BOSTON -- Ray Bourque had a Hall of Fame career in Boston,
but he had to leave town to win the championship that he coveted.
Sound familiar, Wade Boggs?
"Yep," said the former Red Sox third baseman, a five-time
batting champion who moved on to the New York Yankees to win the
title that really counts. "A few players have."
The Red Sox haven't won a World Series since 1918, meaning even
Hall of Famers like Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski, who played
their entire careers here, never won it all. Other stars, like
Boggs and Roger Clemens, won only after leaving.
"It was pretty nice to see Colorado and those guys rally around
him," Clemens said after Bourque ended his 22-year career on
Tuesday, retiring 17 days after winning the Stanley Cup with his
adopted team, the Colorado Avalanche.
It's an all too common scene in Boston, which saw former
Patriots quarterback Jim Plunkett win the Super Bowl with the
Oakland Raiders. Even Doug Flutie won a few titles in the Canadian
Football League after leaving Boston College and the New England
Patriots.
"That's the reason that athletes play the sport: to be a world
champion," Boggs, who is now the Tampa Bay hitting coach, said
from Fenway Park a few hours after Bourque announced his
retirement. "Sometimes in the city where you perform, that luxury
isn't affordable."
The Bruins last hoisted the Stanley Cup in 1972, seven years
before Bourque arrived. Seeing that Boston was unlikely to surround
him with the teammates necessary to win here, Bourque asked to be
traded to a contender near the end of the 1999-2000 season.
General manager Harry Sinden indulged him and sent him to
Colorado. The Avalanche didn't win it last year, but this season
became a mission to get Bourque's name on the Cup before his
imminent retirement.
"I want to thank the Boston Bruins for all the good things that
happened there over 20 years," Bourque said Tuesday at Denver's
Pepsi Center, where the Avalanche won the championship with a Game
7 victory over the New Jersey Devils. "I will always be a Bruin in
my heart."
Bourque spent just 15 months with the Avalanche, but the team
said Tuesday it will retire his No. 77 jersey. Sinden told The
Associated Press on Tuesday night that the Bruins would do the same
next season.
"He's a slam dunk as far as the Bruins are concerned," Sinden
said. "It's something we've known for a number of years."
Bourque's number will join seven others in the FleetCenter
rafters, including the No. 7 he wore in Boston for almost eight
years until it was retired in honor of Phil Esposito. At that
ceremony, Bourque surprised everyone by pulling off his old sweater
to reveal his new number.
"I'm glad he went out on top," Esposito said Tuesday. "My
feeling is this guy is such a great athlete, I think he can still
play a few more years. I think he knows he can still play. But he
wanted to go out on top."
Looking even farther down the road, Bourque becomes eligible for
the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2004. When he's elected -- and he's as
sure a thing as there is -- he won't have to choose a team
affiliation as baseball players do.
Kelly Masse, a spokeswoman for the hockey hall, said Bourque
will be included with 40 other Bruins "Honored Members." He will
also be identified as a member of the Avalanche -- the team's first
inductee, most likely.
"When a player is inducted into the Hall of Fame, they don't go
under a certain team or a certain jersey," she said. "They're
just inducted as a player."
Boston fans continued to support Bourque after his defection,
even turning out 15,000 strong to cheer for him at City Hall Plaza.
Shortly after Bourque's announcement on Tuesday, U.S. Sen. John
Kerry paid tribute to him on the Senate floor.
"We are happy for his success, appreciative of his years with
the Bruins, and proud to have him back home in Massachusetts,"
Kerry said. "If Ray's career were only measured in numbers he
would be an automatic Hall-of-Famer. But when you take the full
measure of the man, he has shown to be one of those few athletes
who transcends sports."
Back in Boston, though, Bourque's announcement that he will
retire didn't make much of a ripple -- mostly because it was widely
expected.
"I think it would be silly if he played again," said Sean
Dineen, a bartender at the Allston Sports Depot, where the
retirement announcement was broadcast to a scattered and
disinterested post-lunch crowd. "I think he did what he had to
do."
"I didn't mind him going to Colorado. He played 20 1/2 years here
and he definitely deserved a chance to win," Dineen said. "If he
was in Jersey or Philly, people might feel differently."
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