« Will Rice Finally Get The Call He Deserves? | Home | This Day In Baseball History: January 13th (RIP: Joe McCarthy) »
At Long Last, Rice Receives His Call To Immortality
By Administrator | January 12, 2009
Former Red Sox slugger Jim Rice, who for several years in the late-70s and early-80’s was among the most feared sluggers in the game of baseball, has finally been elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame by the BBWAA. (NOTE: Many of us believe he was THE most feared power hitter of his era)
Rice, who spent his entire 16-year career with the Red Sox, was on the HOF ballot this year for the fifteenth and final time. Last year, he came up a few votes short of induction (when he received 72.2% of the ballots cast, just sixteen votes shy of the 75% mark needed for induction)… this year, he was awarded HOF status by an even slimmer margin (his name was punched on 76.4% of the votes cast… in real numbers, he received 412 votes – just seven more than the required number).
He is the first player to be elected in his final year of BBWAA eligibility since 1975, when longtime Pirates star Ralph Kiner was elected.
Rice will be joined in the Class of 2009 by one other ballplayer, former Red Sox outfielder Rickey Henderson (or did you forget that Rickey had a cup of coffee with the Sox back in 2002). [Henderson played in the majors for twenty-five years and ranks as the all-time leader in runs scored (2,995) and stolen bases (1,406).]
Jim-Ed hit .298, with 382 home runs and 1,451 RBI from 1974-89.
Induction has been a long time coming for Rice, whose Hall-worthiness has been the subject of intense debate among pundits and fans since 1995 (the first year his name appeared on the HOF ballot). From 1975 - 1986, he led the American League in EIGHT offensive categories: games played (1766), at-bats (7060), hits (2145), HR (350), RBI (1276), runs scored (1098), total bases (3670), and slugging percentage (.520). And he was third in batting average (.304). He also led the AL in one defensive category during the same twelve year period, outfield assists (125).
Notwithstanding the addle-minded observations of his critics of the current decade that assert he was the best player on his own team only once, the writers of his time voted him among the Top Five in MVP voting on six different occasions. He won in 1978. He was an all-star eight times.
He hit .300 or better seven times and had 100 or more RBI eight times…
In 1978, he accumulated 406 total bases — the most by any AL player since Joe DiMaggio, in 1937.
He is one of only fourteen men to have four different seasons in which he had 200+ hits and 100+ RBI (in the same season)… eleven of those men are in the Hall of Fame.
And lastly, as of the date he retired (in 1989), there were thirteen players in major league history who had eight or more seasons of 20+ HR and 100+ RBI in the same season… they were: Henry Aaron, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Ted Williams, Lou Gehrig, Jimmy Foxx, Joe DiMaggio, Harmon Killebrew, Stan Musial, Mike Schmidt, Ernie Banks, Mel Ott and… Jim Rice. Until today, only Rice had yet to be enshrined.
But that STILL wasn’t enough for the first fourteen years of his eligibility.
Those pundits who were critical of his qualifications said his run of true greatness was too short for a Hall of Fame-caliber player and that his skills eroded quickly… of course, they failed to make those arguments for Kirby Puckett — whose run was even shorter and whose skills eroded more quickly. In Puckett’s case, the apologists argued that his run / erosion were caused by problems he experienced with his eyesight… ironically, the EXACT same eyesight problems afflicted Rice, but no one offered those explanations on Rice’s behalf.
Why? Because Puckett was an extremely popular player with the media while Rice was viewed as surly and abrasive.
Those opposing Rice’s candidacy often offered the opinion that he was frequently not the best player on his own team. They would also dispute arguments that opposing pitchers feared him… they would cite the fact that he received comparatively few intentional walks during his playing days. Of course, those critics never seemed to understand that those two arguments against Rice actually worked together in SUPPORT of his candidacy. You see, it is true that he was not always the best player on his own team… but Rice’s critics never properly explained how that criticism should have excluded him from the HOF — not when his teams included two other Hall-of-Famers (Carlton Fisk and Carl Yastrzemski), as well as a player who very possibly might have made the HOF if he had remained in Boston (Freddy Lynn) and two other players whose careers SHOULD have been given vastly more consideration than they received (Dwight Evans and Luis Tiant).
And the criticism about the number of intentional walks he was issued? How many pitchers would have embraced putting an extra base runner on the base paths in front of Fisk or Yastrzemski? The argument is nonsense!
[Another argument that was made against Rice's candidcay is the paucity of walks he drew... but much of that criticism is based on today's standards. Rice played in a different era -- when a slugger was expected to hit home runs, not draw walks. Sure, other sluggers drew walks as well as hitting home runs... but that may have been as much about what the ballclub asked of the player as it was about the player's inate abilities. Regardless, all of these arguments are now rendered moot.]
Rice joins nine former Red Sox players in the Hall of Fame: Wade Boggs, Joe Cronin, Bobby Doerr, Rick Ferrell, Carlton Fisk, Jimmie Foxx, Lefty Grove, Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski.
The 2009 induction ceremonies for will take place Sunday, July 26, in Cooperstown, N.Y.
Topics: Sox Players |
