Red Sox to retire No. 26 for Wade Boggs

BOSTON -- Ten years after he was inducted into the Hall of Fame, Wade Boggs will have his No. 26 retired by the Red Sox. The team announced Monday that it had scheduled a ceremony to retire the number for Fenway Park on May 26.

"This is a long overdue acknowledgement of a player who is arguably the best pure hitter in Red Sox history," Red Sox president Sam Kennedy said.

"I am so humbled and honored to be among the greatest legends to ever put on a uniform for the amazing city of Boston," Boggs said in a statement.

Boggs played 11 seasons with the Red Sox, collecting more than 200 hits seven times and getting on base at a .400 clip or better nine times. He led the American League in on-base percentage six times in his Red Sox career, all in a seven-year span from 1983 to 1989. In more than 7,000 plate appearances with the Red Sox, he hit .338 with a .428 on-base percentage and a .462 slugging percentage -- including 1,004 walks and 470 strikeouts. Only Ted Williams (.482) and Jimmie Foxx (.429) have a higher on-base percentage in a Red Sox uniform than does Boggs.

Taking advantage of the Green Monster with an inside-out swing, Boggs twice led the American League in doubles and hit more than 40 doubles eight times in his 11 seasons in Boston.

Boggs left the Red Sox in 1993 to join the rival New York Yankees, and he won a World Series title with the Yankees in 1996 at age 38. He finished his career playing two seasons with the expansion Tampa Bay Devil Rays. He collected his 3,000th career hit in a Devil Rays uniform in 1999, a season during which he got on base at a .377 clip at age 41.

Unlike Pedro Martinez, who had his uniform number retired almost immediately upon his election to the Hall of Fame, Boggs endured a 10-year wait for reasons never sufficiently explained. The Red Sox at one time required players to finish their careers in Boston to have their numbers retired, but that policy became obsolete when they retired No. 27 for Carlton Fisk in 2000, the year he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Martinez likewise did not finish his career with the Red Sox.

Neither Fisk nor Martinez, however, suited up for -- and won a title with -- the hated Yankees, the only plausible explanation for the longtime snub of Boggs.

Brock Holt, who wore No. 26 last season, becomes the last of the 13 players to wear No. 26 since Boggs signed with the Yankees after the 1992 season. Holt will wear No. 12 next season. Other notables to wear No. 26 in the post-Boggs era include Aaron Sele, Lou Merloni and Freddy Sanchez.