September 22, 2020 • 48 mins
Wade Boggs has always been regarded as a legend, both on and off the ballfield. However, some of his strangest experiences have very little to do with baseball. Join Ben, Noel, and special guest Matthew Waxman, the creator of Trickeration, as they explore the bizarre story of the Wade Boggs sex scandal.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you as always
for tuning in. It is a lovely Friday afternoon in Atlanta.
As we record this, I have made tentative peace with
the Leafblower villain because we all only have one super
villain on our show, as Jonathan Strickland, a k. The Quister.
(00:48):
My name is Bet, my name is Nolan. I've been
really lucky while I can't attest to it being a
lovely day in Atlantic because I haven't really been outside
or opened the window, just kind of been holed up
in a dark room all day like Reese searching weird
sports sex scandals. Um, I can speak to the leaf
Blower being sort of a minor villain in the rogues
gallery of Ridiculous History. Um, you know, nemesses, but Jonathan
(01:11):
Strickland will always be are like Lex Luthor. So but
I think it's okay to have like little minor villains.
It just kind of builds out the extended universe a
Ridiculous History. Yeah, I think of the story arcs, you
know what I mean. We can't be going nose to
nose with our own with our own thanos every every day.
That's very much every so often relationship, but we do
(01:34):
join forces every single episode with our super producer, Casey Pegram.
You're rocking that shirt again, man, that looks awesome. No,
you're calling me out on it that shirt. I was
literally gonna change my shirt before I came on here,
and I just ran out of top forgot about it.
And then as soon as the camera feed came up,
I was like, well, I'm I'm committing to the You know, Casey,
I've been wearing the same shirt since the beginning of Quarantine,
(01:57):
so it's it's fine, this is my show shirt from
now on. You know, my We're we're talking about superstitions today,
so you know, if this is part of the ritual
here Casey on the case. And in addition to team
me up with Casey every so often on this show, Noll,
you and I are lucky enough to welcome a special guest.
(02:17):
So when we started thinking about sports and thinking about
as you said, Casey, superstition, as you said, old scandal, uh,
we knew that we needed some extra firepower. We needed
an expert, right oh yeah, yeah, And we have just
that expert today with us. We have Mr Matthew Waxman,
the host of Trickeration, our Sister Brother whatever Colleague podcast
(02:43):
here on the iHeart Podcast Network. Matt, thank you so
much for joining us today. All right, is it sister Brother?
I never can remember peer podcast. I like peer podcast,
I like sibling I like it all. You know what,
I'm agnostic, But the fact is that we're that you're
here now and you've got an awesome podcast called tricker A.
That's it's a little history, it's a little sports storytelling.
(03:04):
It's about scandal, it's about trickery. Tell us a little
bit about what Trickeration is to you. Well, first of all,
I also have a set of villains out here. I
got unfortunately terrible time. I have a mariachi band playing
it right outside my windows. So if you guys pick
up any of that, um, let me know and I'll
try and get them to quiet down a little. There
are mariachi band that also as like a construction crew,
(03:26):
so they play their tunes in between jackhammering furiously. Right,
I think all their construction equipment actually functions as the instrument, right,
Like the bulldozer is the is the equivalent of the
guy with the really big guitar. I think that is correct. Well,
now that we've got that sorted alright. Trick Yeah, Trickeration.
So Trickeration was a podcast I launched about the one
(03:49):
thing I'm most passionate about in sports, which is tricks.
And I realized when I wanted to start a podcast, like,
what is the stuff that I keep coming back to?
And it never was the game games I really didn't
care about, like fantasy um, so I always was just
obsessed with like schemes, hoaxes, like pranks, like basically anything
(04:11):
involving deception in sports. I like would just do these
random deep guys on and then I was like, oh,
I should probably just do this for other people to
to give them a full breath of just the lunacy
and deception that's going on basically in everything. I mean,
we all know that, like everyone is totally foolish about everything,
So why not investigate that stuff and get people to
(04:34):
come on the podcast and talk about it. So that's
what I've done. Wait a minute, are you saying that
I like sports aren't real? Are you saying that everything
we see isn't legitimate and not fully honest? As a
lane set in Seinfeld fake fake fake fake. Well, Matt,
did we ever do we ever talk about Brian Towey? Uh?
Full disclosure, The four of us have talked a little
(04:55):
bit of off air as we were trying to figure
out which stories would be the most amazing here. Uh,
but Brian Tooey is a guy who is we've interviewed
on a different show called Something and once you know,
he is convinced that either the vast majority of major
sports or all major sports are completely rigged. And uh,
(05:17):
he's someone you know what, I'm gonna reach out to
him and tell him to listen to trickeration because this
this is right up his alley. Um, maybe maybe he's
someone you would interview as well. You you told us
so many crazy stories off air that we actually had
a little bit of a difficult time, the four of
us figuring out what we wanted to explore. I know,
(05:38):
I know at one point, uh we had said, forget it,
we have to do at least these three because they're
so weird. And then Matt, you hit us with a
story that checked me on this. If this is correct,
noal that neither of us had ever heard. Uh, it's
a mind blowing, very weird exploration. Uh, Wade Boggs like
(06:02):
living legend, the Wade Boggs right the way bugs and
I've never heard it. And just full disclosure, I've said
as before, but just for your benefit, Matt, I'm not
a sports guy, like even a little bit like it
is just not in my wheelhouse at all. I'm fascinated
by everything that you discussed in the whole, like behind
the scenes stuff. But I'm gonna sound like a real
layman with some of this stuff, but I'm gonna do
(06:22):
my best to keep up. There's nothing I like better
than a scandal, uh and with a bunch of salacious details, which,
by the way, are gonna be in this episode. So
if there's any like younger listeners or parents that are
co listening, that's gotta be a thing you might want
to skip this one. We're gonna get into some some
dirty details done dirt cheap on ridiculous history. I forget
(06:43):
what the question was, but it wasn't even a question.
It became so rambling that it ceased to be a question.
But the question is, how did Wade Boggs come across
your radar? And where do you even start with this guy?
He's a he's an absolute maniac. Well, it came to
me like it comes to us people reading an old
penthouse magazine, from which I'm sure you guys were recently doing.
(07:05):
And uh, when you're flipping through these old penthouses, you
come across the strangest things, like I I found this
article by Wade Boggs's mistress, not an articles tell all?
And how many pages would you think they would devote
a tell all to Wade bugs is mistress? Oh boy?
How many pages are in a penthouse? Have some solid literature?
(07:27):
That's right? Yeah? Yeah, they definitely, Uh, they definitely do.
I would say five. I don't know, I'm gonna go,
I'm gonna do the prices right undercut, and I'm gonna
I'm gonna put some money on three I would I
would say, yeah, three would be the most you would devote.
They went a full five long pages. So they go
into this mistress Margot Adams basically airs out every secret
(07:50):
going on with the Red Sox in the mid eighties
and the stuff. I was a kid when this was
all happening, and I think, of course, was shielded from
all of this because I wasn't getting these old houses
when I was ten years old. Yeah, now that I'm older,
I'm getting the good stuff. And the stuff that was
in this tell all was incredible, totally incredible. So anyways,
(08:13):
I call up this guy who was mentioned in the
article and I'm starting to interview him, and he basically
tells me a story that's related to Let me just
tell you the story that he told me, and you
can tell me, um, what you guys think is real
and what cannot be true because it is too absurd.
All right. So this guy who he went on to
(08:33):
become the play by play announcer for the Orioles and
the Mariners, but when he was in his early thirties,
he was a young writer on Cheers and they're sitting
around and they're doing a prank episode which you know,
it's near and dear to my heart with you know,
Norm and Cliff for pulling one over on the Gary's
Old Town tavern. And the writers are all sitting around
and being like, how do we spice this thing up? Um?
(08:55):
We need like a sports star to come in here.
And the biggest sports star in Boston at that time
this was was Wade Boggs, you know, Larry Bird Wade
Bugs and Bird already dissed them before, so they were like,
let's get Bugs. So there, their booker goes out and
reaches out to Wade Bogs and they're like. The booker
is like, uh, it's spring training. Like we can't get
(09:16):
Wade Bugs to leave spring training and fly to l A.
It's just never gonna happen. And they're like, well, why
don't we put in another request? So they ask again
and they get find out that Bugs is like, yeah,
I'll do it. I'll leave the Red Sox for three
days to go film a cameo on Cheers, which makes
no sense, could never happen today. So the writer is
like patting himself on the back, being like, wow, all
(09:37):
I had to do was just asked for Wade Boggs,
the best hitter in baseball, And here he is, like,
you know on the show that I just wrote, and
the episode he said went okay, Boggs he said it
was real stiff couldn't do any of the like comedy,
but whatever. That's most athletes. I mean, it's literally we
say a cameo like it's a proper cameo. Like he
turns up as sort of like this joke, where what's
(09:58):
the guy Gary from the tavern. It's like the she
hears his rival Bar and they're like doing this prank war.
I think the episodes called bar Wars, and it's everything
from like they put cheap in Christie Ally's office. There's
like a whole grease up to bar stools. They like
infiltrate the TV feed during a big sports cast at
the at Gary's um and and then the kicker is
(10:19):
Gary comes and said, all right, you guys got me.
You win. And as a sign of consolation or as
my like waving the white flag, my buddy Wade Boggs
is going to come over and sign autographs for for
your patrons. And then they get in their own heads
and they're like, wait, now he's he's messing with us.
It's gonna be a Wade Bugs look alike. And so
they treat Wade Bogs though he's faking them out, and
(10:40):
they end up chasing him down the street and like
robbing him basically look at his wallet and it's like, oh,
this really was Wade Bogs. But to your point about
him being stiff, he has like one line and then
he just hauls ass out the door. As they're like
chasing him down. That's that's all you get from Wade Bogs.
So I wonder if he had a meteor role initially
and just couldn't cut it. Oh, that happens all the
(11:01):
time with with athletes unfortunately. So how would you say,
like on a one to ten and what number would
you give Boggs his cameo there? I think it fit that,
you know, you know, like like to Men's point, I'm
never expecting much out of like sports star. That's why
I thought Kevin Garnett and uncut Gems was just incredible
and like, again, not being a sports guy, I didn't
(11:21):
even believe that he was a real athlete. I was like,
who's this amazing actor portraying this basketball star? Turns out
he's actually playing himself. Um, but I don't know. I
my the bar is so low. I would say it
was respectable. It was like a six, you know, maybe
I I gave it an eight out of ten for
severely personal reasons because I remember being a young Tyke.
