WADE BOGGS 1995-97

When Rivera made his major league debut on May 23, 1995, at Anaheim Stadium, starting against the Angels, Russ Davis played third base. Yankees manager Buck Showalter rested his regular third baseman, the leftyswinging Boggs, against Angels southpaw Chuck Finley. Five days later, at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, Boggs manned the hot corner as Rivera notched his first win.

Boggs acknowledged not recalling much about Rivera’s run as a starting pitcher, except “it was brief,” he noted with a chuckle. Rivera made 10 career starts, all in his rookie season. Then Boggs witnessed Rivera’s emergence out of the bullpen in 1996, as the team won its first World Series title since 1978.

“The big thing was, he was just a bridge to [John] Wetteland,” Boggs said. “We sort of figured out, if we could get through the sixth with a lead, we had Mariano for the seventh and eighth and Wetteland for the ninth. It just shortens the game so much.”

It was during the 1997 season, Boggs’ last as a Yankee, when Rivera discovered his trademark cut fastball. Boggs witnessed it on the other side as he wound up his career with the Devil Rays.

“It wasn’t a lot of fun,” he said, and while the record shows he went 1-for-4 against Rivera, that one hit (on July 11, 1998) was a “53-hopper through the infield that he broke my bat on.”

Boggs entered the Hall in 2005. Like Rivera, he got in on his first try.

“When you take the greatest reliever, probably, in the history of baseball, his plaque needs to be in Cooperstown,” Boggs said.