Before a tour of the newly renovated Hall of Fame on Tuesday, the Tampa native greeted an elementary school group from Chicopee, Mass., sounding more like a guide than a former star soon to be enshrined.

``Welcome to the Hall of Fame,'' said Boggs, clad in blue jeans, sneakers and a rugby shirt. ``I'm one of the new inductees.''

``Congratulations,'' the students replied in unison, some of them recognizing the man who won five American League batting titles in 11 seasons with the Boston Red Sox and finished his 18-year career with 3,010 hits.

``You guys enjoy your day here,'' said Boggs, who will be inducted July 31 along with former Chicago Cubs star Ryne Sandberg. ``Enjoy the tour.''

They did, but surely not as much as Boggs, who was clearly taken aback by what he saw on his first official visit to the sport's shrine.

A student of history, Boggs was nearly speechless as he made his way through, uttering ``Wow!'' and ``Incredible!'' at almost every turn.

When he stopped to take a closer look at the Red Sox exhibit from their improbable World Series triumph last fall, he seemed somewhat wistful that he wasn't a part of it.

``I was almost there, very close, a strike,'' said Boggs, a member of the 1986 Red Sox team that lost to the New York Mets in seven games after Bill Buckner's famous two-out error in the bottom of the 10th inning of Game 6 gave New York a stunning comeback victory.

A career .328 hitter, the 12- time All-Star also was known for the array of superstitious rituals he went through before and after games. Maybe it was his near-obsessive passion for detail that brought a smile to his face when he gazed at a 77- ball hitting display devoted to former Red Sox slugger Ted Williams, who wrote ``The Science of Hitting.''

``I had to read the book over and over and over,'' said, Boggs, who set an American League record with seven consecutive 200-hit seasons in the 1980s. ``It's still the Bible.''

A wall that has a ball from every no-hitter thrown in the major leagues since the Hall of Fame opened in 1939 elicited more memories. Boggs played in four of them, including Matt Young's on April 12, 1992, which the Red Sox lost to the Cleveland Indians.

``Afterward, in the clubhouse it was the strangest thing,'' Boggs said. ``He threw a no-hitter, but we lost 2-1.''

Only about a quarter of the Hall of Fame's 35,000 artifacts are on display at any given time. The rest are stowed in the basement, which is open to only a select few. Boggs qualified, and he was amazed, especially by the tiny gloves of yesteryear.

``How did they ever catch a ball back then?'' he asked, holding gloves once that belonged to former Yankee greats Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. ``Absolutely amazing.''

``Shall I get a Ted Williams bat for you?'' asked Tom Shieber, curator of new media for the Hall.

``Sure, the man!'' Boggs said, his eyebrows raised.

Then it was up to the library, where a copy of Boggs' 1984 book ``Fowl Tips, My Favorite Chicken Recipes'' and a tape of the well-known ``Homer at the Bat'' episode in 1992 of ``The Simpsons'' television cartoon show were on a table.

The gallery left the biggest impression on the guy called ``Chicken Man'' because he ate the fowl seven days a week.

``Goosebumps,'' said Boggs, who was accompanied by his wife, Debbie. ``The goosebumps were remarkable walking down the hall where all the plaques are. The goosebumps started overwhelming me. The Hall of Fame is not something that an athlete can set as a goal. It's something that evolves.''

After leaving Boston, Boggs spent five years in New York, where he helped the Yankees win the 1996 World Series. He played his final two years for the Devil Rays, in 1999 becoming the first player to hit a homer for his 3,000th hit.