(11:43):
I don't know it was the night of debut, but
I saw this episode of Cheers and uh, my dad
was like, look at that this Wade Boggs. And I
also was not super knowledgeable about this stuff. But it
was in fact that Cheers episode that became my entry
point into learning about Wade Boggs. And my old man
(12:05):
was like, that guy's a legend. He's a lunatic. And
he assured me, uh, you know, he probably thought the
same as you know, he thought that there was maybe
a meteor role that they had to cut. And then
he strongly implied, in a joke I didn't get for years,
he strongly applied that maybe Wade Boggs got drunk on
set and could only do that one line. And I
(12:26):
didn't know why he was saying that and why he
was so tickled by, you know, telling me that. But uh,
as we'll see there there's a reason for that. I
will add one point to my score just for his
mustaches performance, because that is another one of Wade Bogg's
important superpowers is the mustache. But so, okay, that's the
thing about bugs is, like, you know, Ted Williams is
(12:47):
famous for being the greatest fighter pilot ever, the greatest
hitter ever, and the greatest fly fisherman ever ever. And
you know that's pretty impressive. Most people are not the
greatest to anything, but Bogs is one of the greatest hitters, um,
one of the greatest beer drinkers, and one of the
(13:07):
greatest mustaches. I mean, he's right there with Ted Williams
in the Triple Crown, right. He's really an impressive guy
when you go back, so to interject before we go
to the Penthouse story, just for anyone who doesn't know
if you were not, if you were not a Red
Sox fan. Wade Boggs was born in ninety He played
(13:29):
primarily with the Red Sox for the better part of
two decades, right, and he also played with the Yankees.
He's well established. If you know baseball, you know this guy.
If you have seen Cheers you might know him. If
you've seen Always Sunny in Philadelphia, you will see a twisted,
somewhat touching episode entirely about Wade Boggs. And when you're
(13:52):
reading this Penthouse article, Matt, you were first. I get
the sense that you were kind of startled. The Penthouse
spent five full pages on this. I would say I
was impressed. You were impressed? Uh, and then what about
this story surprised you? So? Okay, this is the part
that that most intrigued me because it involved deception, which
(14:12):
is really what my podcast is all about. And Boggs,
when he left the Red Sox, you know, he bet
his teammates that when he went on this Cheers Cameo run,
he would come back to spring training with a pair
of Christie Alley's underwear. And the reason I know this,
which was because in the pen Has magazine, boggs mistress
(14:34):
explains that Boggs was like, Hey, while I'm in l A,
I need your underwear because when I get back to
spring training, I don't want to tell, you know, Roger
Clemens that I was I failed in my attempt to
get Christie's undis. So he played off his mistresses underwear
as Kristie Alley's underwear. And that was this beautiful bit
(14:56):
of deception that I ended up spending you know, way
too much time in instigating on my own podcast. Here's
another interesting detail there, and you know, just just to
quickly get it out of the way, the the woman
in question here, Margot Adams, who was Boggs's mistress for
(15:16):
four years. It was essentially a long term secret, you know,
salacious relationship. Uh And and we're gonna get more into this, Ben,
you sort of indicate that we're gonna talk some about superstition.
One of the things that Bog's really leaned on with
his superstitions were the fact that when he traveled with
his actual wife, his batting average was like a certain number,
(15:39):
and when he traveled with Margot, his batting average was
like markedly higher. So he would insist on her like
going on the road with him a lot. And a
big part of like when she let the cat of
the bag and like wrote this tell all. It all
stemmed from this lawsuit that she basically sued him for
lost wages because she was like a real estate developed
(16:00):
for something and apparently or uh like a yeah, like
a real estate agent I believe, or a mortgage broker
or something like that. And she basically said, because I
was on the road with Bogs so much, because he
believed that I was his like good luck charm, he
promised to pay me X number of dollars for lost
wages that I that I wouldn't make what else on
(16:20):
the road. But a big part of her good luck
charm aspect was that she would come to the games
and not wear any underwear. So that's why it's interested
that she gives him the underwear and exchange, you know, saying, oh,
this is christ Thelity's underwear, when she was kind of
known for not wearing underwear at the games at Boggs's requests.
He's a very underwear motivated guy, you know what I mean.
(16:41):
So at this point, before we explore box is amazing
panopoly of superstitions which we have to do. I do
want to acknowledge our other guests on today's recording, which
is uh, apparently that ariachi band you mentioned Matt has
(17:02):
come down here to Atlanta to play a rousing concert. Uh,
so that you can hear them commenting in the background
of this episode. Perhaps if we asked Wade Boggs about this,
he would say the noise happened because we messed up
some superstition or some ritual that we needed to do
(17:22):
before every recording, the same way that he had to
eat chicken before every game. I'm sorry, I didn't want
to bury the lead too much. We are not speaking
figuratively here. There's literally some kind of crazy disturbance happening
at Ben's house. There's just banging on the ceiling. It's
weirder than it's ever been. And it's not the leafblower
this time. It's it's some other much more uh sinister force.
(17:44):
But you know what, the show must go on. This
is the reality of recording and quarantine. Uh, and we're
doing the best week can. But it's so funny, Matt
that you set this up at the top of the show,
because you really thought that the jackhammering mariachi band was
gonna be the you know, the nail and the coffin
for this session. But it's hurts out. It was completely
flipped the script. But yeah, man, the Chicken Man. This
(18:05):
is a nickname that Boggs either gave himself for. I
guess you can't give yourself a nickname. But what's the
deal with chicken and Wade Boggs and and and how
he depended on this chicken dinner before playing in a game?
So are you guys? What do you guys think of
superstition in general? First, I think we need to establish
that before I start making some bold claims. I would
say that in general, I think superstitions can be helpful
(18:29):
for people because they have a profound effect on the mind.
So superstition in a way is like weaponized psychology is
like the most fair way I could describe it. Um,
I would not say that I, as a person am
especially superstitious. Well, that that is totally an evolved way
of thinking about this, and one I hadn't considered. You know,
(18:51):
I always think of superstition. I equated this stupidity like, oh,
you think that if you tap your toe nine times
that this will go right. You know, it's like the
same stuff that you know you read in that book
The secret is just like for dumb people. But you're
exactly right. What made Wade Bugs great was part of
the fact that he this attention to superstition focused him
(19:15):
and allowed him to basically be a machine at hitting.
And I had Jim Abbott on the My podcast and
and Jim was saying that Wade's genius as a hitter
was due to this superstition that he everything was just
such a formulaic thing. You know, if this pitch was
a quarter of an inch outside, he would not swing
at it if this was happening. So he had basically
(19:37):
trained his mind in the same way that like he
tapped things and wrote Hebrew letters in the in the
batter's box and ate chicken before every game. He would
then use this sort of strident approach. He'd use that
towards hitting, and Abbott was saying that was what made
him as genius as a hitter, And so I was
totally wrong and what you said was exactly right. It's
(19:58):
so it's something we've covered a lot on our or
show stuff that don't want you to know. And just
to have the power of belief and the idea like
in some ways you could equate a superstition to like
the placebo effect. If you believe something will have an
effect strongly enough, then it will at least for you.
And again that's another thing with uncut gims where Kevin
Garnett's character gets obsessed with this uncut opal that he
(20:18):
believes that he will play better if he has in
his possession. And then there's a part where he doesn't
have it and he like you can tell, he's stressed
out on the court and he doesn't play as well.
And then Adam Sandwich's character essentially uses that power of
belief and baits him into believing this and then uses
it to like bet on the game and he and
he actually can bet predictably, even though he's also using
(20:39):
a placebo effect kind of thing. It's it's very interesting
and there's so many layers of psychology that go into that.
But it's very similar to like, you know, religion. I mean,
people believe in religion. And I could say, well, I
don't really believe there's a bearded man in the sky
or that the animals all came over on a boat.
But if you choose to believe that, it works for
you and it makes you better person, makes you have
(21:00):
some comfort. Who am I to say you're stupid or
wrong for believing these things. It's all very interesting and
there's a lot of layers to it. I think that's
exactly right. And so I hadn't considered that with bugs,
But you know, I viewed him a little differently after
reading all this. So back to the chicken. Okay, so
Wade Boggs eight chicken before every game. That's how he
got the nickname the Chicken Man. And he would do
(21:21):
different kinds of chicken. It wasn't like he had to
have one kind of chicken. And then he later writes
a beautifully named cook pook named foul Tips fo w
l um so. So again, now it's a fourth grade
thing that Wade Boggs has done with his life so
um so yeah, chicken every game. He also was obsessed
with the numbers seven and seventeen, so before every game,
(21:45):
all his pregame sprints would be at seven seventeen UM.
As you mentioned, you know, he needed his mistress not
worrying underwear in the stands um. And you you were
saying that he was much better when his mistress was there,
but not just he was much better. Boggs apparently calculated
his averages UM when his wife was there and when
(22:06):
his mistress was there. So this is like he's you know,
crunching the numbers. He's got one of those old calculators
in the eighties and he's got you know, spreadsheets, being
like my wife Debbie was here these games, Margot was
here these games. And then he's got a third column
of Margot wasn't here with no one thees these games.
And he's got a whole beautiful mind thing going here.
(22:26):
With all this going on, I mean, the poor guy
had a lot to deal with. It It makes you wonder,
you know, without getting too much of his personal life,
A statement that will be funny as this episode continues.
I think we're about to do two hours on that.
It makes me wonder why why he stayed married. You know,
it's a complex question, but you're right. We do construct
(22:47):
our own inner lives based on this kind of personalized mythology,
these superstitions that we practice. And for Wade Bogs, it
seems this was not like a on ritual thing to do.
