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Single minded

As they closed in on magic hit number 3,000, Tony Gwynn and Wade Boggs looked back on eerily similar careers that established them as the top contact hitters of their time

By Tom Verducci

August 9, 1999

From the childhood moment when each learned to swing a bat, they have lived parallel baseball lives, heading to the same place as surely but separately as the steel rails of a train track. Each hits lefthanded and excels at hitting the ball to left. In Florida, Wade Boggs was taught by his father, Win, to wait as long as possible to swing at a pitched ball, a practice that honed his inside-out swing. One season in the minors Wade says he batted .332 while hitting just one ball to the right side of second base. In California, Tony Gwynn confounded the geography of his makeshift backyard field -- a tree in centerfield and hardly any leftfield at all -- by being an opposite-field hitter. "I have no idea why," he says. "It's my natural swing."

They made it to the big leagues within three months of each other in 1982, both without fanfare. They've been in lockstep ever since, and at week's end, after 4,704 combined games in the majors, Boggs, 41, and Gwynn, 39, had eerily similar numbers, not only of hits (both had 2,994) but also total bases (4,051 for Gwynn, 4,042 for Boggs). As they approached the career-capping milestone of 3,000 hits, Boggs and Gwynn can gaze back at a proud slate of accomplishments:

--Each hit better than .350 for four straight years, the only players to do so since 1931.

--Each won four straight batting titles, joining Rod Carew, Ty Cobb and Rogers Hornsby, the only other players to do so.

--They have been the preeminent contact hitters in an era gone gaga over homers. Only two players whose careers ended after World War II finished with 3,000 hits and fewer than 160 home runs -- Lou Brock and Rod Carew. Boggs, with 117 homers, and Gwynn, with 127, will almost certainly join them.

With the finish line of 3,000 hits in sight, it would be fitting if Boggs and Gwynn got there closer together than any two of the previous 20 players who have reached the magic number. (That distinction now belongs to Tris Speaker and Eddie Collins, who reached 3,000 within 20 days of each other in 1925.) Not far behind Boggs and Gwynn is Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken Jr., who at week's end needed 32 hits to make it an unprecedented threesome for 3,000 in the same season.

"When I got to 2,000 [in 1993]," Gwynn says, "I still felt like I had to get to 3,000. If you're a contact hitter, the bulk of [your hits] are going to be singles. The holy ground for a contact hitter is 3,000 hits." It's probably safe to say that Boggs felt the same way because when they are asked to review their career milestones, Boggs, who is in his second season with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and Gwynn, who has spent his entire career with the San Diego Padres, tell stories that are often strikingly similar.

1

Boggs waited through 662 minor league games over six years before he made the big leagues, as a backup infielder with the Boston Red Sox in 1982. On April 26, in the opener of a doubleheader at Comiskey Park in Chicago, Boggs grounded a single through the hole at shortstop off a 1-and-2 pitch from White Sox righthander Richard Dotson. "I got the hit, came back in the dugout, sat down and [Red Sox second baseman] Jerry Remy comes by and says, 'You only got 2,999 more to go, kid,'" Boggs says. "It's something that has stuck with me ever since."

Eighty-four days after Boggs's first hit, Gwynn made his debut, in centerfield against the Philadelphia Phillies, after being promoted from Triple A Hawaii. "Fourth time I came up I got a fastball out over the plate [from lefthanded reliever Sid Monge] and lined it into left center," Gwynn says. "Bob Dernier was playing center. He dove, and it just went under his glove to the wall for a double. I got to second base and I felt pretty good. My first big league game and I got a hit. Pete Rose [the Phillies' first baseman] is trailing the play. They flash on the board, TONY GWYNN'S FIRST BIG LEAGUE HIT. Pete came over, shook my hand and said, 'Congratulations. Don't catch me in one night.' I remember it like it was yesterday. 'Congratulations' was enough, but the 'Don't catch me in one night' thing really stuck. And I just remember standing there thinking, god, wouldn't it be great to have a career like he did."

500

Neither Boggs nor Gwynn has any recollection of his 500th hit, even when reminded of the details. Boggs reached 500 on Sept. 9, 1984, with a single off righthander Mike Armstrong of the New York Yankees. Gwynn hit 500 on Aug. 18 of the following season with a single off righthander Craig McMurtry of the Atlanta Braves. In those seasons each player suffered a major drop-off after winning his first batting title. Boggs's average fell 36 points, to .325, in 1984; Gwynn's dropped 34 points, to .317, in 1985.

"I was still hitting the ball well," Boggs says. "I remember sitting on the bench in Oakland, mid-July, talking to Remy, and he goes, 'Hey, you hit .361 last year and everything fell in. This year you're hitting line drives and nothing's falling in. Don't change anything. Just keep hitting hard line drives everywhere and eventually they'll fall in.' In '84, I hit .325 and kept hitting line drives, but they were right at people. Nothing you can do about it."

Says Gwynn, "In '84 I had Alan Wiggins hitting in front of me. So when he got on I saw a lot of fastballs. The next year he had his drug problem and he was gone, and I found myself getting a lot more breaking balls. It took me about a month to realize that's what they were doing. It took me a while to make an adjustment, but I did.

