Where: Lakewood Blue Claws First Energy Park
When: Sunday June 29, 2008
Why Jim Rice?: This is probably one of the best Hall of Fame debates of all time. Never have two players been so close but so far in making the Hall of Fame like Jim Rice and Andre Dawson. First off let me assure you that I absolutely hate the Boston Red Sox as a team. That being said, I can respect certain players from the history of the Franchise. Such as Rice, Fisk, Yaz and Dewey. You don’t have to look up those player’s stats because you know they are good. In the last 20 years a significant weight has been put on statistics in baseball when electing to the Hall of Fame.
When thinking of whether or not a player deserves to be in the Hall, I ask myself, were there years where this player dominated the game. If the answer is yes, he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. If no, if he was great for 2-3 seasons, then no he doesn’t deserve that honor. In the case of Jim Rice, look at his stats as compared to the other players stats from that generation and it will be evident that in the years 1975 – 1986 he was one of the dominant players in the league. Take away an injury year in 1980 in which he stats were average, that is still 11 solid seasons. Here are some of the awards:
1 MVP – 1978
Top 5 in MVP voting – 6 times (1975, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1983 and 1986)
ROY runner up 1975 (lost to Fred Lynn who he shared almost identical stats with)
8 time All Star
2 time Silver Slugger
Here are his career stats:
0.298 batting average, 2452 hits, 382 home runs, 1451 RBIs
Of the 10 players who are closest to him statistically 4 are Hall of Fame members:
Orlando Cepeda (1), Duke Snider (3), Billy Williams (6), and Willie Stargell (10).
So to wrap this up, if Baby Bull can get in and Jim has almost the same exact stats (0.297/2351/379/1365) why is Jim Rice not in the Hall? Was he not a team leader? No he led all those mid 70′s to mid 80s teams. Was he not one of the most dangerous hitters in that era? No he was one of the worst guys you could face. So what is holding him back? Why can’t he get the required votes for Hall entry? Will he have to wait for the Veteran’s Committee? I don’t have the answers to those questions, I wish I did. The only thing I can tell you, is that there is a 4 hour line to get his autograph and he’ll stay to sign ever single one of their items. One thing is for certain, he was definitely loved by many fans.
Jim will get in this year. He hit the magical 70% voting mark so the writers will finally let him in. I think the steroid flap finally showed voters that the deflated stats from the 80′s can’t be compared to the juiceball/juiced player stats of the 90′s. No we just need to convince them to vote for Hawk and raines.
I have to respectfully disagree. Jim Rice was clearly a very good player, but the line has to be drawn somewhere when deciding who gets in to the Hall and who doesn’t. I don’t expect his career numbers to be as good as players from the steroid era, but I do expect at least 400 home runs, and he didn’t reach that number. Rice was a good power hitter and wasn’t really noted for anything else. To go into the Hall as a power hitter, he really needed those 400 homers. He wasn’t good defensively or on the base paths.
Andre Dawson is overwhelmingly more qualified for Cooperstown than Rice is, and it is tragic that he is not yet enshrined. If Rice goes in, how do you argue that other players like Dave Parker, Dale Murphy, Dwight Evans, and others who were very good but not Hall-worthy should not get in?
[...] Free Signing – Jim Rice ” Bad Wax … of Jim Rice, look at his stats as compared to the other players stats from that … Jim has almost the same exact stats (0.297/2351/379/1365) why is Jim … [...]