It might have interested him, but I also get the
sense that he genuinely, sincerely and deeply believed in this stuff,
(23:10):
like this underwear matters to the game. Would you say
that he was all in, like he actually believed in
these superstitions. Well, I don't think you can do it
if you don't believe in it. But not only was
he all in. Debbie Marco has a great quote about
the no and DS for the games, and she says
it wasn't sexual. I mean that is one of the
(23:31):
great things. Like he's like, I don't care, it has
nothing to do with sex. I just need this for
my batting average. And he calculated that when Debbie, his wife,
was there, he had one, and when Margot was there,
he had three forty one. Now, if you're not a
sports fan, those numbers may mean nothing to you, but
(23:51):
that is the difference between being basically the worst hitter
and the best hitter in baseball, So who knows, you know,
I'd love to see one of these analytic guys go
back and really track this stuff and verify. But like,
this was not like, oh I hit you know a
few percentage points higher. This was I went from being
the worst player to the best player. So so I
(24:12):
mean he certainly did believe it. I also want to
point out just on the on the food side, uh
one thing that uh you found in your notes or
was his weird pizza thing? Like his food superstitions and
food enjoyment didn't stop at the chicken, right this. I
think that it's a quote from Margot about this too, right, So,
(24:33):
I mean, this is why I'm so proud of Penthouse
for publishing five pages on this, because normally these kind
of details would would sneak in and maybe they'd be
cut due to length. But thank god they went the
full five on this thing. Because Margo says that both
her and Bog's favorite food is pizza with double anchovies,
and that she would dress up in lingerie garters and
(24:54):
uh stockings and the full kid and kaboodle and serve
way double an chovie pizza in their hotel room. I
mean it is how hot is this? Well, first of all,
you on a couple accounts like a double you know, Ancho,
He's fine as a little added flavor, but like, wow,
that is an intense doubling down people like what they like.
(25:18):
But then I'm picturing her in this like weird French
maids sexy teddy outfit serving him this really smelly pizza.
The whole thing is just rubs me the wrong way
and leaves a very very peculiar image because like you know,
we we don't hear. There's not a lot of like
kink shaming or anything in this article where you think
there might be. I mean, this isn't really even about like,
(25:39):
oh he was into this like kinky sex stuff. It
was much more. All of it was kind of wrapped
up in this superstition for his like his game, and
that's really all there is to it. And then he
does well we'll get to the Barbara Walters interview a
little bit later, but he does reveal that, Okay, he
definitely has certain proclivities, but it's not like he liked
to be tied up and have you know, clothes, pins,
(25:59):
put on his nipple or anything like that. I mean,
it was very functional stuff that he was able to
parlay in a success as a baseball player in his mind.
Let the guy, you know what, I believe people should
be able to eat pizza the way they want to
eat it. I'm not gonna shame anybody for that. Um.
I I do want to point out, though, there was
another reveal here that I think speaks to like to me,
(26:21):
this feels like a minor example of trickeration itself. Uh.
And I need to ask you about this, Matt, because
I'm not an expert. Was he really not signing things
people sent him? Like? So? Margot lets the cat out
of the bag also in this pass article, and she
says that of the fan mail that was sent to
the Red Sox back in those days, they'd have the
(26:44):
ball boys signed because the players did not care at all.
So you've got like this, you know, um factory line
of ball boys just signed Mining Wade Bugs and Roger
Clemen's names thousands of times. And apparently one of the
ball boys makes a joke about this in front of
a fan or some let me a writer, and Bogs
takes some aside later and it's like, what are you doing? Like,
(27:04):
we gotta keep this going. I can't be sitting back
here signing stuff I got Chiddey. I would love to
see like a forensic comparison of like Wade Boggs signed
baseball cards and how like that they are all a
little different. Wade Boggs has a very ununiform signature. Um,
I think that would be really interesting thing to prove.
But I don't doubt that it's true, you know, I
(27:26):
you know, I think what these guys do purposely is
they sign their names almost so alleged allegibly that it's
easy to have someone else deal with it. So if
they can have their manager or their girlfriend or their
wife be like can you sign half of these? And
then we can be done with this nonsense quicker, which
is I think part of the motivation. But I I
that was the first that I've had when I when
I heard it was like, how are how are these
(27:47):
ball boys like these professional professionals? Uh orgers? Yeah, and
that so my ears perked up a little on that.
But I think it's such a scribble. And I remember
getting a lot of these autographs when I was a kid,
through the mail, and it was like really thrilling to
get them back in the mail. You know, the postage
would come with like the Orioles team stamp on it
(28:08):
or whatever, and they were just scribbles, you know, they
were they were just you couldn't see a name. It
was more like a symbol at that point. Well, I
have this is my question again, because I'm not an
expert here, Matt, how common is this? Because I had
a few autographed balls from the Atlanta Braves and I'm
rethinking a lot of things right now in a kind
of an unpleasant way. Yeah. I mean again, you're starting
(28:30):
to see the world of trickeration. I mean it's all fake.
Everything you thought was realistic fake. I'm sure most of
those autographs that you didn't get in person or fake. Um.
But also, what does it matter? Who cares about any
of these autographs that neither of them are valuable? Yeah,
that's so so it doesn't really matter. None of this matters.
And it also my just my last note on this.
(28:53):
It seems at the very least somewhat hypocritical that someone
who believes so much in superstition and intention and ritual
would be sending out these fake signatures. But I guess
it's just it's a different forgive me, guys, when you
when you're signing thousands of things a day, potentially it's
(29:13):
a different ball game. Well I I didn't realize this
until the Trickeration podcast got very popular and I was
forced to sign a lot of autographs. But it's tiring,
as you guys know, you know, you go out and
you're like, oh, this is fun at the beginning, and
then it goes on and on and eventually like, I
just wish someone else could do this for me. So
you guys, you guys get it. Oh god, We've got
(29:34):
piles and piles of what do you even sign if
you're a podcaster? Just headphone? Well, a lot of blue
apron boxes. I actually it's it's I started doing the
Bob Hope thing where one of one of our assistants
just brings me some paper and I sign it like
two thirds down and then they write something and then
(29:56):
it's just like you know, dictated not read, but be
careful because that and get you in trouble. I've I've
had that go wrong. But we're all dealing with the
same stuff. That's true. That's true. Uh, we're pretty much
all everybody listening, everybody in podcasting, we're pretty much all
Wade Boggs right in that regard. That's a bold claim. Yeah,
(30:17):
I would say I would disagree with that. Basically, what
Wade Boggs went through with this whole what this Penthouse
article was the culmination of, was, like we said, a
four year relationship with this woman, um, who basically presented
(30:37):
him with the kind of nightmare scenario that someone going,
you know, doing this kind of deception. That's a big
part of it too. That's a deception from his wife.
And he had had extramarital affairs that she was aware of.
I think there was a woman in Ohio that he impregnated,
even and she knew about that and was not okay
with it, but didn't leave him. Um, Debbie, this is
his wife of of many years, if I'm not mistaken.
(30:59):
They had children together, and you know, he it was
an open secret among his teammates, among officials in the
in the baseball franchise or whatever you wanna call it,
that he would that he had this, uh, this this
other woman on the side, but he would go out
of his way to make sure there wasn't a paper trail,
he would payer in cash reimburse her for her like
(31:21):
expenditures on these trips and all that, and apparently had
like a verbal agreement with her. This is what she
claims in a lawsuit that she filed UM where she
wanted a hundred thousand dollars um or basically was was
going to let the cat out of the bag about
all this stuff that she ultimately did in this article.
And that was because uh, he agreed supposedly to pay
her back for all of these trips, of which there
(31:43):
were sixty four trips by the way, um in that
four year period that they were an item. And to interject,
that's a twelve million dollar lawsuit, that's right. The the
one hundred thousand dollars was her verbally saying, hey, give
me a hundred k or else I will do this.
And then she he basically reported her to the FBI,
(32:06):
saying that she was trying to extort him, and then
she responded by hitting him with a six million dollar
palemony suit UM and basically saying that Boggs had promised
to all of these things um to compensate her for
all her lost you know, revenue from being on these
trips with him, ostensibly because she was like this good
luck charm, Because he even said that the relationship kind
(32:26):
of fizzled halfway through where he just didn't have the spark,
wasn't there in terms of the attraction. But I gotta
wonder you think he kept it going matt like because
she was that golden ticket in his mind. You know,
I never think would think I could place myself in
Wade Boggs's mind. I think, you know, way Buggs had
probably a lot of these women around. But I really
don't know. But one thing I think we should examine
(32:49):
his how do you think Margot adams Is mortgage brokering
business went after this all came out? Like are you
more or less inclined to go to her and be
like should we figure out thirty year fixed? Should we
do ten? You like you are you trusting her more
after this Penthouse article comes out? Or you're like, you
know what, I'm seeing this and I'm no longer trusting
(33:11):
I'm gonna take it over to UM. I think it
depends because fandom can be fanatical right and pop. It
might be publicity. Because we're talking about this Penthouse article,
we should also mention that they got pressed for this
in the New York Times. That's the kind of advertising
you just can't buy. So in this article March New
(33:34):
York Times that like highlights this bog's case and talks
about twelve million dollars, which was even a bigger deal
in nine than it is. Uh, then we I don't know,
you know, I want to be positive about it, Matt.
I want to say that at least some people came
for the notoriety, but I think I mean a little
(33:56):
Pollyanna about it because there were probably a lot more
people who were, like I morally don't want to be
associated with this. You know, if if it was a
lower rate though, like having recently had to get one
of these mortgages, if it was a lower rate, you know,
she gave me a quarter point lower, I think I
would have gone with Margot. It's fair, that's fair. But
I don't know, like, are you really looking for a
(34:18):
celebrity mortgage broker? You really just want someone that's going
to give you the best deal. Um. But it's the
thing that's interesting about her to coming out in this
way in Penthouse. Correct me if I'm wrong. But didn't
she also do like a spread. Wasn't there an associated
photo shoot with this? Tell all? She did do a spread,
and and not only did she do a spread, apparently
she shopped this to Penthouse and Playboy and kind of
(34:40):
created this um fight over or tell to tell all
rights to this thing. And the reason she goes with Penthouse,
which um was less popular at the time, was because
Penthouse's um owner to minced her that he wasn't just
interested in the spread, he was really interested in telling
her story. It was um, Bob Guccion, That's right, that's incredible,
(35:02):
what a brilliant hustle. You gotta respect it. Start a
bidding war if I'm gonna do this. Like, one thing
is readily apparent when we look at this story, and
that is that Marco Adams is no knucklehead. She's very smart.
There's it's almost like taking the nuclear option, you know,
when this guy goes from welshing on the oral agreement
(35:24):
for hundreds of thousands of dollars and then gets hit
with a multimillion dollar, twelve million dollar lawsuit and then
uh he Wade has to try to somehow get in
front of this right like he's in the New York
Times he's in penthouse, but not in the way he
wanted to be, and he has that now we're in
(35:45):
the war of public opinion, right, Yeah, Well, speaking of
being pop psychologists, when you read a lot of these articles,
which again are the eighties sports scandal article, you just
don't see it now like you did back then. I mean,
you could tell how much fun these writers were having
with all these puns and and they were just having
a blast writing about this story. And it also kind
(36:07):
of seemed like Wade Boggs was enjoying it. I mean,
I don't think he was enjoying seeing his whole personal
life being detonated, but there was something about the fame
that Bogs seemed to enjoy it because he's going to
go on and that was the big you know, that
was Oprah before Barbara Walters, and because Boggs was in
(36:30):
the front page of the news all the time, you know,
she Barbara wants him on the show. And Wade said,
you know, oh, I wish it was under better circumstances.
