Cooperstown, N.Y. ? Growing up, Wade Boggs and Ryne Sandberg were just like any other kids in love with baseball, playing imaginary games and dreaming.

“In the backyard, when you were playing whiffle ball, you always imitated all the great players,” Boggs said. “I was always Reggie Jackson and Pete Rose. All those guys.”

“I had a rope line for the home run on top of the garage, off the garage was a double, trees and picnic tables were the fielders,” Sandberg said. “I played with a solid plastic golf ball. I remember putting my arms up in the air on a game-winning hit, ‘Is it out of here? Yes!’ And I was by myself.”

Four decades later, those childhood dreams will culminate with the greatest of honors – induction today into the Hall of Fame. Also being enshrined are San Diego Padres announcer and former New York Yankees second baseman Jerry Coleman, and longtime writer and broadcaster Peter Gammons.

“The Hall of Fame is not something an athlete can set as a goal,” said Boggs, a five-time AL batting champion for the Boston Red Sox who became just the 41st player elected on his first chance. “It’s something that evolves.”

For both Boggs and Sandberg, it evolved slowly at first.

Former Chicago Cubs standout Ryne Sandberg, left, speaks about his career at a news conference with five-time American League batting champion Wade Boggs. The two, who will be enshrined today in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, met the press Saturday in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Boggs, who batted left-handed, was a scrawny kid who didn’t attract much attention even though he finished his senior year at Plant High in Tampa, Fla., on a 26-for-33 tear. He was drafted in the seventh round by the Red Sox and then spent five-plus seasons in the minors.

Although he won one batting title and finished among the top four hitters four other times, the Sox didn’t even invite him to spring training after he barely missed winning the batting title while playing third base for Triple-A Pawtucket in 1980.

“The only thing that I was told by the Red Sox was that I don’t hit for power and that I play in a power position and that I wasn’t going to be able to play in the big leagues if I don’t hit for power,” said Boggs, who also played for the Yankees and Tampa Bay, retiring with 3,010 hits. “I forced their hand in 1981 when I led the league in hitting and wasn’t called up in September. They had to make a decision on me there.”

While Boggs was a star kicker in high school and could have played college football, Sandberg was all but signed, sealed and delivered to be the starting quarterback at Washington State.

“I signed a letter of intent. I had all my classes picked, and I had a roommate,” Sandberg said. “All of my college trips my senior year were college trips for football. I was highly recruited. I think I even had a backpack and a bathrobe that said Washington State on it, so I was ready to go.”

Apparently, big-league executives figured the same – he wasn’t picked until the 20th round of the 1978 amateur draft by the Phillies. Although the 6-foot-2 Sandberg began at short, he eventually was switched to second and, like Boggs, had to endure a label of his own.

“I heard a lot of talk about being too tall to play the position – how can you move around, turn the double play? – because I wasn’t the prototype that everybody was used to as a second baseman,” Sandberg said.