Hot Pipes Online: The biggest toad in the puddle: Gettin' After It

Wade Boggs loves the sauce.

Most of you probably remember Wade Boggs for his smooth baseball swing, his happy-go-lucky attitude, or his trademark bushwhackin' moustache. Hell, some of you may even remember that Wade Boggs once injured his back after slipping over while putting on cowboy boots.

But what you probably didn't know is that Wade Boggs is the biggest alcoholic ever to have walked the face of the earth. Blessed with some amazing genetic abilities, "the man with the golden liver" has taken the commonly-accepted notions about alcohol consumption and crushed them like an empty can of Miller Lite.

Courtesy of Tasty Booze, we bring you this amazing and entirely true anecdote about Wade Boggs. In this story, you will witness Wade Boggs in his element - wild and free. Enjoy this, dear readers:

From a radio broadcast in which Sandy (host) discusses baseball with Wade Boggs' former teammate, Jeff Nelson.

Sandy: Who would you say drank the most beer out of everyone you ever played with?
Nelson: Easy, Wade Boggs...easy
Sandy: (laughing) Really!? Wade Boggs?
Nelson: Oh, yeah, without a doubt. I've never seen anyone drink as much beer as he did in my life:
Sandy: (laughing) Get outta here, alright, give me an example, like how much did he drink?
Nelson: Oh, I'd say, on a typical road trip, east coast to west coast, say a road game to Seattle...Wade would drink anywhere between 50 and 60 beers.
Sandy: NO WAY!! 50 or 60 beers. That is impossible.
Nelson: No, I know... I know how crazy that sounds, and I wouldn't believe it myself unless I saw him do it...numerous times. And he drank nothing but Miller Lite.
Sandy: How in the hell did he have time to drink that many beers. For God's sake, how many times did he have to go to the bathroom?
Nelson: I'm not kidding you Steve. Seriously. Wade was the kind of guy who was always the first one at the club house.So he'd get to the clubhouse, and he'd bring a six pack with him. He'd be there drinking a beer when someone showed up, and as we were all packing our stuff up out of our lockers and getting our bags ready for the trip, Wade would sit there and drink that whole six pack.
Now, at the time, we were flying out of New Jersey, so it was somewhat of a drive from Yankee stadium to the airport in New Jersey. Wade would drink another couple of beers on the bus to the airport. At the time, we were flying this older airplane, it couldn't make it across the country without refueling, and it wasn't the fastest airplane in the sky. So we would stop in North Dakota or something. Wade would drink about a half rack between New Jersey and North Dakota, and it would take about a half-hour to an hour to refuel once we got there, so he'd have a few more beers while we were grounded in North Dakota.
Once we got back up in the air, Wade would drink another 10, 11, 12 beers on the way out to the west coast. The whole flight from coast to coast ususally took us well over 7 hours. We'd touch down at Sea-Tac, hop on the bus headed to the Kingdome, and Wade would have another beer or two on the bus. Then, all of us would get to the Kingdome and unpack our bags and sit around and BS with eachother, and Wade would have a beer in his hand the entire time. He was always one of the last people to leave the club house too. So I'd say that all in all, he drank over 50 beers on the trip, and this wasn't just an isolated incident, he did that almost every time.
Sandy: Unbelievable. That's absolutely unbelieveable.
Nelson: Yeah, I know, I'm not kidding though, let's call up somebody and they'll tell you man, they'll tell you I'm not lying.
Sandy: Alright, who should we call up. Let's take a commercial break, and then we'll call up somebody and see if we can’t get to the bottom of this….This is absolutely amazing.
[commercial break: When the commercial end, Paul Sorrento, a former Mariner and Devil Ray, and Boggs's and Nelly's former teammate, is on the phone]
Nelly: Hey Paul, good to hear from you man, I haven't talked to you in a while.

Sorrento: Yeah, what's it been like, two, three years?
Nelly: Yeah. Hey, Paul, just to clarify now, I didn't speak to you over the commercial break, and I haven't talked to you about anything since we last talked a few years ago right?
Sorrento: Yeah, right.
Nelly: Alright Paul, we've been talking about Wade Boggs up here today in Seattle.
Sorrento: (laughing) Yeah, ole Wade huh.
Nelly: Yeah, alright Paul, I need you to answer one question for me, truthfully now...How many beers would Wade Boggs drink on an east coast to west coast road trip?
Sorrento: Oh, jeez, (exhaling like a flat tire) I don't know, like 70.
Nelly, Sandberg, Sorrento, Hank: (Rolling on the ground laughing)

Wade Boggs likes fishing. Note the beer cans.

If you aren't impressed by this, don't worry. It gets better. Aside from having a strong affection for fishing, Wade Boggs also has a strong affection for doing funny things. Aside from his quirky attributes, such as a love of beer or deeply-rooted fear of horses, Wade Boggs was an amazing man. All that follows is taken from Wade Boggs's wikipedia article.

The Margo Adams Affair
Boggs garnered non-baseball related media attention in 1989 for his four-year extramarital affair with Margo Adams, a California mortgage broker. After Boggs ended the relationship in 1988, Adams filed a $12 million lawsuit for emotional distress and breach of oral contract. She argued that Boggs had verbally agreed to compensate her for lost income and services performed while accompanying Boggs on road trips. Boggs ' reputation was further sullied when Adams agreed to an interview with Penthouse Magazine in which she discussed intimate details of her time with Boggs. While acknowledging the validity of the affair, Boggs went on the offensive in order to combat the wave of negative press, publicly denying many of the claims made by Adams. Boggs' rebuttal included an appearance on the ABC program 20-20 in which he presented his side of the story to Barbara Walters. In February 1989, an appeals court threw out $11.5 million of the initial lawsuit, ruling that Adams could not seek compensation for emotional distress. The remaining $500,000 was settled out of court later that year for an undisclosed amount.

Superstitions
Boggs was known for his superstitions as much as his hitting. He ate chicken before every game (Jim Rice once called Boggs "chicken man"), woke up at the same time every day, took exactly 150 ground balls in practice, took batting practice at 5:17 and ran sprints at 7:17. His route to and from his position in the field beat a path to the home dugout. He drew the Hebrew word "Chai", meaning "life", in the batter's box before each at-bat, though he is not Jewish. Most people don't know that his favorite count was 3 balls and 2 strikes. Boggs also claimed that his at-bats improved when longtime mistress Margo Adams attended games while not wearing underwear.

Wade Boggs is Batman.