During his major league career, Wiggins struggled with drug addiction, which resulted in several arrests and suspensions from baseball.

As a child, he played baseball with his friends at a park across from the Rose Bowl, and he was a fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers and their base-stealing shortstop, Maury Wills.

[2][3] Wiggins graduated from John Muir High School in Pasadena, California,[a] which was also the alma mater of Dodgers star Jackie Robinson.

[6] Wiggins played minor league baseball in 1977 for the Angels rookie-league affiliate in Idaho Falls, where he hit .271 and had 25 stolen bases in 63 games.

[b] Wiggins feared that his career was near its end, but he reached out to Los Angeles Dodgers scout Gail Henley.

[2] In 95 games for Clinton, Wiggins hit .257, stole 43 bases, and converted to a shortstop after spending the previous two seasons as a second baseman.

[10] Playing with the Class A Lodi Dodgers of the California League in 1980, Wiggins batted .288 and scored 108 runs while stealing 120 bases in just 135 games.

[4] Wiggins began the following season with the Islanders,[10] but he was called up again by the Padres in early May to replace injured outfielder Gene Richards.

[27] On May 17, Wiggins became the fifth 20th-century MLB player to steal five bases in one game, tying a National League (NL) record.

The teams retaliated against each other throughout the game with brushback pitches and beanballs, and the resulting brawls led to thirteen ejections and even the arrests of five fans who became involved in the fighting.

[39] "Alan Wiggins' role in bringing San Diego the 1984 National League championship wasn't put into proper perspective until the Padres tried to defend their title without him," sportswriter Phil Collier later wrote.

[41] Wiggins missed the last two weeks of spring training after injuring his knee during a double-play attempt on defense when a baserunner slid into him.

[43] After Wiggins completed a drug rehabilitation program, the Padres did not want to reactivate him, but baseball's joint review board cleared him to return to play.

In June, Donald Fehr of the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) announced that he intended to file a grievance against the Padres if they did not promptly activate Wiggins.

[46] In 76 games for Baltimore that year, he hit .285, scored 43 runs and finished eighth in the American League with 30 stolen bases.

[4] Baltimore fans felt that Wiggins was lazy, as he often stopped running to first base on ground balls and showed a lack of effort on defense.

[47] His family moved to a suburb of Baltimore before the 1986 season, but Wiggins still struggled to win over Orioles fans and teammates.

In June, Wiggins was tagged out with the hidden ball trick, and he made three errors the next day, including two in the same inning.

[39] He batted .251 with 21 stolen bases and 30 runs scored, played only 71 games, and was reassigned to the Triple-A Rochester Red Wings at one point in the season.

[48] At the start of the 1987 regular season, Wiggins spent some time as a designated hitter (DH) and shared second base duties with Burleson.

Burleson was cut, but general manager Hank Peters said, "We're not bringing [Billy Ripken] up here to sit on the bench.

[49] In early August, Wiggins received a three-day suspension after he got into an altercation with teammate Jim Dwyer and grabbed the shirt of Ripken Sr.[52] On September 1, MLB indefinitely suspended Wiggins for a behavior issue, and an anonymous Orioles official told the media that the suspension resulted from a positive drug screen.

[55] Though Wiggins did not give up hope for a return to baseball, he began to study the real estate market after his suspension from the game.

In the late 1980s, Wiggins started to suffer from health difficulties related to AIDS, though the diagnosis was not publicly disclosed while he was alive.

He was receiving deferred payments from his baseball career, and he began to make plans for the financial future of his children.

[61] The Los Angeles Times reported that Wiggins had experienced marital strife, but that he would not entertain the thought of divorce; he wanted to ensure that his children did not grow up in a single-parent household as he had.

In the last few years of Wiggins' life, he enjoyed a closer relationship with his father, Albert, and he often took his children on visits to see their grandfather.

[3] Wiggins enjoyed stubbornly engaging in debates with his teammates, particularly Padres pitcher Eric Show, just to provoke reactions from them.

According to Attanasio, players in Baltimore also resented Wiggins because he replaced Rich Dauer, who had been a well-liked member of the team.