Boston Sports Then and Now

Jim Rice is finally taking his rightful place among the greats in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

After a much longer than deserved wait, Jim Rice will finally take his rightful place this weekend as a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

In general, I think the baseball Hall of Fame voters have done a better job than their football counterparts of weeding out who belongs in the Hall of Fame and who doesn’t.

However, I do think they occasionally miss on a player.

I long ago mentally elected Jim Rice, Andre Dawson, Gil Hodges and Ron Santo to my personal Hall of Fame. Unfortunately, that recognition doesn’t come with a plaque or special induction day.

Rice is the first of this esteemed group to finally get a moment in the sun as a member of the real Baseball Hall of Fame.

That it took Rice the entire 15 years of eligibility to get into the Hall is a testament to the confusion that the steroid inflated statistics of the last 15 years has caused.

If Rice’s numbers are compared with players prior to 1994, there is no question that he was among the best ever to play the game.

Rice is currently tied for 56th all-time with 382 career home runs. However, 26 of the players ahead of him on the all-time list played a majority of their careers during the last 20 years and several of those players have been accused or tested positive for performance enhancing drugs.

As the premier power hitter of his era, Rice didn’t need a PED to enhance his offensive totals. He blasted a career-high 46 home runs in 1978 and led the league in home runs three times during his career.

Jim Rice was the premier power hitter of his generation.

But, he was more than just a home run hitter, he was a slugger. Rice twice led the league in total bases four times and slugging percentage twice. His career slugging percentage of .502 still ranks among the top 100 of all-time.

He was also one of the top run producers of his era, registering eight seasons of 100+ runs batted in and leading the league twice.

What critics have argued about Rice is that his production dropped so quickly and he never reached any of the statistically magic numbers like 400 or 500 home runs or 1,500 RBI.

However, during his 14 full seasons, Rice was as good as anyone in the game. In those years, he was a .300 hitter and averaged 27 home runs and 101 RBI per season.

Rice was named the American League MVP in 1978 when he enjoyed a career-year that was particularly impressive given that offensive statistics were rarely eye-popping during the 1970s. He was a legitimate triple-crown candidate as he led the league with 46 home runs and 139 RBI and finished third in the league with a .315 batting average.

He was an eight time All-Star and finished in the top five in the MVP voting five times.

His last great season was in 1986 at the age of 33 when Rice had the fourth 200+ hit season of his career and hit .324 with 20 home runs and 110 RBI as the Red Sox came within a whisker of winning the World Series.

Unfortunately, his decline from greatness was swift as he played only three seasons after 1986 and retired in 1989.

Even without awesome career numbers, I think many people have been surprised at how tough it was for Rice to get into the Hall of Fame. Rice was selected on only 29.8% of Hall of Fame ballots during his first year of eligibility in 1995 and didn’t get to 50% until 2000. As his 15-year window began to close, his vote total increased each year and finally eclipsed the 75% mark (76.4%) in his final year of eligibility.

Hopefully the selection of Rice will trigger resurgence for the candidacy of players like Dawson, Santo and Hodges whose impressive careers have been lost in the whirlwind of huge statistics produced in recent years.

But regardless, Jim Rice has finally had his ticket to baseball immortality punched. It is a well deserved honor.