Sam Rice & The Phantom Catch Mystery

[JimStinson]

Just picked up a 1931 Autograph Book and it had this Vintage 1931 Autograph of Hall of Fame Outfielder Sam Rice in it , and wondered if anyone had heard the story of Rice's "Phantom catch" and thought I'd share it.
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The most famous moment in Sam Rice's career came in defense. During game three of the 1925 World Series with the Senators playing the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Senators were leading the Pirates 4–3. In the bottom of the 8th inning, Sam Rice was moved from center field to right field. With two outs in the bottom of the inning, Pirates catcher Earl Smith drove a ball to right-center field. Rice ran down the ball and appeared to catch the ball at the fence, potentially robbing Smith of a home run that would have tied the game. After the catch, Rice toppled over the top of the fence and into the stands, disappearing out of sight. When Rice reappeared, he had the ball in his glove and the umpire called the batter out. The umpire's explanation was that as soon as the catch was made the play was over, and so it did not matter where Sam Rice ended up.

This caused great controversy on whether Rice actually caught the ball and whether he kept possession of the ball the entire time. Rice himself would not tell, only answering: "The umpire called him out," when asked. Magazines offered to pay him for the story, but Rice turned them down, saying: "I don't need the money. The mystery is more fun." He would not even tell his wife or his daughter

The controversy became so great that Rice wrote a letter to be opened upon his death. After Sam died, the letter was opened and it contained Rice's account of what happened. At the end of the letter, he wrote: "At no time did I lose possession of the ball."
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Even more fascinating.... in 1912 While Rice was in Illinois for a baseball tryout a tornado swept through Morocco Indiana and destroyed the house where his family had taken shelter killing his wife & two children, his two sisters and his mother and father. He remarried years later and adopted his wife's daughter from a previous marriage. It wasn't until he revealed the details of the disaster in an interview many years later that his wife and daughter were first made aware of it. In addition to being a Hall of Fame outfielder obviously Sam Rice knew how to keep a secret !!!
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[Scott Garner]

Great stories, Jim!

Keep 'em coming!

[milkit1]

now thats a great story! thanks Jim!

[jgmp123]

Any other Hall of Famers in that book? Maybe a few for sale??

[Wymers Auction]

I enjoyed that story.

[Tom Hufford]

Sometimes we look at some of these guys as "minor Hall of Famers" just because we have lost the historical perspective on them. Sam Rice falls into this category. I don't think I've EVER heard his name brought up in a discussion of great hitters.

In the early 1970s, I was talking to Sam at Cooperstown and asked him if he ever regretted not playing another season, so he could get to 3000 hits (he finished at 2987). He laughed and said no, it wasn't that big a deal when he played - after all, when he retired he was No. 7 on the all time hit list. He was right, only Cobb, Speaker, Anson, Wagner, Collins, and Lajoie were ahead of him. And another season wouldn't have moved him up, he was 256 hits behind Lajoie. When Rice died in 1974, he was still #13 on the list, having been passed only by Aaron, Musial, Mays, P. Waner, Kaline and Clemente. Not a bad career, and he's still #29 on the all-time hit list!

The article on the deaths of his family in a tornado is very interesting, it was in Sports Illustrated in 1993 and can be found online in the SI Vault - just google it.

[JimStinson]

Originally Posted by Tom Hufford

Sometimes we look at some of these guys as "minor Hall of Famers" just because we have lost the historical perspective on them. Sam Rice falls into this category. I don't think I've EVER heard his name brought up in a discussion of great hitters.

In the early 1970s, I was talking to Sam at Cooperstown and asked him if he ever regretted not playing another season, so he could get to 3000 hits (he finished at 2987). He laughed and said no, it wasn't that big a deal when he played - after all, when he retired he was No. 7 on the all time hit list. He was right, only Cobb, Speaker, Anson, Wagner, Collins, and Lajoie were ahead of him. And another season wouldn't have moved him up, he was 256 hits behind Lajoie. When Rice died in 1974, he was still #13 on the list, having been passed only by Aaron, Musial, Mays, P. Waner, Kaline and Clemente. Not a bad career, and he's still #29 on the all-time hit list!

