Why Boggs’ loss is painless

Unless he tries to hang on too long, Wade Anthony Boggs is going to wind up one of the top 20 hitters ever to play major league baseball. In fact, if the first-year Yankee hung it up before Friday night’s game in Boston, where he spent his first 11 seasons, he’d be No. 18 all-time with a .336 lifetime batting average.

Boggs is the only one of the top 26 all-time hitters I actually saw play in person, which means some day, years from now, someone who doesn’t believe in VCRs is going to ask me just how good Wade really was.

At that point, I am pretty sure I’m going to be stumped for an answer.

Only Boggs could create such ambiguity in the face of great stats.

Whenever I ask anyone who saw Ted Williams play how good a hitter the Splinter really was, I get stories of infield shifts ignored and towering, majestic home runs. Williams (No. 6 all-time at .344) gets raves.

Same thing with Stan Musial (No. 23 all-time, .331). Stan the Man hit line drives with such velocity the average fan couldn’t pick up the ball until it was already in the outfield, I’m told. Nobody hit ’em like Stan.

Most of the rest of the top 26 – No. 1 Ty Cobb (.367), 2. Rogers Hornsby (.358), 3. Shoeless Joe Jackson (.356), 11. Babe Ruth (.342), 16. Lou Gehrig (.340) – are ingrained in the game’s lore so deeply they are part of baseball itself.

Which brings us to Boggs. Will his accomplishments age like wine in my mind? Will some youngster’s eyes grow wide as I recount anecdote after anecdote about Boggs’ hitting prowess?

I don’t think so.

As Boggs returned to Fenway Park Friday night for the first time in a Yankees uniform, I updated my internal file on him, running through a kind of emotional checklist:

Do I miss him when I watch the Red Sox?

Ummmmm… No.

Am I angry at the Red Sox front office for letting him get away as a free agent, like I was angry when Carlton Fisk got away?

…. No.

Do I feel like the Yankees have a competitive edge on the Sox with him?

…. No.

Okay, now how can I, or anyone, justify all this lack of feeling for Boggs with the numbers the man piled up while in Boston, numbers that will land him in the Hall of Fame?

Easy. I just compare Boggs to other players of his era whose numbers weren’t so great but who stand out much more vividly in my mind as great ballplayers.

Start with Yaz. At 5-foot-11, 180 pounds, Yaz spotted Boggs three inches and 17 pounds. Yaz also spots Boggs 50 points on his lifetime batting average. But every time Carl Yastrzemski stepped into the batter’s box, I had the feeling anything could happen, starting with him hitting the ball out of the park. Yaz hit 452 homers in 23 seasons. Boggs had 85 career homers going into Friday night.

All those years when Boggs stepped into the box in Fenway, the best thing I remember hoping for was for him to hit the ball off the wall. On those occasions when he did pop one into the screen or the bullpen, I don’t know who was more surprised, him or me.

Homers aren’t everything, I know. But generating fan expectation counts for something when talking about great hitters. That’s why Williams (521 homers) and Musial (475 HR) and the others are remembered so vividly. How many great Wade Boggs’ stories do you have?

Boggs’ lack of power is about the only statistical area on which he can be assailed. But stats aren’t always enough to make a legend. Immortality can hinge on something as subjective as style.

History records Cobb was the kind of singles hitter Boggs is. But Cobb had style. He was fiery. He was emotional. He was watchable. Ditto Pete Rose. And when they hit, it was only the start of things. Fans had the feeling they would rip the opposition apart on the bases.

I always think of Boggs’ hitting style as somehow defensive rather than offensive. The image frozen in my mind is his slapping base hits to the opposite field. Two-strike hitting. Base running? Once the ball lands safely, the Boggs show is over until the next at bat.

What will I ultimately say about Boggs when asked in the future? I can’t be sure. But I think it will be something like this:

The man could hit. Now let me tell you about Yaz….