Wade Boggs has been retired since 1999 after banging out 3010 hits in 18 seasons. That makes it sound like he had plenty of time to do it, but in actuality the Red Sox weren't convinced Boggs could play and so he didn't get into the lineup every day until he was 25. Even hitting .350-.360 every year, he really had to pound to get there, so you'd expect the guy to be a bit fatigued, and maybe prefer to take it easy rather than go wandering about the country like David Carradine in "Kung Fu," righting wrongs and passing himself off as part of the grounds crew.
But no, Boggs is indefatigable, and this time he's landed in Chicago, where he checks out U.S. Cellular Field with head groundskeeper Roger "The Sodfather" Bossard. There are no fish this time, and no angry hippos either (and the city's legendary killer lions are inert), so Wade can relax a bit. My main concern is that Wade is 55 and there's a lot of hard physical labor that goes into keeping a field up to major-league quality. As I watched him haul the tarp onto the field, I was a bit worried -- Wade has had his cholesterol checked, right?
-- Steven Goldman