Wade Boggs: 26 incredible Red Sox stats for No. 26

Written By Ryan Spaeder
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The Red Sox will retire jersey No. 26 in honor of Hall of Famer Wade Boggs before tonight's game against the Rockies. It's a long overdue honor for Boggs, who made eight All-Star appearances and won five batting titles in a Boston uniform.

Let's look back at Boggs' career with 26 amazing stats.

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1. Debuted on April 10, 1982. He went 0-for-4. It got better ...

2.  Never batted .400 in a season. But he maintained a .401 batting average over a 162 game span from June 9, 1985 to June 6, 1986. His career-best .476 on-base percentage in 1988 is higher than Ty Cobb’s on-base percentage in any of his three .400 batting average seasons.

3.  Led all of baseball in times safely on base for seven straight seasons from 1983 to 1989. He was tied for 171st in strikeouts during that same span. During his Red Sox career from 1982 to 1992, he ranked first in times safely on base with 3,124 — 381 more than future Hall of Famer Tim Raines, who was second — first in hits with 2,098, and 158th in strikeouts with 470. He ranked first in times on base (2,971), hits (1,980), doubles (408), walks (969), intentional walks (146), and 155th in strikeouts (449) during the ten year-span from 1983 to 1992.

4.  Had two seasons with at least 150 singles, 50 extra-base hits, and 100 walks. No other player has even one. He and Pete Rose are the only players in baseball history with even 150 singles, 50 extra-base hits, and 75 walks in multiple seasons, with four and three respectively. He is also the only player in history to have four straight seasons with at least 200 this and 100 walks. He did so from 1986 to 1989.

5.  Holds the International Game Fish Association world record for largest bluefish ever caught at 87 centimeters. He also holds a number of undisclosed world beer drinking records.

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6.  Led the American League in intentional walls for six straight seasons from 1987 to 1992. He totaled just 53 home runs during that time. Alex Rodriguez has never led the league in intentional walks. When Barry Bonds set the new standard for power in 2001, hitting 73 home runs, he did not lead the league in intentional walks. Chris Davis, who was the last hit exactly 53 home runs in 2013. He finished fourth in intentional walks that season with 12 — fewer than Boggs had in any season from 1986 to 1992.

7.  Reached base safely in 152 of 161 games in 1985, an MLB record. Moreover, of the nine games he played and failed to reach base safely, he knocked in a run in three and had just one plate appearance in another.

8.  Wade Boggs batted .369 during his career at Boston’s Fenway Park, the highest batting average in the park’s storied history and eight points higher than second place Ted Williams. Boggs, a notorious singles hitter, had a career OPS of .991 at Fenway Park, roughtly the same as Boston’s most prolific power hitter since Ted Williams, David Ortiz.

9.  Maintained a .463 on-base percentage from 1986 to 1988. Joe DiMaggio maintained a .463 on-base percentage during his record hit-streak from game 1-56.

10. Led off a game (July 1, 1982) with a single to center field. It was just his 58th career at-bat (65th plate appearance), but the single bumped his lifetime batting average to .328 — it never again dropped below that mark.

11.  Was inducted into the Hall of Fame, on his first ballot, in 2005. His Hall of Fame plaque states that he, “reached base safely in 80 percent of games played.” A great injustice, as Boggs reached safely in 85.2 percent of games played. That 5.2 percentage point  represents 127 games over the course of his career.

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12.  Had five straight seasons with at least 8.0 WAR (wins above replacement) from 1985 to 1989. He led all American League position players in WAR from 1986 to 1988, and was second in 1985 and 1989. He did not receive a single first place MVP vote any of those seasons.

13.  Had an average season of .357/.454/.496, 113 runs, 213 hits, 45 doubles, 5 triples, 10 home runs, 70 RBI, 108 walks, and 8.4 WAR from 1985 to 1989. Again, he did not receive a single first place MVP vote any of those seasons.

14.  Had just five batting titles to his National League counterpart Tony Gwynn’s eight. But Boggs won six on-base percentage crowns to Gwynn’s one. Gwynn bested Boggs in career batting average by ten points, but Boggs had a higher on-base percentage by 27 points. Each played 2,440 career regular season games — Gwynn had 86 more hits, but Boggs reached base 490 more times than Gwynn.

15.  Became the 23rd member of the 3,000-hit club (and the first ever to homer for hit number 3,000) on Aug. 7, 1999.

16.  Had a 168 OPS+ while hitting just five home runs in 1988. Roger Maris had a 167 OPS+ while hitting 61 home runs and breaking Babe Ruth’s single-season record. Sammy Sosa had a 167 OPS+ from 1998 to 2002, averaging 61 home runs per season.

17.  Mike Trout will pass Wade Boggs in career strikeouts this season. Bryce Harper is still younger than Wade Boggs was on the day of his debut.

18.  Had a career batting average of .345 coming into the 1992 season and batted just .259 that year. But it was a fluke. Boggs had one of the most unlucky seasons in baseball history: His batting average on balls in play was down from .360 (career) to .261. The only thing Boggs was guilty of was not “hitting them where they ain’t."

19.  Alex Rodriguez has 97 career intentional walks. Wade Boggs was intentionally walks 99 times batting first in the lineup.

20.  Allegedly drank 64 beers on a cross country flight to Seattle. Despite this, he was a career .321/.408/.431 hitter in Seattle. One cannot help but wonder how Boggs would have hit in Milwaukee’s contemporary stadium, Miller Park. 

21.  Had seven straight 200-hit seasons from 1983 to 1989. He was the first player with at least seven straight 200-hit seasons since Willie Keeler did it in eight straight from 1894 to 1901. He was the first with even five straight since Charlie Gehringer from 1933 to 1937.

22.  Had a .396 on-base percentage in five seasons with the Yankees. Fellow 1980’s mustachioed rival batsman Don Mattingly had a career-high .397 on-base percentage in 1994 – Boggs, his teammate in 1994, had a .433 on-base percentage that season.

23. Owns the three most recent seasons with at least 200 hits, 100 walks, and fewer than 50 strikeouts: 1988, 1987 and 1986. Most recent prior to Boggs’s three straight? Stan “The Man” Musial in 1953.

24.  Would have to return to baseball and go 0-for-854 for his lifetime batting average to fall below .300.

25.  Justin McGuire fact cameo:

26.  No player has worn Roger Clemens’s No. 21 since he last played for the Red Sox in 1996. Wes Chamberlain, Lee Tinsley, Alejandro Pena, Aaron Sele, Orlando Merced, Chris Snopek, Rob Stanifer, Sean Berry, Lou Merloni, Freddy Sanchez, Ramiro Mendoza, Scott Podsednik and Brock Holt have all worn No. 26 since Boggs last donned Boston’s iconic uniform in 1992. Tonight, the Red Sox right a longtime wrong. Immortalizing Boggs. Retiring 26. Forever.

Sporting News contributor Ryan Spaeder is the creator and owner/operator of the popular Twitter account Ace of MLB Stats (@theaceofspaeder ) and co-author of "Incredible Baseball Stats: The Coolest, Strangest Stats and Facts in Baseball History."