August 7, 1999: Wade Boggs becomes the first major-leaguer to homer for his 3,000th hit

Hall of Famer Wade Boggs’ illustrious 18-year career included 12 consecutive All-Star Game appearances, eight Silver Slugger Awards, and five batting titles. The 240 hits he collected in 1985 are tied for the 13th highest in a major-league season (as of 2023). Boggs was a member of the 1996 New York Yankees team that won the World Series, which he memorably celebrated by riding a police horse on the field at Yankee Stadium.1

Born in Nebraska during his father’s Air Force career, Boggs settled with his family in Florida when his father retired from uniformed service in 1967. He went on to star in football and baseball at Henry B. Plant High School in Tampa. Boggs was drafted by the Red Sox in 1976 and made his major-league debut with Boston at the age of 24 in 1982. His 11 seasons with the Red Sox included seven straight with 200 or more hits. Boggs struggled to a .259 batting average in 1992 and entered free agency when his contract expired after the season.2 He spent the next five years with the Yankees before finishing his career with two seasons with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

Although Boggs didn’t possess much power or speed (118 career home runs and 24 stolen bases), he was an outstanding contact hitter. He averaged 180 hits per year from 1982 through 1996 and retired with a .328 batting average. Boggs reached 1,000 hits with a leadoff single in his 747th game on April 30, 1987. It took him 768 more games to get to 2,000 hits. He reached that milestone with a single off Mark Langston on May 17, 1992, in a game against the California Angels in Boston.

Boggs joined the expansion Devil Rays in 1998 for their inaugural season. He hit the first home run in franchise history on Opening Day and finished that season with 2,922 career hits. This gave him the opportunity to reach 3,000 hits in 1999 while playing for his hometown team.

Celebrating his 41st birthday in June 1999, Boggs accumulated 60 hits before the All-Star Game. Five more on a six-game road trip at the end of July and early August left him sitting on 2,997 hits as the Devil Rays returned home for six games beginning on Friday, August 6.

It meant a lot to Boggs that he would have the opportunity to reach the historic milestone at home in front of his family and friends. “It just means so much to me to do this in front of my father. I’ve been here since I was 11 years old. I grew up here. I’ve got so many friends I grew up with and they’ll all be here. I want to share this with all the Tampa Bay fans.”3

Tampa Bay fans responded enthusiastically to their hometown hero’s opportunity at history. The August 6 game against the Cleveland Indians, Boggs’ first chance to reach 3,000 hits, drew just under 33,000 fans, the Devil Rays’ third biggest crowd of the season to date. But Boggs failed to get a hit, so he entered the game on August 7 still three hits shy of the milestone.

Another 38,215 fans – a season high at Tropicana Field – came to the Saturday night tilt hoping to see history made. When asked for his thoughts on his 3,000th safety, Boggs replied, “I want to walk to the plate at 2,999 and just let everything fall where it may. I just want to enjoy the moment when it happens because it’s going to be a special moment. A lot of blood, sweat, and tears have gone into trying to get there.”4

Expansion teams often struggle for a few years before becoming competitive, and Tampa Bay was no exception. The team had finished 1998 in last place in the American League East Division with a 63-99 record and was again in last with a 45-64 mark. Cleveland, headed for its fifth straight postseason appearance, led the AL Central Division by 13½ games with a record of 65-43.

The starting pitcher for the Indians was right-hander Charles Nagy. Nagy, in his 10th year with Cleveland, had a 12-7 record and a 4.79 earned-run average going into his 22nd start of the season. The Devil Rays countered with another veteran, 35-year-old righty Bobby Witt. Witt, in the 14th season of a 16-year career, was also making his 22nd start of the season. He had a 6-7 record with a 5.39 earned-run average.

Cleveland’s powerful offense, which led the majors with 1,009 runs scored in 1999, began its assault in the top of the first.5 Witt retired leadoff hitter Dave Roberts (who was making his major-league debut), but walked the next two batters. This brought cleanup hitter Manny Ramirez to the plate. Ramirez, who drove in a major-league-best 165 runs in 1999, hit the second pitch from Witt out of the park to give the Indians a 3-0 lead.

Nagy retired the Devil Rays in order in the bottom half of the inning, setting down Boggs on a grounder to second base.

Witt struggled again in the top of the third. Roberto Alomar doubled to start the inning and Ramirez drove him in with a single. Jim Thome homered to increase the lead to 6-0. Witt’s day was done when Devil Rays manager Larry Rothschild brought Bryan Rekar in to pitch. Rekar retired the side without any other runners crossing the plate.

