I love baseball for many reasons but the stars of my youth and their gregarious personalities have influenced that more than anything.  From Pedro Martinez’s hilarious and self-deprecating humor off the field and his bulldog demeanor on the mound to the outgoing nature and swagger of David Ortiz there has never been a shortage of these on Yawkey Way.  Boggs is no exception and it seems that the longer he’s away from the game the more his legend continues to grow.

With no way to truly do the man justice — and with Bryan Grosnick having already summer up his career – I thought it would be best to give the namesake of my long-time dynasty league team his due with 26 “facts” about his life and playing career.  I say facts loosely because some stories are legend but a few common themes unite them all:  Beer. Chicken.  Any yes many many hits.  

1. Wade Boggs accumulated 88.3 fWAR over the course of his 18-year playing career, which ranks fourth all-time amongst third basemen behind Eddie Matthews, Mike Schmidt and Alex Rodriguez.  
2. 70.8 of his fWAR was accumulated in his first 11 seasons, all with the Red Sox.
3. His 70.8 fWAR ranks him third all-time for fWAR accumulated while in a Red Sox uniform, only behind Carl Yastrzemski at 94.8 and Ted Williams at 130.4.
4. Legend has it that Boggs once consumed 64 beers on a cross-country flight from Boston to Los Angeles. While the number is disputed, the beer of choice is not.  
5. Wade Boggs drinks but one beer, none other than Miller Lite.
6. Known for his affection for chicken, Boggs tried his hand at sharing his favorite chicken recipes with all of us in his little-known recipe book and only known foray into writing Foul Tips: My Favorite Chicken Recipes—it is spiral bound.
7. Throughout his 1,625 games with the Red Sox, Boggs slashed .328/.428/.462. His OBP ranked behind only Jimmie Foxx at .429 and Ted Williams at .482.
8. Boggs finished his playing career with 3,010 hits, a fact which he honors with his excellent twitter handle @ChickenMan3010.
9. Boggs won five American League batting titles over his career, in 1983 and from 1985-1988.  All of these were won in a Red Sox uniform.
10. In 2005, Boggs was selected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 91.9% of the vote in his first year eligible.
11. Boggs was an 11-Time All-Star with eight of his selections coming while wearing a Red Sox uniform.
12. While he never won a World Series with the Red Sox he did reach one in 1986.  
13. When Boggs did win a World Series with the hated Yankees in 1996 he celebrated by riding on a police officer’s horse.
14. The number of beers consumed by Boggs is still very much up for debate. However former teammate Jeff Nelson is on the record saying “50-60 beers was not just an isolated incident but was something he did on almost every cross country flight.”
15. Boggs led the American League in OBP six-times, in 1983 and from 1985-1989.
16. In 1987 and 1988 he also led the American League in OPS.
17. 200+ hit seasons are very hard to come by, but Boggs had seven such seasons with the Red Sox.
18. As good as he was with the bat, Boggs was no slouch defensively, winning two golden gloves late in his career in 1994 and 1995.
19. While filming an appearance on my favorite comedy show “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” Boggs reportedly told Charlie Day that the actual number of beers he drank on the flight was a staggering 107.  Day shared this fact with the world on the Jimmy Fallon Show.  
20. From 1986-1988 Wade Boggs led the American League in fWAR amongst position players. His marks were 7.7, 8.9, and 8.6.
21. During this impressive stretch Boggs also put up an fWAR of 8.8 in 1985, but was unable to best the mark of 9.7 set by Ricky Henderson.
22. While he wasn’t considered a power hitter by any stretch of the imagination, Boggs could hit doubles.  He had 40 or more doubles eight times over his career with the Red Sox.
23. Do you like Silver Slugger awards?  Boggs has eight of them, six while playing for the Red Sox.
24. His .338 career batting average with the Red Sox is second only to the great Ted Williams.
25. Over his time with the Red Sox, Boggs led the MLB in batting average, hits, doubles and on base percentage.
26. From May 26th forward no player will ever again wear a number 26 Red Sox jersey. Boston fans will ALWAYS remember Boggs for what he did on the field while with Boston and we will cheer him on this year when his number 26 is retired in the place where he delivered the best moments of his storied career.Photo by Gregory Fisher/USA Today Sports Images

Ortiz is the fifth player to wear the red and navy of the Sox to hit 500 or more homers, as he joins Babe Ruth, Manny Ramirez, Jimmie Foxx and Ted Williams. Of those five, only Ruth hit his 500th homer with a different ballclub (and you know which one that is).