"By then I was using video," Gwynn continues. "In '83 I started the year on the DL. I had broken my wrist in winter ball, and in my second game back I went 3 for 4. But the next three weeks I was awful. I was getting ready to go on a road trip when I asked my wife to tape the games. When I looked at the tapes I realized my front side was flying open. The next day I went out early to BP and corrected it. I've been a believer [in video] ever since."

1,000

Boggs reached 1,000 on April 30, 1987 -- a full year ahead of Gwynn -- in classic Boggs form: He took a down-and-in fastball from Seattle Mariners righthander Scott Bankhead and poked it over third base for a single. Otherwise, '87 was the most atypical season of his career. While batting .363, Boggs hit 24 home runs and drove in 89 runs, the last two being career highs he has not come close to duplicating since.

"My hands were completely different," Boggs says of his style in '87. "I've got a tape of that whole year. And I've gone back and looked at that tape compared with all my other years, and my left hand is way under my right hand, which consequently causes elevation, which causes fly balls. Look at McGwire, Canseco, McGriff. Their top hands are significantly below their bottom hands at the moment of contact, which creates elevation. That year at the end of spring training I had gotten into a groove using my hands that way and stuck with it. I was able to hit really long, high fly balls. It just happened. I came back the next year in spring training and said, Oh, god, I hit 24 last year, I'll hit 40 this year. And I started swinging like that, and I popped up every single ball. And it took about three weeks to get rid of the muscle memory that I had developed, that now had turned into a curse, because I could not hit line drives."

Boggs and Gwynn each won batting titles in 1987 and '88, the only seasons in which they won in the same year. Gwynn was hitting .246 as late as July 2, 1988, and still won the championship with a .313 average. Earlier that year, on April 22, he reached 1,000 hits with a single off Nolan Ryan of the Houston Astros.

"It sounds good, doesn't it?" Gwynn says. "He had me 0 and 2, I fouled off a couple of pitches, he threw that big hook, and I hit a lazy fly ball that the leftfielder lost in the lights, and it fell in. They flashed on the board, 1000th HIT. I go, Boy, oh, boy, it's going to look good in the book, but I flipped a ball into left that was lost in the lights.

"I've never seen a better fastball from a righthander than Nolan's," Gwynn adds. "[Arizona Diamondbacks lefthander] Randy Johnson's is similar, because it's explosive. And if you try to chase it when it's up, you can't catch up with it. You can't foul it off, like you can on most guys.

"After I faced Nolan a while I started to get hits. Early on he'd get ahead, then throw a breaking ball or changeup, and he'd get me out. I finally said, Well, I've got to sit on one of these other ones because you can't hit the heater. So I started getting some base hits on breaking balls and changeups [when I was] behind on the count. And he got hip, too. And then it was back to the scuffling mode, trying to block off a fastball to leftfield."

1500

Boggs does not recall getting halfway to 3,000. That milestone was reached with a single against righthander Melido Perez of the Yankees on July 21, 1989, a year in which Boggs became the only man in this century with 200 or more hits seven years in a row. It was, he says, his proudest career achievement.

"I think to do something that no one else has ever done -- that to me [is like] the first man to walk on the moon," he says. "I did it while walking a hundred times."

Gwynn has exact recall of his 1,500th hit. It came on Aug. 15, 1990, off Montreal Expos reliever Steve Frey, a lefty brought in specifically to face Gwynn. "I hit a slider into left center for a single," Gwynn says. That at bat typified one of the most dramatic changes in the game Gwynn has seen over his career: the specialization of relief pitching. Gwynn has been a terrific clutch hitter (.347 with runners in scoring position) while seeing more and more lefthanders in late-inning situations.

"If you get a hit with two outs and nobody on base, that's what you're supposed to do as a contact hitter," Gwynn says. "But when there's a guy in scoring position late in the game and they bring in that lefty out of the bullpen, that's when you earn your salt. So you have to bear down and trust the things you trust normally. That's what I try to do. I don't make it any bigger than it is. I try to go up there with the same approach every time, whether there's a guy on second and two outs, or nobody on and two outs.

"[Former Padres manager] Dick Williams, early in my career, against certain lefties, just didn't feel like I could handle them, I guess. In '84 he started letting me hang in there. I did O.K. I mean, I wasn't great. But as time goes by you get more confidence. Now, in today's game where you've got managers who like three lefties and three righties in the bullpen, I know I'm going to see a lefty when the starter comes out. So if a lefthanded hitter wants to play in this game today, he'd better get comfortable hitting lefties."

2000

At this milestone both Boggs and Gwynn had doubts about staying with the only organizations they'd ever known. By the time Boggs slid headfirst for an infield single off lefthander Mark Langston of the Angels on May 17, 1992, he figured the Red Sox no longer wanted him. He hit .259 that year, by far the worst average of his career.

