Player #74D: Edgar C. "Sam" Rice. Outfielder for the Washington Senators in 1915-1933. 2,987 hits and 34 home runs in 20 MLB seasons. 1924 World Series champion. 1920 AL stolen base leader. He was inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame in 1963. Led the Senators to three AL pennants (1924,1925, and 1933). Best known for controversial "over the fence" catch in the 1925 World Series. He had many excellent seasons, but one of his best was 1930 as he posted a .407 OBP with 121 runs scored in 669 plate appearances. He had 63 stolen bases in 1920. He last played in 1934 with the Cleveland Indians. His early life was marred by tragedy when his wife, two daughters, parents, and two sisters were all killed by a tornado in Indiana.
Smiles provides an example of how attitudes were evolving in 1919: As the 1919 season opened, Rice showed little rust from his summer away from the game. Batting cleanup and back in his customary right field spot to start the season, Rice had his first three-hit game just five games into the season, in a 4-2 victory over the Red Sox. In late May, he made three spectacular catches in a row against the Yankees, in a game that saw him also smack three base hits. By mid-summer, Sam had really found his groove, putting together a seventeen-game hitting streak in July.
Rice was beginning to come into his own as a hitter and an outfielder, but was doing so in an odd transition year for major league baseball.
Maybe the culture was ripe in 1919 for a scandal like the one that was to soon devastate the game. In the aftermath of the World War, some Americans were still attempting to sort through their feelings about fierce competition. In the post-victory glow, brotherhood among Americans seemed to be preferred over cutthroat competitiveness, even on the field of play. That was illustrated by the reaction to Rice's actions at the plate in a mid-August game against the Red Sox.
In the seventh inning of a tight game, Rice came to the plate. Senators base runners stood on first and second, and the customs of the game in those last throes of the "dead-ball era" dictated that he sacrifice both teammates up a base. Boston third baseman Joe "Moon" Harris, a future teammate of Rice's, accordingly crept up onto the grass.
Like Rice, Harris was a veteran of the war in Europe. He had missed the entire 1918 campaign in service to the cause.
"Did Rice bunt?" reported the Washington Post. "He did not. Instead, he crossed Harris by whistling a line drive past him at a rate of ten miles a minute."
Because both men were veterans of the same war, it was felt that Rice had a gentleman's obligation to take care of Harris in the situation. Instead, he had embarrassed the Boston third baseman by slamming the ball past him.
Or so the newspaper felt.
"Sam Rice ought to be ashamed of himself," the Post said, "to take advantage of a fellow overseas veteran like Joe Harris as he did in the seventh."
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