Bookshelf - "Fowl Tips: My Favorite Chicken Recipes" (1984) by Wade Boggs

45 pp., paperback with plastic rings.

31 recipes, with tips for preparing, seasoning and cooking chicken

Here is the perfect convergence of baseball and cookbooks.

Back in 2014, I added one of the Holy Grails of baseball cookbooks to my collection: "Fowl Tips", the Wade Boggs chicken cookbook. Nothing but chicken recipes.  Yes, this was and still is an actual thing.

One of the legends attached to Boggs was that the Hall of Fame batting champ ate chicken before every game. In his own words:

"Chicken has been very good to me. It may sound strange, but I maintain that chicken has played a major part in the success of my baseball career.

"It all started back in 1977 when I was coming up in the minors... During spring training that year, I noticed something peculiar. On those days when I ate chicken before a game, I always got at least two hits... So when I started getting hits after eating chicken, I just naturally began eating more chicken. And I'll be doggoned if my batting average didn't continue to rise.

"Don't ask me to explain it. I won't even try. All I know is that now I eat chicken before every game we play."

And so was born Fowl Tips: My Favorite Chicken Recipes by the man whose twitter handle is @ChickenMan3010.

The book is scarce now and demands a new printing. I did a recent online search and the only copy I could find is from a seller who is offering a copy via Amazon with the asking price of $300.  That's cluckin' nuts!

After I was lucky enough to score a copy online, I immediately tried a bunch of the recipes.

The recipes are 30-plus-years-old, and very basic. Lots of grilling and frying.  Some offer a decent foundation to add and experiment with, others are more of a novelty than anything I would seriously serve to guests. You can decide which is which.

I'll keep an ongoing list of links to the recipes and photos that I posted below.

Barbecue Chicken Wings