"I came to spring training anticipating that I'd sign a multiyear deal," Boggs says. "Mrs. [Jean] Yawkey [the Red Sox owner] had died, and that spring the team said, 'Here's the deal, take it or leave it.' I said, 'Wait a minute. This isn't the way potential free agents work. It's called negotiating.' They said, 'Take it or leave it.' Mentally, the year was a disaster. I could read the handwriting on the wall. They had [third baseman] Scott Cooper, and we were both lefthanded.

"So then I just went out and did one of those typically stupid things, trying too hard and trying to hit home runs and do all this stuff I couldn't do so I could say I told you so. And I wound up at the end of the season with, Well, I didn't tell you so. So they let me go [as a free agent, to the Yankees]."

Gwynn reached 2,000 with a single off Colorado Rockies lefthander Bruce Ruffin on Aug. 6, 1993 -- three weeks after the cash-strapped Padres, in a fire sale, traded slugging first baseman Fred McGriff to the Braves, and six weeks after they traded power-hitting third baseman Gary Sheffield to the Marlins. San Diego lost 101 games that year. It was the worst team Gwynn ever played on. He was embarrassed when the Padres made such a big deal out of 2,000 -- they stopped the game and set off fireworks -- but he figured he knew why.

"I don't have the most athletic body and I was 33 years old, so they weren't sure if I'd be around to get to 3,000," Gwynn says. "I tried to talk them out of it. But I had to suck it up and take it. It turned out to be pretty nice. But the whole time I'm thinking, I've got to get to three [thousand].

"When you're 5'10", 225, with knee problems -- I missed two or three Septembers in a row with surgery -- I'm sure management has its doubts," Gwynn says. "I started to think about leaving because I had endured all the moves we made and criticism that was leveled at us and started to think about what it might be like going somewhere else. I didn't think about it that much until after the season. And that's when my dad [Charles] and I got into it about whether I should go or stay. He said, 'They're not trying to win, you should get out.' I said, 'No, I like it here, I should stay.' And I still believe I'm where I'm supposed to be. Now, as I get on the cusp of 3,000, I couldn't see myself doing this somewhere else."

2500

Boggs was in his third season as a Yankee when he singled to centerfield off A's righthander Don Wengert on Aug. 23, 1995. He hit .313 in five seasons in New York, though he clearly missed Fenway Park, where he had been a career .369 hitter in 11 seasons with the Sox. He averaged almost 40 doubles per season with Boston but only 24 in five seasons with New York.

"I never had to worry about pulling the ball in Fenway Park, because rightfield was so big," Boggs says. "I could stay inside the ball on the inside part of the plate and get enough on it to hit it to leftfield and get it up on the wall. Then, when I went to Yankee Stadium, I really had to redefine my swing, because my high fly ball to left center really wasn't cutting it. So I had to play low to left and high to right. That's the reverse of Fenway Park.

"That was something my dad bounced off me. He said, 'Son, your swing in Fenway Park won't work in Yankee Stadium. This is how we're going to have to do it.' So I basically spent three months in the off-season before I went to spring training in '93 just working on that."

Gwynn followed Boggs to 2,500 a year later, on Sept. 14, 1996, with a single off a slider from righthanded Reds reliever Hector Carrasco. "Then I knew, I'm going to get it," Gwynn says of his quest for 3,000. That year, he won his seventh batting title by batting .353. However, he hit only three home runs and drove in 50 runs, the lowest full-season totals in each category for his career. It was after that season that a conversation with Ted Williams led to the kind of anomalous season in 1997 that Boggs had in 1987. Gwynn reached career highs in home runs (17) and RBIs (119), becoming the oldest player -- at 37 years, 103 days -- to drive in 100 runs for the first time.

"I haven't changed very much as a hitter -- only in the sense of trying to be more aggressive on the inside pitch," Gwynn says. "Ted told me, 'You have so much time in the big leagues. You know these pitchers. You've got to let it go. Just let it go!' And for two years I did. But you get in trouble when you begin to like the results. You have some success, and you want to do it all the time. I just feel like this year I have to get back to using the whole field, because I made too many mistakes last year [.321, 16 homers, 69 RBIs], because I was in too many situations where I was looking for a pitch and never got it. Instead of trying to force it, just take what they give you."

3000

They have hit the stretch run to 3,000 together. Parallel lives still. Boggs and Gwynn never have played against each other, except in 10 All-Star Games. They never talked hitting; never said much more than, "Hi, how you doing?" to each other -- all the while taking the same journey. So what will accomplishing this feat mean to each of them?

"There's tremendous satisfaction," Boggs says, "not only from a personal standpoint, but from what it has meant to my father. Because he molded me into the player that I am, physically and mentally. The discipline, the patience. He always said, There are a lot of guys in this game with a lot more talent than you, but if you bust your ass and hustle and work hard, then you'll be better than them."

"The best thing for me," Gwynn says, "has just been the passion of wanting to play. The challenge of stepping in the box, the challenge of trying to be successful. When I started out, I guarantee you nobody figured I would be where I am today. Nobody. Not even myself. Maybe there's something that makes you want to go out and prove people wrong, but for me, it's just the passion of loving to do what I do."

August 9, 1999

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