The article on the deaths of his family in a tornado is very interesting, it was in Sports Illustrated in 1993 and can be found online in the SI Vault - just google it.

Thanks Tom, This from article written by historian John Thorn. called "Our Game" I had always wondered what had become of the actual letter that Sam Rice had written. In his piece Mr. Thorn wrote
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Burrowing around the archives of the Baseball Hall of Fame many years ago I came across an envelope marked: “Not to be opened till after the death of Sam Rice. [signed] Paul S. Kerr [longtime Hall of Fame official].” Oh, if that doesn’t set your heart a-racing, you don’t love baseball history

A baseball controversy settled from beyond the grave–this is surely one of the oddest letters in the Hall’s collection. In the eighth inning of Game 3 of the 1925 World Series, in Washington, the Senators held a 4-3 lead over the Pirates. But with two outs, Pirates catcher Earl Smith slugged a ball into deep right center. Right fielder Edgar Charles “Sam” Rice ran for it, leapt, and tumbled into the temporary bleachers. He didn’t reappear for at least ten seconds, but he held the ball for all to see. Umpire Cy Rigler called Smith out; the Pirates went bonkers. How could anyone tell whether Rice had caught the ball? A fan could have handed it to him.

The play might have remained controversial had the Pirates not won the Series anyway. Forty years later Sam Rice decided to set the record straight. He composed this letter on July 27, 1965, during Induction Weekend in Cooperstown, and gave it to Kerr, at that time the Hall’s president, with instructions that it not be opened until after his death. Rice had been inducted into the Hall in 1963 for his twenty years of stellar play, nineteen of them with Washington. When Sam met his Maker on October 13, 1974, the controversy could be settled at last. What follows is a verbatim transcription:

It was a cold and windy day. The right field bleachers were crowded with people in overcoats and wrapped in blankets, the ball was a line drive headed for the bleachers towards right center. I turned slightly to my right and had the ball in view all the way, going at top speed, and about 15 feet from bleachers jumped as high as I could and back handed and the ball hit the center of pocket in glove (I had a death grip on it). I hit the ground about 5 feet from a barrier about 4 feet high in front of bleacher with all the brakes on but couldn’t stop so my feet hit the barrier about a foot from top and I toppled over on my stomach into first row of bleachers. I hit my adams apple on something which sort of knocked me out for a few seconds but Earl McNeely arrived about that time and grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me out. I remember trotting back towards the infield still carrying the ball for about half way and then tossed it towards the pitchers mound. (How I have wished many times that I had kept it.)

At no time did I lose possession of the ball.

“Sam” Rice

P.S. After this was announced at the dinner last night I approached Bill McKechnie (one of the finest men I have ever known in Baseball) and I said Bill, you were the Mgr of Pittsburgh at that time, what do you think will be in the letter. His answer was, Sam there was never any doubt in my mind but what you caught the ball. I thanked him as much as to say you were right.

Rice, curiously to observers in today’s milestone-obsessed age, retired at 44 with 2,987 hits. He didn’t see any great value in hanging on to get number 3,000. In later years he was often asked why he retired so close to the magic number. “You must remember,” he’d explain, “there wasn’t much emphasis on three thousand hits when I quit. And to tell the truth, I didn’t know how many hits I had.” Expanding upon that thought he said, “A couple of years after I quit, [Senators owner] Clark Griffith … asked me if I’d care to have a comeback with the Senators and pick up those 13 hits. But I was out of shape, and didn’t want to go through all that would have been necessary to make the effort. Nowadays, with radio and television announcers spouting records every time a player comes to bat, I would have known about my hits and probably would have stayed to make 3,000 of them.”
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[JimStinson]

Really does shed light on why historians and writers should have access to ALL donated and/or archived historical material ,

I realized in doing some of my own research for this and other baseball “projects” that there are sometimes many pieces to a puzzle , and even ONE that’s “gone missing” no matter how seemingly inconsequential detracts from the whole which belongs to all of us
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