But to be honest, it's such an honor to be
asked to be on. And I could win a million
m vps and batting titles and I would never be
asked to be on sit on Barbara Walter's couch. So
(36:51):
he seemed to relish part of this, even though I
can only imagine, UM a lot of this was was
really not fun for him. Barbara Walters was sort of
the one that did these like tell all type interviews.
She was known for that, and you would cry on
Barbara Walters. She'd ask you the hard hitting questions and
you know, she she was no nonsense, but she also
(37:12):
wouldn't mince words, you know what I mean. But she
would tend to get these emotional reactions out of people. UM,
I do want to double back really quickly. I mistakenly
said there's only one lawsuit it was I said it
was six million. It was more likely closer to twelve millions.
I just want to put that out there so people
aren't thinking they're like all these lawsuits flying around. UM,
it's interesting too, Like I think when Wade Boggs was
(37:34):
deposed in this lawsuit, it ended up being like something
like five hundred plus pages of deposition where he really
you know, had to do this and that was almost
his practice for the Barbara Walter interview because he was
had done this tell all already in front of lawyers
under oath, and he had said a lot of the
things that he ended up repeating on Barbara Walters in
the pages of that deposition. I love the idea too,
(37:56):
of that deposition being so granular and in depth about
very unrelated things, Like I picture him sitting down being
deposed and saying, look, you have to eat the chicken
before the game. A lot of people think you can
do it, you know, during the seventh inning stretch or something,
but that's bananas. Gotta be double anchovies and a sexy
(38:17):
nurses outfit and in apron one or the other will
not do. It's got to be at the same time
served up to me. Yeah, in high heels and still lettos.
Maybe part of it is him reciting every line of
The Wizard of Oz with the voices, which is something
we haven't mentioned yet. Right, that's a tiny tetail, and
we buried the lead here, I think. So another thing,
(38:38):
this is the weirdest line of the whole our panhast thing.
She says that Wade Bogs again, who is like basically
a cop turned into a baseball player. I mean, the
guy doesn't seem like he has any sense of humor,
giant mustache, and yeah, again he's basically a cop. And
Margot says that one of the things Wade love to
do when they were like cuddling is he could recite
(39:01):
all of The Wizard of Oz with all of the
character's voices, which is the exact opposite detail that you
would associate with Box. So, I mean, this is again
one of the most beautiful tells. And it's sad that
that it's been lost in time. And I feel sort
of this personal gratification that we're we're going to bring
(39:22):
this thing back to life, because I was worried that
sort of this was gonna just be lost. And I
applaud everyone here for taking part of their afternoon to
bring it back. Oh man, absolutely, and you know, and
and the point being it was a big deal to
go on Barbara Walter's obviously, he said he seemed to
get a kick out of it, that it was almost
like a career defining moment. But he used this opportunity
to kind of come clean about sort of a self
(39:44):
diagnosis as to what the root of all of his
troubles with uh with with Margot actually was. Right, Yeah, Yeah,
Wade was way did some research. You know, he was
a guy who wanted to fix himself. So so he
was watching herral though, he said, and they had an
episode which was all over sexed people and the psychologists
on Herlda We're like, yes, this is a disease, and
(40:06):
Bugs was like, you know, the light bulb goes off
and he goes, oh, Wade Bugs has a disease. Of course,
you know, even when he talks to himself, he refers
himself in the third person. And so he decided that
he was a sex addict. And that was you know, Wade,
but that many people since then have played that card.
Wade Bugs was one of the iconic early people to
play the Oh no, no, no, I wasn't cheating. I'm
(40:28):
a sex so so I'm a victim. Yeah, I'm a victim.
I've struggled through this. And then of course you know
we've seen that, uh that reasoning used in other uh
celebrity scandal. Shout out to David, the Covany that we're
talking about and the Devil's Advocate fellas. I mean, if
(40:49):
you can be a drug addict, couldn't can't you be
a sex addict? I mean, isn't it just an impulse
that makes it difficult for you to control your urges.
I mean, you don't have to have a chemical dependency
to be a drug addict. Nor is sex technically physically addictive.
It's more of a mental thing. Just just putting that
out there, I think I think it could be physically
addictive when you look at I mean, there's a story
(41:10):
for a different day. But when you look at the
hormone releases. Uh, you know, you can get addicted to
almost anything, and if you have a physiological response to
it in your brain, then your body can become accustomed
to it. But in this case, he didn't see a doctor.
That's the important part. Dr Haraldo. I mean, you know
(41:31):
he actually did see a doctor. He did say, you
went on, Dr Phil But he says it's it's startling
because you're right that he literally did say, uh, a
disease was taking over Wade Boggs and it just did
for four years. Uh. And he has this other quote,
(41:52):
like he doesn't just say this in Barbara Walters. I
think he says this in court, right. Oh yeah, he's
heat in the deposition. He's like, you know, I'm a
red blooded male. And this is basically what red blooded
males do. So, um, I'm not sure that really anyone
can point he figures at me because I'm just doing
what everyone else would do if they were in my situation.
So that was his defense. Uh well, I don't think
(42:14):
anyone's necessarily ragging him for the sex as much as
they are the deception and infidelity. You know, I think
that's not cool when you're literally taking your wife, who
you have made a legal agreement with to be faithful to,
not to mention the religious side of it, that's a
whole another discussion, and then just kind of flouting that
openly and leaving this person utterly in the dark. I
(42:35):
can't imagine when all this came out. Can you imagine
what she must have felt like? And she didn't ultimately
leave him, if I'm not mistaken, right, she stood by
her man. I mean she she actually comes out at
the end of this and it is like, I stand
by my Wade, and Wade told me he's he's got
a changed man, and then he's gonna go out and
win a batting title for me. So you know, when
you're married to Wade bugs, it's tough to cut that cord.
(42:57):
I mean, the guy could really hit and he really
So there's such a there's such a strange story here.
There's something larger than life about it, you know, And
we're not being callous. This is textbook ridiculous history. And
one thing that you pointed out a couple of times, Matt,
that really stands out to me is that this is
(43:19):
very much a story of its time. Like these types
of articles don't get written near as often, right, uh.
And we with the way that these kind of scandals
play out in the public sphere is also very different.
I think we're in like this golden era of sports
scandal and reporting. What what do you think? Yeah, I
mean it is it is a time because reporters, you know,
(43:41):
reporters were considered that was a very prestigious job to
be a reporter for a newspaper, a sports reporter, and
so I think they were like considered themselves like the
Woodward and Bernstein of sports, and so they would do
real reporting and try and track down leads and and
you know, talk to people and get sources. And so
(44:02):
with this box thing, I think they thought this was
kind of like their water Gate, you know, like reporters
were making their name on on fresh details in the
Margo Adam scandal. And it's true, Like when you look
at the quotes from when this Penthouse article comes out
from spring training that year, the whole team is basically rocked,
(44:24):
the Red Sox. It becomes a major problem for them
and the manager Joe Morgan at the time. I mean,
Joe Morgan, if you don't know baseball, is this like
it was basically if you put your grandfather in charge
of the Red Sox. He was like this seventy eight
year old guy who like was very quaint. You'd think
of him more as like a guy who whittled than
a guy who like hit fungoes. And he was the manager.
(44:47):
And then they'd go to Morgan and be like, hey,
like Wade has this you know double and Jovie French
Garter thing like any comment and he'd be like, I
don't know, guys, I'm just trying to fill out a
lineup right here. But the the quotes are crazy because
the players that have to all then answer because a
lot of the players are mentioned in this thing. And
so like a guy like Bob's Stanley, who Adams says
(45:10):
she has photos of him with a stripper, and so
they go to Stanley and say, hey, what what are
your thoughts? And Bob Stanley says, it's a joke. It's
Laurel and Hardy stuff. I mean, like what year are
we like their reference is Laurel and Hardy, Like can
you imagine if they go to like a player now
and he's like, oh, yeah, this is Laurel and Hardy stuff,
Like I don't think you're getting that. And then they
(45:31):
go to Joe Morgan and they're like, you know, it
must be hard having to do all this damage control
and he quotes Walt Whitman as a response to that,
or he sort of butchers a quote about Walt Whitman.
And it's like it's just like feels like a very
different world where this was all going on, a world
very far away from where sports has gone today. And
(45:54):
it's interesting because as massive of a story as this
was at the time, um uh, it's something that I
think is kind of really flown under the radar and
sort of like lost its luster and really become kind
of relegated to this different time. But there is one
aspect of Wade Boggs that has stood the test of
time and infiltrated and found its way into current pop culture,
(46:17):
um in and in a couple of ways. And it
is his absolutely legendary ability to throw back tall boys. Yes,
that's right, the beer story. This may be familiar to
a lot of people who don't even consider themselves fans
of sports. In fact, you can see an entire episode
(46:37):
dedicated to this story in one of my favorite comedies,
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. But you guys, there's so
much to this story. It feels like we might be
on the verge of a two parter. What do you
think you know, Ben, I think you might be honest something.
Um So, why don't we take a quick pause here,
uh and come back? Would you mind joining us to
(46:58):
to to dive into another absolutely bonkers Wade Bog story? Matt,
I mean I think we see two parts, three parts?
How part? Can we push this thing? Whatever it takes?
Whatever it takes, That's what I say. So in the meantime,
if you want to do your homework and be in
on the joke a little bit, highly recommend you watch
the Always Stunning in Philadelphia episode. I believe it was
the first episode of season eleven. If I'm not mistaken,
(47:21):
did you realize that show has been running that long.
It's the it's the longest running comedy show of its
type where it's about to be pretty soon. There's also
another episode that references this Wade Boggs story, but it
uses a different cast of characters. Fantastic. We could talk
about it all day, which we will do on our
(47:42):
next episode in the meantime. Thanks as always to our
super producer, Casey Pegram, Thanks to Matt Waxman and Trickeration,
thanks to Jonathan Strickland's a k a. The Twister, Thanks
to Alex Williams, who composed our theme Christo Racious. Here
in Spirity is Jeff Codes. The whole gang is here.
Matt Real quickly tell us where can folks find you
(48:03):
on the internet? And uh and Trickeration all right, yeah,
hit me up at Matthew Xman is my Twitter and Instagram?
