One of the major themes of spring training, of course, is the emergence of new stars: in some cases, they’re prospects who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been waiting impatiently for a chance to establish themselves in the majors. A while ago I looked up reports on Wade Boggs and Don Mattingly as they were exhibiting that mood of impatience. Here are quick pictures of them on the cusp of emergence as possibly the biggest baseball stars in the Northeast in the early-to-mid-\u00e2\u20ac\u212280s.<\/p>\n
In late June 1981, Boggs, who was playing for Pawtucket, gave an extensive interview to the Boston Globe<\/em>. The article\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s title: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Going Nowhere?; The Prospects Turned Suspects Hope it’s not too Late to be Noticed.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Boggs complained: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never read or heard once that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a prospect. I was one of two players in the league to hit .300 last year, and not only was I not brought up in September, just to sit there and taste what it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like, but I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t protected and no other club wanted me. So I wrote Mr. Kenney [Edward Kenney, a Red Sox VP in charge of minor leaguers] during the winter and asked him, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcAm I a prospect or a suspect?\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 He told me I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m still a prospect, so I believe him. But even hitting .350, the first time anyone ever said something about me was in Charleston, when (Cleveland manager) Dave Garcia came up to me at the batting cage and said, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcYou\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re a helluva ballplayer.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tell you how that made me feel.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Boggs had this response to critics of his fielding: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153All I can answer is that the two years I played 115 games at third (in Winston-Salem in \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc77 and Bristol in \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc79), I made the all-star teams. My fielding\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s improved 100 percent this year because I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve played and worked at it. My range has doubled. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve learned to make diving plays. And I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll improve as long as I play. But I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t improve in the field if I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sitting on the bench with a bat in my hand.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Boggs said this about the assertion that he was a singles hitter who couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t run: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I guess they only want home run hitters. But do they watch batting practice? I can hit them as far as anyone. My extra base hits are picking up as I get older and stronger. I hit the ball off the center-field fence. They say I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t run, but I have more infield hits than anyone on the club. Maybe I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been typecast. That happens, you know. My brother-in-law is a writer in Tampa and asked Zimmer about me a year ago. Zimmer answered, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcWho?\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 What I have to get is the shot. If I get the shot somewhere, I can put the raps aside if I hit. And I always have.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n And Boggs said this about a high school epiphany: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I went into the library, got Ted Williams\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 book, read it, went 27 for 35 the rest of the season and have hit ever since.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Boggs had just turned 23 in June of \u00e2\u20ac\u212281; he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have to wait until the next spring to make his debut in Boston. Once he began starting in late June of ’82, he exhibited some wonderful hitting that gave him a .380 batting average in mid-September before settling down to .349 at season\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s end.<\/p>\n On the other hand, Don Mattingly, who was also drafted out of high school, had already played for the Yankees late in 1982, and was competing for the first base job with Ken Griffey, Steve Balboni, and others during spring training 1983.<\/p>\n Donnie Baseball said: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Griffey was one of my idols when I was a kid watching Cincinnati on television. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a tough thing watching a guy in the World Series, and four or five years later you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re trying to get his job. But I have to tell myself I want that job. I have to support my family, too.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one thing you have to forget \u00e2\u20ac\u201c you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re a young kid and they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re way up there. You have to bring them down to your level. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re people, just like anybody else. I have to feel proud of my performance. If I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a little shaky and think the other guy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s great, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not going to help me any.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Mattingly had hit .349, .358, .314 and .315 in four seasons since being drafted in June 1979. He took over the starting job in June of 1983.<\/p>\n Arne Christensen runs Misc. Baseball<\/a>, a blog assembling eclectic items about baseball\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s history, and 1995 Mariners<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of the major themes of spring training, of course, is the emergence of new stars: in some cases, they’re prospects who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been waiting impatiently for a chance to establish themselves in the majors. A while ago I looked up reports on Wade Boggs and Don Mattingly as they were exhibiting that mood of impatience. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":601,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[862,861,449,856,813,1072,867,1075,1069,827,1071,1077,1068,859,863,588,613,85,852,860],"class_list":["post-2974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-all-star","tag-assertion","tag-baseball-stars","tag-batting-cage","tag-boston-globe","tag-cusp","tag-don-mattingly","tag-edward-kenney","tag-emergence","tag-majors","tag-mid-80s","tag-minor-leaguers","tag-new-stars","tag-pawtucket","tag-prospects","tag-red-sox","tag-sitting-on-the-bench","tag-spring-training","tag-wade-boggs","tag-winston-salem"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/601"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2974\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}