The Devil Rays got to Nagy in the bottom of the inning. Two singles and a walk brought Boggs to the plate with the bases loaded. Boggs’ groundball single scored a run and increased his career total to 2,998 hits. The bases were still loaded when Fred McGriff stepped to the plate with one out. His double to right field cleared the bases and made the score 6-4.

The teams continued their offensive onslaught in the fourth inning. In the top half, a single by Omar Vizquel and a double by Thome drove in two runs before Richie Sexson came to the plate with the sacks full of Clevelanders. Sexson’s line drive to left field added two more runs to the Indians’ total, and made the score 10-4. Sexson’s hit also ended Rekar’s night as Rothschild turned to Rick White to finish the inning.

In the home half, Nagy allowed a single and a double that brought Terrell Lowery to the plate with men on second and third. His sacrifice fly drove in a run and brought Boggs to the plate for the third time. As he’d done the previous inning, Boggs grounded an RBI single to the right side, putting him just one safety short of 3,000. Nagy prevented further damage so the Indians led 10-6 at the end of the frame.

Each team added a run in fifth inning before White set the Indians down in order in the top of the sixth. Chris Haney replaced Nagy on the mound in the bottom half. Lowery singled to bring Boggs to the plate for his first chance at history.

With the count at 2-and-2, Boggs drove the fifth pitch he saw from Haney over the right-field wall for the 3,000th hit of his career. It was an emotional home-run trot. Boggs exchanged a double high-five with first-base coach Billy Hatcher, pointed to the sky (to honor his mother who was killed in an auto accident in 1986) as he neared second base, and finally knelt on both knees and kissed home plate to finish the trip. His teammates came to the plate to congratulate him, and Boggs blew kisses to the crowd as the fans stood and cheered.6

Boggs’ homer brought the Devil Rays within two runs at 11-9. But the Indians added two runs in the seventh and two more in the ninth. Tampa Bay tallied one run in the seventh, so the final score was 15-10. For Cleveland, it was one of 28 games in 1999 in which it scored 10 or more runs.

Boggs was ecstatic at the postgame press conference. He proclaimed, “I finally put my flag in that mountain. You can’t imagine the feeling that goes through your mind when something like this happens. It’s something that builds up for 18 years. Now I’ve finally done something that nobody else has ever done, and that’s hit a home run to get to 3,000 [hits]. Now I guess I’m going to be called a home-run hitter. I guess I just hit them at opportune times.”7

Boggs became the 23rd major leaguer to reach 3,000 hits and the first to reach the milestone with a home run.8 His 3,000th hit came one day after Tony Gwynn reached the 3,000-hit plateau, and two days after Mark McGwire collected his 500th home run. Boggs played just 10 more games before a knee injury forced him to retire.9 He finished his career with 3,010 hits.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to John Fredland and Gary Belleville for their comments on the first draft of this story. The article was fact-checked by Joseph Wancho and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, I used Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for team, season, and player pages and logs and the box scores and play-by-plays for this game.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TBA/TBA199908070.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1999/B08070TBA1999.htm

Notes

1 Steve West, “Wade Boggs,” SABR Baseball Biography Project, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/wade-boggs/ (last accessed February 27, 2023).

2 West, “Wade Boggs.”

3 Marc Topkin, “And Not a Step Closer …,” Tampa Bay Times, August 7, 1999: 6C.

4 Marc Topkin, “Wade Boggs, One of the Best Hitters of His Generation, Is Poised to Join the Game’s Elite in the 3,000-Hit Club,” The Sporting News, August 2, 1999: 26.

5 The 1999 Indians were the last team to score more than 1,000 runs in a season, and they were the first to accomplish that feat since the Boston Red Sox scored 1,027 in 1950. Only four other teams since 1900, all during the 1930s, have scored over 1,000 runs in a season.

6 Action transcribed from the You Tube video “1999 Rays: Wade Boggs Hits a Homerun for His 3,000th Career Hit (8/7/99),” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DJfAkVJcZo (last accessed February 27, 2023).

7 Marc Topkin, “3,000! What a Wade to Do It,” Tampa Bay Times, August 8, 1999: 12C.

8 Boggs’ teammate in 1996-1997, Derek Jeter, joined the 3,000 Hit Club with a home run in 2011. Alex Rodríguez also homered for his 3,000th hit in 2015.

9 Craig Muder, National Baseball Hall of Fame, “Boggs Made History With 3,000th Hit,” https://baseballhall.org/discover/inside-pitch/wade-boggs-made-history-with-3000th-hit#:~:text=On%20Aug.,to%20reach%20the%203%2C000%20mark (last accessed February 27, 2023).