And then the show Instagram and Twitter is at tricks Ceration. Awesome.
We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts for
(48:26):
my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you as always
for tuning in. It is a lovely Friday afternoon in Atlanta.
As we record this, I have made tentative peace with
the Leafblower villain because we all only have one super
villain on our show, as Jonathan Strickland, a k. The Quister.
(00:48):
My name is Bet, my name is Nolan. I've been
really lucky while I can't attest to it being a
lovely day in Atlantic because I haven't really been outside
or opened the window, just kind of been holed up
in a dark room all day like Reese searching weird
sports sex scandals. Um, I can speak to the leaf
Blower being sort of a minor villain in the rogues
gallery of Ridiculous History. Um, you know, nemesses, but Jonathan
(01:11):
Strickland will always be are like Lex Luthor. So but
I think it's okay to have like little minor villains.
It just kind of builds out the extended universe a
Ridiculous History. Yeah, I think of the story arcs, you
know what I mean. We can't be going nose to
nose with our own with our own thanos every every day.
That's very much every so often relationship, but we do
(01:34):
join forces every single episode with our super producer, Casey Pegram.
You're rocking that shirt again, man, that looks awesome. No,
you're calling me out on it that shirt. I was
literally gonna change my shirt before I came on here,
and I just ran out of top forgot about it.
And then as soon as the camera feed came up,
I was like, well, I'm I'm committing to the You know, Casey,
I've been wearing the same shirt since the beginning of Quarantine,
(01:57):
so it's it's fine, this is my show shirt from
now on. You know, my We're we're talking about superstitions today,
so you know, if this is part of the ritual
here Casey on the case. And in addition to team
me up with Casey every so often on this show, Noll,
you and I are lucky enough to welcome a special guest.
(02:17):
So when we started thinking about sports and thinking about
as you said, Casey, superstition, as you said, old scandal, uh,
we knew that we needed some extra firepower. We needed
an expert, right oh yeah, yeah, And we have just
that expert today with us. We have Mr Matthew Waxman,
the host of Trickeration, our Sister Brother whatever Colleague podcast
(02:43):
here on the iHeart Podcast Network. Matt, thank you so
much for joining us today. All right, is it sister Brother?
I never can remember peer podcast. I like peer podcast,
I like sibling I like it all. You know what,
I'm agnostic, But the fact is that we're that you're
here now and you've got an awesome podcast called tricker A.
That's it's a little history, it's a little sports storytelling.
(03:04):
It's about scandal, it's about trickery. Tell us a little
bit about what Trickeration is to you. Well, first of all,
I also have a set of villains out here. I
got unfortunately terrible time. I have a mariachi band playing
it right outside my windows. So if you guys pick
up any of that, um, let me know and I'll
try and get them to quiet down a little. There
are mariachi band that also as like a construction crew,
(03:26):
so they play their tunes in between jackhammering furiously. Right,
I think all their construction equipment actually functions as the instrument, right,
Like the bulldozer is the is the equivalent of the
guy with the really big guitar. I think that is correct. Well,
now that we've got that sorted alright. Trick Yeah, Trickeration.
So Trickeration was a podcast I launched about the one
(03:49):
thing I'm most passionate about in sports, which is tricks.
And I realized when I wanted to start a podcast, like,
what is the stuff that I keep coming back to?
And it never was the game games I really didn't
care about, like fantasy um, so I always was just
obsessed with like schemes, hoaxes, like pranks, like basically anything
(04:11):
involving deception in sports. I like would just do these
random deep guys on and then I was like, oh,
I should probably just do this for other people to
to give them a full breath of just the lunacy
and deception that's going on basically in everything. I mean,
we all know that, like everyone is totally foolish about everything,
So why not investigate that stuff and get people to
(04:34):
come on the podcast and talk about it. So that's
what I've done. Wait a minute, are you saying that
I like sports aren't real? Are you saying that everything
we see isn't legitimate and not fully honest? As a
lane set in Seinfeld fake fake fake fake. Well, Matt,
did we ever do we ever talk about Brian Towey? Uh?
Full disclosure, The four of us have talked a little
(04:55):
bit of off air as we were trying to figure
out which stories would be the most amazing here. Uh,
but Brian Tooey is a guy who is we've interviewed
on a different show called Something and once you know,
he is convinced that either the vast majority of major
sports or all major sports are completely rigged. And uh,
(05:17):
he's someone you know what, I'm gonna reach out to
him and tell him to listen to trickeration because this
this is right up his alley. Um, maybe maybe he's
someone you would interview as well. You you told us
so many crazy stories off air that we actually had
a little bit of a difficult time, the four of
us figuring out what we wanted to explore. I know,
(05:38):
I know at one point, uh we had said, forget it,
we have to do at least these three because they're
so weird. And then Matt, you hit us with a
story that checked me on this. If this is correct,
noal that neither of us had ever heard. Uh, it's
a mind blowing, very weird exploration. Uh, Wade Boggs like
(06:02):
living legend, the Wade Boggs right the way bugs and
I've never heard it. And just full disclosure, I've said
as before, but just for your benefit, Matt, I'm not
a sports guy, like even a little bit like it
is just not in my wheelhouse at all. I'm fascinated
by everything that you discussed in the whole, like behind
the scenes stuff. But I'm gonna sound like a real
layman with some of this stuff, but I'm gonna do
(06:22):
my best to keep up. There's nothing I like better
than a scandal, uh and with a bunch of salacious details, which,
by the way, are gonna be in this episode. So
if there's any like younger listeners or parents that are
co listening, that's gotta be a thing you might want
to skip this one. We're gonna get into some some
dirty details done dirt cheap on ridiculous history. I forget
(06:43):
what the question was, but it wasn't even a question.
It became so rambling that it ceased to be a question.
But the question is, how did Wade Boggs come across
your radar? And where do you even start with this guy?
He's a he's an absolute maniac. Well, it came to
me like it comes to us people reading an old
penthouse magazine, from which I'm sure you guys were recently doing.
(07:05):
And uh, when you're flipping through these old penthouses, you
come across the strangest things, like I I found this
article by Wade Boggs's mistress, not an articles tell all?
And how many pages would you think they would devote
a tell all to Wade bugs is mistress? Oh boy?
How many pages are in a penthouse? Have some solid literature?
(07:27):
That's right? Yeah? Yeah, they definitely, Uh, they definitely do.
I would say five. I don't know, I'm gonna go,
I'm gonna do the prices right undercut, and I'm gonna
I'm gonna put some money on three I would I
would say, yeah, three would be the most you would devote.
They went a full five long pages. So they go
into this mistress Margot Adams basically airs out every secret
(07:50):
going on with the Red Sox in the mid eighties
and the stuff. I was a kid when this was
all happening, and I think, of course, was shielded from
all of this because I wasn't getting these old houses
when I was ten years old. Yeah, now that I'm older,
I'm getting the good stuff. And the stuff that was
in this tell all was incredible, totally incredible. So anyways,
(08:13):
I call up this guy who was mentioned in the
article and I'm starting to interview him, and he basically
tells me a story that's related to Let me just
tell you the story that he told me, and you
can tell me, um, what you guys think is real
and what cannot be true because it is too absurd.
All right. So this guy who he went on to
(08:33):
become the play by play announcer for the Orioles and
the Mariners, but when he was in his early thirties,
he was a young writer on Cheers and they're sitting
around and they're doing a prank episode which you know,
it's near and dear to my heart with you know,
Norm and Cliff for pulling one over on the Gary's
Old Town tavern. And the writers are all sitting around
and being like, how do we spice this thing up? Um?
(08:55):
We need like a sports star to come in here.
And the biggest sports star in Boston at that time
this was was Wade Boggs, you know, Larry Bird Wade
Bugs and Bird already dissed them before, so they were like,
let's get Bugs. So there, their booker goes out and
reaches out to Wade Bogs and they're like. The booker
is like, uh, it's spring training. Like we can't get
(09:16):
Wade Bugs to leave spring training and fly to l A.
It's just never gonna happen. And they're like, well, why
don't we put in another request? So they ask again
and they get find out that Bugs is like, yeah,
I'll do it. I'll leave the Red Sox for three
days to go film a cameo on Cheers, which makes
no sense, could never happen today. So the writer is
like patting himself on the back, being like, wow, all
(09:37):
I had to do was just asked for Wade Boggs,
the best hitter in baseball, And here he is, like,
you know on the show that I just wrote, and
the episode he said went okay, Boggs he said it
was real stiff couldn't do any of the like comedy,
but whatever. That's most athletes. I mean, it's literally we
say a cameo like it's a proper cameo. Like he
turns up as sort of like this joke, where what's
(09:58):
the guy Gary from the tavern. It's like the she
hears his rival Bar and they're like doing this prank war.
I think the episodes called bar Wars, and it's everything
from like they put cheap in Christie Ally's office. There's
like a whole grease up to bar stools. They like
infiltrate the TV feed during a big sports cast at
the at Gary's um and and then the kicker is
(10:19):
Gary comes and said, all right, you guys got me.
You win. And as a sign of consolation or as
my like waving the white flag, my buddy Wade Boggs
is going to come over and sign autographs for for
your patrons. And then they get in their own heads
and they're like, wait, now he's he's messing with us.
It's gonna be a Wade Bugs look alike. And so
they treat Wade Bogs though he's faking them out, and
(10:40):
they end up chasing him down the street and like
robbing him basically look at his wallet and it's like, oh,
this really was Wade Bogs. But to your point about
him being stiff, he has like one line and then
he just hauls ass out the door. As they're like
chasing him down. That's that's all you get from Wade Bogs.
So I wonder if he had a meteor role initially
and just couldn't cut it. Oh, that happens all the
(11:01):
time with with athletes unfortunately. So how would you say,
like on a one to ten and what number would
you give Boggs his cameo there? I think it fit that,
you know, you know, like like to Men's point, I'm
never expecting much out of like sports star. That's why
I thought Kevin Garnett and uncut Gems was just incredible
and like, again, not being a sports guy, I didn't
(11:21):
even believe that he was a real athlete. I was like,
who's this amazing actor portraying this basketball star? Turns out
he's actually playing himself. Um, but I don't know. I
my the bar is so low. I would say it
was respectable. It was like a six, you know, maybe
I I gave it an eight out of ten for
severely personal reasons because I remember being a young Tyke.
