Wade Boggs, Beer Hoover

This originally from Drunk Jays Fans, by way of Rays Index, two way-cool sites that we're hereby adopting as sisters.

A conversation between Steve Sandmeyer and (Former Yankee) Jeff Nelson on (Radio station) 950 KJR:

Sandy: Who would you say drank the most beer out of everyone you ever played with?

Nelson: Easy, Wade Boggs…..easy.

Sandy: 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: 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 [Nelly played with Boggs on the Yankees], 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: 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 each other, 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.

[COMMERCIAL BREAK: When it ends, Paul Sorrento, a former Mariner and Devil Ray, and Boggs’s and Nelly’s former teammate, is on the phone.]

Nelly: Alright Paul, we’ve been talking about Wade Boggs up here today in Seattle.

Sorrento: 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, I don’t know, like 70.