Given that Ortiz hit 58 homers with the Twins before coming over to the Sox, it seems very unlikely that he’ll pass Teddy Ballgame’s record of 521 dingers with the Red Sox. Nevertheless, I think it’s fair to say that given Double X’s and Manny’s journeyman ways, Ortiz will go in the record as the second-greatest home run hitter in Boston’s history.

There’s a reasonable chance that if Ortiz plays a full season in 2016, he’ll continue to climb up the all-time dinger leaderboard with alacrity. My best guess is that he finishes his career with about 530 homers, right around 19th place all-time and smack-dab between Foxx and Williams on the career home run list.

It took Ortiz 19 seasons to top the 500 HR list, and while that’s hardly chopped liver, Ortiz didn’t necessarily reach this plateau at a lightning pace. While many of the players ahead of Ortiz on the all-time list put in two decades or more, they also hit more homers than Ortiz, and hit the plateau a good bit before their 19th season. Heck, Albert Pujols is sitting at 555 homers and he’s only played 15 seasons thus far. In any case, it seems to be the seasonal number that most directly indicates a player’s ability to pass 500 homers. Like Papi, most hitters with 500 or more homers put in about two decades worth of time in the big leagues.

(So, for the record, if you’re looking for current young players who could conceivably reach that 500 homer plateau, I’d stay away from 23-year-old Kris Bryant — despite his SpaceX power — and put my money on, well, you know who.)

When you compare Ortiz’s plate appearances to other members of the 500-homer club, then we get to the interesting stuff. By looking at each player’s total career home runs and their total career appearances, we get a little bit of a better clue as to which hitters were the more prolific home run hitters based on frequency.

Ortiz scores a little better by this metric, as you can see the complete (and enormous) table below.

If you take a long look, you’ll see that Ortiz has hit homers at a proportional rate that’s better than 10 other members of the 500 Club. That’s not too shabby at all, even if you take into account that — at some point — Papi’s HR frequency is bound to slow to a crawl as he hits the point in his career where Father Time robs him of his efficacy. Then again, at this rate of decline, that may be during Ortiz’s age-47 season.

You may also notice that Ortiz also matches up nicely on the homer-per-plate-appearance basis with the greatest hitter in Sox history, Ted Williams. While no one would dare claim that the two Boston legends are of equal stature, it sure is nice to see the two paired together.

The debate as to whether or not Ortiz is a Hall of Famer is best left to others, as my opinion on the matter holds little weight. But what is not up for discussion is that Ortiz has placed himself in the upper echelon of big league home run hitters the way most of the players on the 500-dinger list have: by pairing a great HR/PA rate with uncommon longevity. I’d imagine that Ortiz ends his career with a very similar home run profile to another physically imposing slugger with charisma to spare: Reggie Jackson.

… in fact, this comparison carries even more weight when you compare the two clutch superstars and their postseason heroics. For the record (and from FanGraphs):

That’s just a little fun playoff data that ties these two monster sluggers together beyond just their propensity for hitting long, authoritative dingers once every 20 plate appearances.

In a season where Sox fans have to take joy in small things in order to glaze over the pain of being out of contention, this is a pretty sizeable event to get excited about. David Ortiz hit a “magic” milestone, one of those numbers that holds a special place in baseball history, and finally took his place among the great consistent sluggers in the game’s history.

Photo by Adam Hamari/USA Today Sports Images