(11:43):
I don't know it was the night of debut, but
I saw this episode of Cheers and uh, my dad
was like, look at that this Wade Boggs. And I
also was not super knowledgeable about this stuff. But it
was in fact that Cheers episode that became my entry
point into learning about Wade Boggs. And my old man
(12:05):
was like, that guy's a legend. He's a lunatic. And
he assured me, uh, you know, he probably thought the
same as you know, he thought that there was maybe
a meteor role that they had to cut. And then
he strongly implied, in a joke I didn't get for years,
he strongly applied that maybe Wade Boggs got drunk on
set and could only do that one line. And I
(12:26):
didn't know why he was saying that and why he
was so tickled by, you know, telling me that. But uh,
as we'll see there there's a reason for that. I
will add one point to my score just for his
mustaches performance, because that is another one of Wade Bogg's
important superpowers is the mustache. But so, okay, that's the
thing about bugs is, like, you know, Ted Williams is
(12:47):
famous for being the greatest fighter pilot ever, the greatest
hitter ever, and the greatest fly fisherman ever ever. And
you know that's pretty impressive. Most people are not the
greatest to anything, but Bogs is one of the greatest hitters, um,
one of the greatest beer drinkers, and one of the
(13:07):
greatest mustaches. I mean, he's right there with Ted Williams
in the Triple Crown, right. He's really an impressive guy
when you go back, so to interject before we go
to the Penthouse story, just for anyone who doesn't know
if you were not, if you were not a Red
Sox fan. Wade Boggs was born in ninety He played
(13:29):
primarily with the Red Sox for the better part of
two decades, right, and he also played with the Yankees.
He's well established. If you know baseball, you know this guy.
If you have seen Cheers you might know him. If
you've seen Always Sunny in Philadelphia, you will see a twisted,
somewhat touching episode entirely about Wade Boggs. And when you're
(13:52):
reading this Penthouse article, Matt, you were first. I get
the sense that you were kind of startled. The Penthouse
spent five full pages on this. I would say I
was impressed. You were impressed? Uh, and then what about
this story surprised you? So? Okay, this is the part
that that most intrigued me because it involved deception, which
(14:12):
is really what my podcast is all about. And Boggs,
when he left the Red Sox, you know, he bet
his teammates that when he went on this Cheers Cameo run,
he would come back to spring training with a pair
of Christie Alley's underwear. And the reason I know this,
which was because in the pen Has magazine, boggs mistress
(14:34):
explains that Boggs was like, Hey, while I'm in l A,
I need your underwear because when I get back to
spring training, I don't want to tell, you know, Roger
Clemens that I was I failed in my attempt to
get Christie's undis. So he played off his mistresses underwear
as Kristie Alley's underwear. And that was this beautiful bit
(14:56):
of deception that I ended up spending you know, way
too much time in instigating on my own podcast. Here's
another interesting detail there, and you know, just just to
quickly get it out of the way, the the woman
in question here, Margot Adams, who was Boggs's mistress for
(15:16):
four years. It was essentially a long term secret, you know,
salacious relationship. Uh And and we're gonna get more into this, Ben,
you sort of indicate that we're gonna talk some about superstition.
One of the things that Bog's really leaned on with
his superstitions were the fact that when he traveled with
his actual wife, his batting average was like a certain number,
(15:39):
and when he traveled with Margot, his batting average was
like markedly higher. So he would insist on her like
going on the road with him a lot. And a
big part of like when she let the cat of
the bag and like wrote this tell all. It all
stemmed from this lawsuit that she basically sued him for
lost wages because she was like a real estate developed
(16:00):
for something and apparently or uh like a yeah, like
a real estate agent I believe, or a mortgage broker
or something like that. And she basically said, because I
was on the road with Bogs so much, because he
believed that I was his like good luck charm, he
promised to pay me X number of dollars for lost
wages that I that I wouldn't make what else on
(16:20):
the road. But a big part of her good luck
charm aspect was that she would come to the games
and not wear any underwear. So that's why it's interested
that she gives him the underwear and exchange, you know, saying, oh,
this is christ Thelity's underwear, when she was kind of
known for not wearing underwear at the games at Boggs's requests.
He's a very underwear motivated guy, you know what I mean.
(16:41):
So at this point, before we explore box is amazing
panopoly of superstitions which we have to do. I do
want to acknowledge our other guests on today's recording, which
is uh, apparently that ariachi band you mentioned Matt has
(17:02):
come down here to Atlanta to play a rousing concert. Uh,
so that you can hear them commenting in the background
of this episode. Perhaps if we asked Wade Boggs about this,
he would say the noise happened because we messed up
some superstition or some ritual that we needed to do
(17:22):
before every recording, the same way that he had to
eat chicken before every game. I'm sorry, I didn't want
to bury the lead too much. We are not speaking
figuratively here. There's literally some kind of crazy disturbance happening
at Ben's house. There's just banging on the ceiling. It's
weirder than it's ever been. And it's not the leafblower
this time. It's it's some other much more uh sinister force.
(17:44):
But you know what, the show must go on. This
is the reality of recording and quarantine. Uh, and we're
doing the best week can. But it's so funny, Matt
that you set this up at the top of the show,
because you really thought that the jackhammering mariachi band was
gonna be the you know, the nail and the coffin
for this session. But it's hurts out. It was completely
flipped the script. But yeah, man, the Chicken Man. This
(18:05):
is a nickname that Boggs either gave himself for. I
guess you can't give yourself a nickname. But what's the
deal with chicken and Wade Boggs and and and how
he depended on this chicken dinner before playing in a game?
So are you guys? What do you guys think of
superstition in general? First, I think we need to establish
that before I start making some bold claims. I would
say that in general, I think superstitions can be helpful
(18:29):
for people because they have a profound effect on the mind.
So superstition in a way is like weaponized psychology is
like the most fair way I could describe it. Um,
I would not say that I, as a person am
especially superstitious. Well, that that is totally an evolved way
of thinking about this, and one I hadn't considered. You know,
(18:51):
I always think of superstition. I equated this stupidity like, oh,
you think that if you tap your toe nine times
that this will go right. You know, it's like the
same stuff that you know you read in that book
The secret is just like for dumb people. But you're
exactly right. What made Wade Bugs great was part of
the fact that he this attention to superstition focused him
(19:15):
and allowed him to basically be a machine at hitting.
And I had Jim Abbott on the My podcast and
and Jim was saying that Wade's genius as a hitter
was due to this superstition that he everything was just
such a formulaic thing. You know, if this pitch was
a quarter of an inch outside, he would not swing
at it if this was happening. So he had basically
(19:37):
trained his mind in the same way that like he
tapped things and wrote Hebrew letters in the in the
batter's box and ate chicken before every game. He would
then use this sort of strident approach. He'd use that
towards hitting, and Abbott was saying that was what made
him as genius as a hitter, And so I was
totally wrong and what you said was exactly right. It's
(19:58):
so it's something we've covered a lot on our or
show stuff that don't want you to know. And just
to have the power of belief and the idea like
in some ways you could equate a superstition to like
the placebo effect. If you believe something will have an
effect strongly enough, then it will at least for you.
And again that's another thing with uncut gims where Kevin
Garnett's character gets obsessed with this uncut opal that he
(20:18):
believes that he will play better if he has in
his possession. And then there's a part where he doesn't
have it and he like you can tell, he's stressed
out on the court and he doesn't play as well.
And then Adam Sandwich's character essentially uses that power of
belief and baits him into believing this and then uses
it to like bet on the game and he and
he actually can bet predictably, even though he's also using
(20:39):
a placebo effect kind of thing. It's it's very interesting
and there's so many layers of psychology that go into that.
But it's very similar to like, you know, religion. I mean,
people believe in religion. And I could say, well, I
don't really believe there's a bearded man in the sky
or that the animals all came over on a boat.
But if you choose to believe that, it works for
you and it makes you better person, makes you have
(21:00):
some comfort. Who am I to say you're stupid or
wrong for believing these things. It's all very interesting and
there's a lot of layers to it. I think that's
exactly right. And so I hadn't considered that with bugs,
But you know, I viewed him a little differently after
reading all this. So back to the chicken. Okay, so
Wade Boggs eight chicken before every game. That's how he
got the nickname the Chicken Man. And he would do
(21:21):
different kinds of chicken. It wasn't like he had to
have one kind of chicken. And then he later writes
a beautifully named cook pook named foul Tips fo w
l um so. So again, now it's a fourth grade
thing that Wade Boggs has done with his life so
um so yeah, chicken every game. He also was obsessed
with the numbers seven and seventeen, so before every game,
(21:45):
all his pregame sprints would be at seven seventeen UM.
As you mentioned, you know, he needed his mistress not
worrying underwear in the stands um. And you you were
saying that he was much better when his mistress was there,
but not just he was much better. Boggs apparently calculated
his averages UM when his wife was there and when
(22:06):
his mistress was there. So this is like he's you know,
crunching the numbers. He's got one of those old calculators
in the eighties and he's got you know, spreadsheets, being
like my wife Debbie was here these games, Margot was
here these games. And then he's got a third column
of Margot wasn't here with no one thees these games.
And he's got a whole beautiful mind thing going here.
(22:26):
With all this going on, I mean, the poor guy
had a lot to deal with. It It makes you wonder,
you know, without getting too much of his personal life,
A statement that will be funny as this episode continues.
I think we're about to do two hours on that.
It makes me wonder why why he stayed married. You know,
it's a complex question, but you're right. We do construct
(22:47):
our own inner lives based on this kind of personalized mythology,
these superstitions that we practice. And for Wade Bogs, it
seems this was not like a on ritual thing to do.
It might have interested him, but I also get the
sense that he genuinely, sincerely and deeply believed in this stuff,
(23:10):
like this underwear matters to the game. Would you say
that he was all in, like he actually believed in
these superstitions. Well, I don't think you can do it
if you don't believe in it. But not only was
he all in. Debbie Marco has a great quote about
the no and DS for the games, and she says
it wasn't sexual. I mean that is one of the
(23:31):
great things. Like he's like, I don't care, it has
nothing to do with sex. I just need this for
my batting average. And he calculated that when Debbie, his wife,
was there, he had one, and when Margot was there,
he had three forty one. Now, if you're not a
sports fan, those numbers may mean nothing to you, but
(23:51):
that is the difference between being basically the worst hitter
and the best hitter in baseball, So who knows, you know,
I'd love to see one of these analytic guys go
back and really track this stuff and verify. But like,
this was not like, oh I hit you know a
few percentage points higher. This was I went from being
the worst player to the best player. So so I
(24:12):
mean he certainly did believe it. I also want to
point out just on the on the food side, uh
one thing that uh you found in your notes or
was his weird pizza thing? Like his food superstitions and
food enjoyment didn't stop at the chicken, right this. I
think that it's a quote from Margot about this too, right, So,
(24:33):
I mean, this is why I'm so proud of Penthouse
for publishing five pages on this, because normally these kind
of details would would sneak in and maybe they'd be
cut due to length. But thank god they went the
full five on this thing. Because Margo says that both
her and Bog's favorite food is pizza with double anchovies,
and that she would dress up in lingerie garters and
(24:54):
uh stockings and the full kid and kaboodle and serve
way double an chovie pizza in their hotel room. I
mean it is how hot is this? Well, first of all,
you on a couple accounts like a double you know, Ancho,
He's fine as a little added flavor, but like, wow,
that is an intense doubling down people like what they like.
