“I remember sitting next to [farm director] Eddie Kenney at a meeting and asking, `Are we going to protect him?’ “ Digby said, relating his concern that the Sox would not put Boggs on their 40-man roster and thus expose him to being drafted by another team in the winter. “Kenney said, `No, we’re not going to protect him.’ I said, `Well, I hope someone drafts him then.’

Boggs was available to every team despite a terrific minor league career of six long years.

He was anything but boring, a hitting machine who tortured the opposition and sometimes had a hard time making friends in his own clubhouse. Boggs was Ichiro without the speed. He was Ted Williams without the power. He borrowed from Cobb, and Shoeless Joe Jackson, too.

The first Boggs column in a mainstream paper that compares him to the all-time greats.