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Stephen MitchellThis contribution addresses a post or two somewhere "up the line." It also has application, generally, to a few others.
We baseball card collectors are sometimes long on looking at the fronts of our cards and at best knowing some of the stats on the backs. I'm all for induction for Jim Rice but it's Sam who needs a little defending although you'd think a guy with his credentials would need no defense - particularly from me.
Let's start with some stats, though: Rice was a 25 and 1/2 year-old rookie when he took the field in August 1915. He would still play all or parts of 20 major league seasons. In that time he NEVER batted below .293. He made 2,987 base hits (498 of which were doubles, 184 triples) and six years made more than 200 hits. He scored 1,514 runs, stole 351 bases and 15 times hit above .300.
Furthermore, he played his first five years in the deadball era and 19 of his 20 seasons for the Washington Senators in a stadium known for its size and, until its dimensions were reduced, not for its home run hitters.
On a personal level, Rice did not have an easy go of it. In 1912, as he was starting out in professional ball, his wife, two children and his father were killed in a tornado. Rice dropped out of baseball and voluntarily joined the navy, serving 1913-14. Later, as he restarted his career, America entered World War I and he was drafted back into service, missing all but 7 games of the 1918 season.
He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1963 by the much-maligned Committee on Veterans. (Even the Baseball Writers Association of America could not stoop to elect this man who fell 13 hits shy of the vaunted 3,000.)
There is no doubt that Sam Rice is no Babe Ruth. (Sam once struck out 9 times in a 616 AB season. Nine whiffs for The Babe was a good two week stretch, and for some moderns, a doubleheader.) But Sam Rice belongs with the greatest ballplayers of all-time since, in my view, the game should produce a few hundred Hall of Famers among the many thousands who made it to the pinnacle of their profession: the major leagues. And Jim Rice belongs, too.
11-30-2008, 06:04 PM
2009 BBW Hall of Fame Vote
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