(25:18):
But then I'm picturing her in this like weird French
maids sexy teddy outfit serving him this really smelly pizza.
The whole thing is just rubs me the wrong way
and leaves a very very peculiar image because like you know,
we we don't hear. There's not a lot of like
kink shaming or anything in this article where you think
there might be. I mean, this isn't really even about like,
(25:39):
oh he was into this like kinky sex stuff. It
was much more. All of it was kind of wrapped
up in this superstition for his like his game, and
that's really all there is to it. And then he
does well we'll get to the Barbara Walters interview a
little bit later, but he does reveal that, Okay, he
definitely has certain proclivities, but it's not like he liked
to be tied up and have you know, clothes, pins,
(25:59):
put on his nipple or anything like that. I mean,
it was very functional stuff that he was able to
parlay in a success as a baseball player in his mind.
Let the guy, you know what, I believe people should
be able to eat pizza the way they want to
eat it. I'm not gonna shame anybody for that. Um.
I I do want to point out, though, there was
another reveal here that I think speaks to like to me,
(26:21):
this feels like a minor example of trickeration itself. Uh.
And I need to ask you about this, Matt, because
I'm not an expert. Was he really not signing things
people sent him? Like? So? Margot lets the cat out
of the bag also in this pass article, and she
says that of the fan mail that was sent to
the Red Sox back in those days, they'd have the
(26:44):
ball boys signed because the players did not care at all.
So you've got like this, you know, um factory line
of ball boys just signed Mining Wade Bugs and Roger
Clemen's names thousands of times. And apparently one of the
ball boys makes a joke about this in front of
a fan or some let me a writer, and Bogs
takes some aside later and it's like, what are you doing? Like,
(27:04):
we gotta keep this going. I can't be sitting back
here signing stuff I got Chiddey. I would love to
see like a forensic comparison of like Wade Boggs signed
baseball cards and how like that they are all a
little different. Wade Boggs has a very ununiform signature. Um,
I think that would be really interesting thing to prove.
But I don't doubt that it's true, you know, I
(27:26):
you know, I think what these guys do purposely is
they sign their names almost so alleged allegibly that it's
easy to have someone else deal with it. So if
they can have their manager or their girlfriend or their
wife be like can you sign half of these? And
then we can be done with this nonsense quicker, which
is I think part of the motivation. But I I
that was the first that I've had when I when
I heard it was like, how are how are these
(27:47):
ball boys like these professional professionals? Uh orgers? Yeah, and
that so my ears perked up a little on that.
But I think it's such a scribble. And I remember
getting a lot of these autographs when I was a kid,
through the mail, and it was like really thrilling to
get them back in the mail. You know, the postage
would come with like the Orioles team stamp on it
(28:08):
or whatever, and they were just scribbles, you know, they
were they were just you couldn't see a name. It
was more like a symbol at that point. Well, I
have this is my question again, because I'm not an
expert here, Matt, how common is this? Because I had
a few autographed balls from the Atlanta Braves and I'm
rethinking a lot of things right now in a kind
of an unpleasant way. Yeah. I mean again, you're starting
(28:30):
to see the world of trickeration. I mean it's all fake.
Everything you thought was realistic fake. I'm sure most of
those autographs that you didn't get in person or fake. Um.
But also, what does it matter? Who cares about any
of these autographs that neither of them are valuable? Yeah,
that's so so it doesn't really matter. None of this matters.
And it also my just my last note on this.
(28:53):
It seems at the very least somewhat hypocritical that someone
who believes so much in superstition and intention and ritual
would be sending out these fake signatures. But I guess
it's just it's a different forgive me, guys, when you
when you're signing thousands of things a day, potentially it's
(29:13):
a different ball game. Well I I didn't realize this
until the Trickeration podcast got very popular and I was
forced to sign a lot of autographs. But it's tiring,
as you guys know, you know, you go out and
you're like, oh, this is fun at the beginning, and
then it goes on and on and eventually like, I
just wish someone else could do this for me. So
you guys, you guys get it. Oh god, We've got
(29:34):
piles and piles of what do you even sign if
you're a podcaster? Just headphone? Well, a lot of blue
apron boxes. I actually it's it's I started doing the
Bob Hope thing where one of one of our assistants
just brings me some paper and I sign it like
two thirds down and then they write something and then
(29:56):
it's just like you know, dictated not read, but be
careful because that and get you in trouble. I've I've
had that go wrong. But we're all dealing with the
same stuff. That's true. That's true. Uh, we're pretty much
all everybody listening, everybody in podcasting, we're pretty much all
Wade Boggs right in that regard. That's a bold claim. Yeah,
(30:17):
I would say I would disagree with that. Basically, what
Wade Boggs went through with this whole what this Penthouse
article was the culmination of, was, like we said, a
four year relationship with this woman, um, who basically presented
(30:37):
him with the kind of nightmare scenario that someone going,
you know, doing this kind of deception. That's a big
part of it too. That's a deception from his wife.
And he had had extramarital affairs that she was aware of.
I think there was a woman in Ohio that he impregnated,
even and she knew about that and was not okay
with it, but didn't leave him. Um, Debbie, this is
his wife of of many years, if I'm not mistaken.
(30:59):
They had children together, and you know, he it was
an open secret among his teammates, among officials in the
in the baseball franchise or whatever you wanna call it,
that he would that he had this, uh, this this
other woman on the side, but he would go out
of his way to make sure there wasn't a paper trail,
he would payer in cash reimburse her for her like
(31:21):
expenditures on these trips and all that, and apparently had
like a verbal agreement with her. This is what she
claims in a lawsuit that she filed UM where she
wanted a hundred thousand dollars um or basically was was
going to let the cat out of the bag about
all this stuff that she ultimately did in this article.
And that was because uh, he agreed supposedly to pay
her back for all of these trips, of which there
(31:43):
were sixty four trips by the way, um in that
four year period that they were an item. And to interject,
that's a twelve million dollar lawsuit, that's right. The the
one hundred thousand dollars was her verbally saying, hey, give
me a hundred k or else I will do this.
And then she he basically reported her to the FBI,
(32:06):
saying that she was trying to extort him, and then
she responded by hitting him with a six million dollar
palemony suit UM and basically saying that Boggs had promised
to all of these things um to compensate her for
all her lost you know, revenue from being on these
trips with him, ostensibly because she was like this good
luck charm, Because he even said that the relationship kind
(32:26):
of fizzled halfway through where he just didn't have the spark,
wasn't there in terms of the attraction. But I gotta
wonder you think he kept it going matt like because
she was that golden ticket in his mind. You know,
I never think would think I could place myself in
Wade Boggs's mind. I think, you know, way Buggs had
probably a lot of these women around. But I really
don't know. But one thing I think we should examine
(32:49):
his how do you think Margot adams Is mortgage brokering
business went after this all came out? Like are you
more or less inclined to go to her and be
like should we figure out thirty year fixed? Should we
do ten? You like you are you trusting her more
after this Penthouse article comes out? Or you're like, you
know what, I'm seeing this and I'm no longer trusting
(33:11):
I'm gonna take it over to UM. I think it
depends because fandom can be fanatical right and pop. It
might be publicity. Because we're talking about this Penthouse article,
we should also mention that they got pressed for this
in the New York Times. That's the kind of advertising
you just can't buy. So in this article March New
(33:34):
York Times that like highlights this bog's case and talks
about twelve million dollars, which was even a bigger deal
in nine than it is. Uh, then we I don't know,
you know, I want to be positive about it, Matt.
I want to say that at least some people came
for the notoriety, but I think I mean a little
(33:56):
Pollyanna about it because there were probably a lot more
people who were, like I morally don't want to be
associated with this. You know, if if it was a
lower rate though, like having recently had to get one
of these mortgages, if it was a lower rate, you know,
she gave me a quarter point lower, I think I
would have gone with Margot. It's fair, that's fair. But
I don't know, like, are you really looking for a
(34:18):
celebrity mortgage broker? You really just want someone that's going
to give you the best deal. Um. But it's the
thing that's interesting about her to coming out in this
way in Penthouse. Correct me if I'm wrong. But didn't
she also do like a spread. Wasn't there an associated
photo shoot with this? Tell all? She did do a spread,
and and not only did she do a spread, apparently
she shopped this to Penthouse and Playboy and kind of
(34:40):
created this um fight over or tell to tell all
rights to this thing. And the reason she goes with Penthouse,
which um was less popular at the time, was because
Penthouse's um owner to minced her that he wasn't just
interested in the spread, he was really interested in telling
her story. It was um, Bob Guccion, That's right, that's incredible,
(35:02):
what a brilliant hustle. You gotta respect it. Start a
bidding war if I'm gonna do this. Like, one thing
is readily apparent when we look at this story, and
that is that Marco Adams is no knucklehead. She's very smart.
There's it's almost like taking the nuclear option, you know,
when this guy goes from welshing on the oral agreement
(35:24):
for hundreds of thousands of dollars and then gets hit
with a multimillion dollar, twelve million dollar lawsuit and then
uh he Wade has to try to somehow get in
front of this right like he's in the New York
Times he's in penthouse, but not in the way he
wanted to be, and he has that now we're in
(35:45):
the war of public opinion, right, Yeah, Well, speaking of
being pop psychologists, when you read a lot of these articles,
which again are the eighties sports scandal article, you just
don't see it now like you did back then. I mean,
you could tell how much fun these writers were having
with all these puns and and they were just having
a blast writing about this story. And it also kind
(36:07):
of seemed like Wade Boggs was enjoying it. I mean,
I don't think he was enjoying seeing his whole personal
life being detonated, but there was something about the fame
that Bogs seemed to enjoy it because he's going to
go on and that was the big you know, that
was Oprah before Barbara Walters, and because Boggs was in
(36:30):
the front page of the news all the time, you know,
she Barbara wants him on the show. And Wade said,
you know, oh, I wish it was under better circumstances.
