By Jeff Faraudo
#WCChoops Columnist | ARCHIVES
2020 WCC HALL OF HONOR PROFILES
It was a compliment no baseball player wants to hear.
“He was the greatest player I've ever seen not to have an at-bat in a major league game.”
That’s how USF baseball coach Nino Giarratano described his former star slugger Taggert Bozied.
Known simply as “Tagg,” Bozied had a season for the ages on the Hilltop in 1999, winning the West Coast Conference triple crown with a .412 batting average, 30 home runs and 82 RBIs. He led the league with 70 runs scored and topped the NCAA with a .936 slugging percentage.
Against Sonoma State that season, Bozied hit four home runs against four different pitchers.
The obvious choice as WCC Player of the Year, Bozied capped his sophomore season by earning a spot on the USA national team.
USF’s 2020 inductee into the WCC’s Hall of Honor, Bozied was a three-time all-conference pick for the Dons. He remains the WCC record-holder with 60 career home runs and 240 runs scored, and is second with 222 RBIs.
“One the best of all time in the West Coast Conference,” his former coach concluded.
There’s no questioning that and Bozied, now 40, also gets credit for refusing to be crushed by what eluded him during his professional career. “I never could have played 11 years in the minors leagues if I was hunting down the what-ifs,” Bozied said.
And yet, a confounding jigsaw puzzle of factors conspired against Bozied: Bad timing, injuries, star players blocking his path to the big leagues and some pure bad luck.
Bozied’s junior season in 2000 featured a remarkable at-bat in a game against Fairfield. The bases were loaded when Bozied, crowding the plate a bit, was hit by a pitch and began his trot to first base. The Fairfield coach contested the call, arguing that Bozied leaned into the pitch. The umpire relented and brought Bozied back to the plate. Moments later, he hit a grand slam.
But Bozied faced new challenges that season. He recalls “a couple bursts of injuries,” and also saw how opponents treated him differently. He was walked with the bases loaded more than once. A rival WCC team played four outfielders against him before extreme defensive shifts were commonplace.
“It was a weird year,” he said. “I didn't sneak up on anybody anymore.”
Drafted in the second round by the Twins that year, Bozied opted to return to school, convinced he should have been picked higher. “I was shocked he didn’t sign,” Giarratano said.
But Bozied did not move up — he was a third-round pick by the Padres in 2001. Again, he declined the offer he received, signing instead with his hometown team, the Sioux Falls Canaries of the Independent A Northern League, a decision Bozied now acknowledges might not have been his best move.
“Regret’s a strong word,” he said. “But if I had to do it over again, I think I would have weighted things differently.”
Over 11 seasons, Bozied’s minor league odyssey took him to 11 destinations across the country, not counting a stint in the Dominican winter league.
He was often very good, but his timing wasn’t always the best. He was in the Padres organization behind Ryan Klesko, with the Cardinals during Albert Pujols’ peak years, and played his final two seasons looking up at the Phillies’ Ryan Howard. Tough to make any headway against those professional sluggers.
Bozied’s body also wouldn’t consistently cooperate. The worst and certainly freakiest moment came in July 2004 when he was tearing up the Pacific Coast League with the Portland Beavers.
He cracked a walk-off grand slam against first-place Edmonton and was poised to celebrate with his teammates as he approached home plate. Without making contact with anyone, Bozied’s knee cap suddenly popped off. He collapsed, briefly passing out, and was taken to the hospital.
Bozied’s career was not over as he initially feared, but he also never was quite the same. “After that season I didn’t have one season where I didn't have at least one stint on the DL,” he said. “I didn't have durability. I could still produce when I was ready but it was tough to be that guy.”
After batting .238 with 11 home runs for the Phillies’ Lehigh Valley club in the Triple-A International League, Bozied retired at the age of 31.
These days, Bozied lives in the Denver suburb of Westminster, where he works as a media strategist for a cloud service IT infrastructure company. He says he probably spends more time watching football now than baseball.
Nearly a decade removed from the diamond, he doesn’t recall specific games and at-bats as much as he does the people, the places, the travel, the competition.
Bozied still talks with reverence about Giarratano — “the godfather,” he calls him — and how his time in San Francisco “opened up a world for me.”
On the field, he never doubted what he could do.
“I really believed in myself, to the point where me not playing in the Big Leagues doesn't matter to me because I know how many Big Leaguers I was better than,” Bozied said. “I played as long as I did because I believed in myself.
“I don’t feel a loss. I was OK walking away.”