," Boggs said. He was briefly a Rays executive and hitting coach. "That was a transition period. Now I don't care what time I wake up and I don't care what time I go to bed and don't have to do all the things I used to do. It's a very relaxing life." And, yes, he says, he misses the game every day.

When a new Florida Hall opens, much Boggs memorabilia will be displayed, possibly including caps from his three teams. But it is the cap on a Cooperstown plaque that links him in perpetuity with one team.

Boggs will be happiest if he has his way, if it's the cap of the ... well, we just don't know. We do know that he may not have his way. Since last year the Hall of Fame makes the final call.

"We'll always take the player's wishes into consideration, but ... it's important that the logo be emblematic of his historical accomplishments," Hall of Fame spokesman Jeff Idelson said. "It is based purely on the team with which he made his most indelible mark."

Boggs made almost all his marks in Boston but left with some bitterness. "The Boston media said I was washed up and could never play again." He won two Gold Gloves as a Yankee and hit over .300 four times. "I sort of resurrected my career in New York. There are arguments for both."