But to be honest, it's such an honor to be
asked to be on. And I could win a million
m vps and batting titles and I would never be
asked to be on sit on Barbara Walter's couch. So
(36:51):
he seemed to relish part of this, even though I
can only imagine, UM a lot of this was was
really not fun for him. Barbara Walters was sort of
the one that did these like tell all type interviews.
She was known for that, and you would cry on
Barbara Walters. She'd ask you the hard hitting questions and
you know, she she was no nonsense, but she also
(37:12):
wouldn't mince words, you know what I mean. But she
would tend to get these emotional reactions out of people. UM,
I do want to double back really quickly. I mistakenly
said there's only one lawsuit it was I said it
was six million. It was more likely closer to twelve millions.
I just want to put that out there so people
aren't thinking they're like all these lawsuits flying around. UM,
it's interesting too, Like I think when Wade Boggs was
(37:34):
deposed in this lawsuit, it ended up being like something
like five hundred plus pages of deposition where he really
you know, had to do this and that was almost
his practice for the Barbara Walter interview because he was
had done this tell all already in front of lawyers
under oath, and he had said a lot of the
things that he ended up repeating on Barbara Walters in
the pages of that deposition. I love the idea too,
(37:56):
of that deposition being so granular and in depth about
very unrelated things, Like I picture him sitting down being
deposed and saying, look, you have to eat the chicken
before the game. A lot of people think you can
do it, you know, during the seventh inning stretch or something,
but that's bananas. Gotta be double anchovies and a sexy
(38:17):
nurses outfit and in apron one or the other will
not do. It's got to be at the same time
served up to me. Yeah, in high heels and still lettos.
Maybe part of it is him reciting every line of
The Wizard of Oz with the voices, which is something
we haven't mentioned yet. Right, that's a tiny tetail, and
we buried the lead here, I think. So another thing,
(38:38):
this is the weirdest line of the whole our panhast thing.
She says that Wade Bogs again, who is like basically
a cop turned into a baseball player. I mean, the
guy doesn't seem like he has any sense of humor,
giant mustache, and yeah, again he's basically a cop. And
Margot says that one of the things Wade love to
do when they were like cuddling is he could recite
(39:01):
all of The Wizard of Oz with all of the
character's voices, which is the exact opposite detail that you
would associate with Box. So, I mean, this is again
one of the most beautiful tells. And it's sad that
that it's been lost in time. And I feel sort
of this personal gratification that we're we're going to bring
(39:22):
this thing back to life, because I was worried that
sort of this was gonna just be lost. And I
applaud everyone here for taking part of their afternoon to
bring it back. Oh man, absolutely, and you know, and
and the point being it was a big deal to
go on Barbara Walter's obviously, he said he seemed to
get a kick out of it, that it was almost
like a career defining moment. But he used this opportunity
to kind of come clean about sort of a self
(39:44):
diagnosis as to what the root of all of his
troubles with uh with with Margot actually was. Right, Yeah, Yeah,
Wade was way did some research. You know, he was
a guy who wanted to fix himself. So so he
was watching herral though, he said, and they had an
episode which was all over sexed people and the psychologists
on Herlda We're like, yes, this is a disease, and
(40:06):
Bugs was like, you know, the light bulb goes off
and he goes, oh, Wade Bugs has a disease. Of course,
you know, even when he talks to himself, he refers
himself in the third person. And so he decided that
he was a sex addict. And that was you know, Wade,
but that many people since then have played that card.
Wade Bugs was one of the iconic early people to
play the Oh no, no, no, I wasn't cheating. I'm
(40:28):
a sex so so I'm a victim. Yeah, I'm a victim.
I've struggled through this. And then of course you know
we've seen that, uh that reasoning used in other uh
celebrity scandal. Shout out to David, the Covany that we're
talking about and the Devil's Advocate fellas. I mean, if
(40:49):
you can be a drug addict, couldn't can't you be
a sex addict? I mean, isn't it just an impulse
that makes it difficult for you to control your urges.
I mean, you don't have to have a chemical dependency
to be a drug addict. Nor is sex technically physically addictive.
It's more of a mental thing. Just just putting that
out there, I think I think it could be physically
addictive when you look at I mean, there's a story
(41:10):
for a different day. But when you look at the
hormone releases. Uh, you know, you can get addicted to
almost anything, and if you have a physiological response to
it in your brain, then your body can become accustomed
to it. But in this case, he didn't see a doctor.
That's the important part. Dr Haraldo. I mean, you know
(41:31):
he actually did see a doctor. He did say, you
went on, Dr Phil But he says it's it's startling
because you're right that he literally did say, uh, a
disease was taking over Wade Boggs and it just did
for four years. Uh. And he has this other quote,
(41:52):
like he doesn't just say this in Barbara Walters. I
think he says this in court, right. Oh yeah, he's
heat in the deposition. He's like, you know, I'm a
red blooded male. And this is basically what red blooded
males do. So, um, I'm not sure that really anyone
can point he figures at me because I'm just doing
what everyone else would do if they were in my situation.
So that was his defense. Uh well, I don't think
(42:14):
anyone's necessarily ragging him for the sex as much as
they are the deception and infidelity. You know, I think
that's not cool when you're literally taking your wife, who
you have made a legal agreement with to be faithful to,
not to mention the religious side of it, that's a
whole another discussion, and then just kind of flouting that
openly and leaving this person utterly in the dark. I
(42:35):
can't imagine when all this came out. Can you imagine
what she must have felt like? And she didn't ultimately
leave him, if I'm not mistaken, right, she stood by
her man. I mean she she actually comes out at
the end of this and it is like, I stand
by my Wade, and Wade told me he's he's got
a changed man, and then he's gonna go out and
win a batting title for me. So you know, when
you're married to Wade bugs, it's tough to cut that cord.
(42:57):
I mean, the guy could really hit and he really
So there's such a there's such a strange story here.
There's something larger than life about it, you know, And
we're not being callous. This is textbook ridiculous history. And
one thing that you pointed out a couple of times, Matt,
that really stands out to me is that this is
(43:19):
very much a story of its time. Like these types
of articles don't get written near as often, right, uh.
And we with the way that these kind of scandals
play out in the public sphere is also very different.
I think we're in like this golden era of sports
scandal and reporting. What what do you think? Yeah, I
mean it is it is a time because reporters, you know,
(43:41):
reporters were considered that was a very prestigious job to
be a reporter for a newspaper, a sports reporter, and
so I think they were like considered themselves like the
Woodward and Bernstein of sports, and so they would do
real reporting and try and track down leads and and
you know, talk to people and get sources. And so
(44:02):
with this box thing, I think they thought this was
kind of like their water Gate, you know, like reporters
were making their name on on fresh details in the
Margo Adam scandal. And it's true, Like when you look
at the quotes from when this Penthouse article comes out
from spring training that year, the whole team is basically rocked,
(44:24):
the Red Sox. It becomes a major problem for them
and the manager Joe Morgan at the time. I mean,
Joe Morgan, if you don't know baseball, is this like
it was basically if you put your grandfather in charge
of the Red Sox. He was like this seventy eight
year old guy who like was very quaint. You'd think
of him more as like a guy who whittled than
a guy who like hit fungoes. And he was the manager.
(44:47):
And then they'd go to Morgan and be like, hey,
like Wade has this you know double and Jovie French
Garter thing like any comment and he'd be like, I
don't know, guys, I'm just trying to fill out a
lineup right here. But the the quotes are crazy because
the players that have to all then answer because a
lot of the players are mentioned in this thing. And
so like a guy like Bob's Stanley, who Adams says
(45:10):
she has photos of him with a stripper, and so
they go to Stanley and say, hey, what what are
your thoughts? And Bob Stanley says, it's a joke. It's
Laurel and Hardy stuff. I mean, like what year are
we like their reference is Laurel and Hardy, Like can
you imagine if they go to like a player now
and he's like, oh, yeah, this is Laurel and Hardy stuff,
Like I don't think you're getting that. And then they
(45:31):
go to Joe Morgan and they're like, you know, it
must be hard having to do all this damage control
and he quotes Walt Whitman as a response to that,
or he sort of butchers a quote about Walt Whitman.
And it's like it's just like feels like a very
different world where this was all going on, a world
very far away from where sports has gone today. And
(45:54):
it's interesting because as massive of a story as this
was at the time, um uh, it's something that I
think is kind of really flown under the radar and
sort of like lost its luster and really become kind
of relegated to this different time. But there is one
aspect of Wade Boggs that has stood the test of
time and infiltrated and found its way into current pop culture,
(46:17):
um in and in a couple of ways. And it
is his absolutely legendary ability to throw back tall boys. Yes,
that's right, the beer story. This may be familiar to
a lot of people who don't even consider themselves fans
of sports. In fact, you can see an entire episode
(46:37):
dedicated to this story in one of my favorite comedies,
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. But you guys, there's so
much to this story. It feels like we might be
on the verge of a two parter. What do you
think you know, Ben, I think you might be honest something.
Um So, why don't we take a quick pause here,
uh and come back? Would you mind joining us to
(46:58):
to to dive into another absolutely bonkers Wade Bog story? Matt,
I mean I think we see two parts, three parts?
How part? Can we push this thing? Whatever it takes?
Whatever it takes, That's what I say. So in the meantime,
if you want to do your homework and be in
on the joke a little bit, highly recommend you watch
the Always Stunning in Philadelphia episode. I believe it was
the first episode of season eleven. If I'm not mistaken,
(47:21):
did you realize that show has been running that long.
It's the it's the longest running comedy show of its
type where it's about to be pretty soon. There's also
another episode that references this Wade Boggs story, but it
uses a different cast of characters. Fantastic. We could talk
about it all day, which we will do on our
(47:42):
next episode in the meantime. Thanks as always to our
super producer, Casey Pegram, Thanks to Matt Waxman and Trickeration,
thanks to Jonathan Strickland's a k a. The Twister, Thanks
to Alex Williams, who composed our theme Christo Racious. Here
in Spirity is Jeff Codes. The whole gang is here.
Matt Real quickly tell us where can folks find you
(48:03):
on the internet? And uh and Trickeration all right, yeah,
hit me up at Matthew Xman is my Twitter and Instagram?
And then the show Instagram and Twitter is at tricks Ceration. Awesome.
We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts for
(48:26):
my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
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Ben Bowlin
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