Baseball

Boggs getting his first shot at Hall

By wire services
Published November 30, 2004

NEW YORK - Wade Boggs has a chance to enter the Hall of Fame on his own.

The five-time AL batting champion and former Devil Ray is the most prominent of the 12 first-timers on the ballot. Eight-time All-Star Darryl Strawberry and two-time NL batting champion Willie McGee also join the ballot but are long shots for induction.

Ryne Sandberg, Bruce Sutter, Jim Rice, Andre Dawson and Rich Gossage head the returning players on the ballots, which will be mailed this week to eligible voters in the Baseball Writers' Association of America.

Boggs, a 12-time All-Star during 18 seasons with the Red Sox, Yankees and Rays, is 23rd on the career list with 3,010 hits. He was the only player to homer for his 3,000th hit when he did it Aug. 7, 1999, at Tropicana Field.

He had a .328 career average and set an AL record by reaching 200 hits for seven straight seasons.

McGee, a four-time All-Star outfielder, was a .295 career hitter with 2,254 hits and 352 steals.

Strawberry hit 335 homers during a 17-year career with the Mets, Yankees, Dodgers and Giants. He was suspended from baseball in 1995 and 2000 for testing positive for cocaine and in 1999 after an arrest on a possession charge.

Voting ends Dec. 31, and the results will be announced Jan. 4.

EXPOS MOVE: A new ballpark for the soon-to-be Washington Nationals appeared to be headed to approval after the chair of the District of Columbia Council decided not to oppose financing.

The council is scheduled to vote today, two weeks after council chair Linda W. Cropp removed the proposal from the agenda.

Seven votes are needed for approval, and Mayor Anthony A. Williams said he expected the council to approve the measure.

Opponents claim the project will total more than $600-million.

MORE TROUBLE FOR BRADLEY: Hot-tempered Dodgers outfielder Milton Bradley was charged with disorderly conduct after interfering with a traffic stop near Akron, Ohio. The charge came after police stopped a woman for weaving on a highway Thursday.

Police say Bradley, who was driving another car ahead of the woman, stopped on an exit ramp and walked on the side of the highway until he reached the traffic stop.

"He started screaming to the officer something to the effect of, "Why are you stopping my friend?' " Copley Township Police Chief Michael Mier said. "The officer had to tell him several times to return to his vehicle and he refused to do so."

JAYS TO BUY STADIUM: The Blue Jays agreed to buy SkyDome, the team's ballpark in Toronto, for about $21.2-million. The 50,000-seat stadium, which opened in 1989, cost about $375-million to construct and was mostly funded by taxpayers.

CATCHER PLEADS OUT: Former Marlins catcher Ramon Castro pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor indecent assault charge in Pittsburgh and will serve a year on probation, ending a criminal case that began when a woman accused him of raping her.

BREWERS: Catcher Damian Miller's $8.75-million, three-year contract was finalized. The team put off completing the agreement for a week because it couldn't find any of its physicians to read the MRI exam results.

RED SOX: Backup catcher Doug Mirabelli became the first of the team's 16 free agents to re-sign, agreeing on a $3-million, two-year contract.

YANKEES: Former Devil Rays catcher John Flaherty is close to an agreement in what is likely to be the team's first free-agent signing.

[Last modified January 4, 2005, 17:15:43]