Kaline's last game

[ValKehl]

This reminds me that a player whose cards I obsessively collect, HOFer Sam Rice, finished his career 13 hits shy of the coveted 3,000 mark. Rice, whom I consider to have had the greatest career of any non-pitcher for the Washington Senators, was released by the Senators after the 1933 season, during which he played very little (89 PAs). But not wanting to retire at age 44, Rice went to play one more year for Walter Johnson, his old teammate, who was managing Cleveland in 1934. In 365 PAs, Rice hit .293 in 1934, the lowest batting average of his 20-year career. Years later, when his failure to reach 3,000 hits (he did have an additional 19 hits in the 3 World Series he played in) was mentioned to him, he said something to the effect that if he had been aware of this at the time, he felt sure that ol' Griff (Clark Griffith, team owner and HOFer) would have let him come back in 1935 to play long enough to get the needed 13 hits.
Val