As much of a sports fan as I'm not, I still get a good feeling from Jim Rice getting into Cooperstown. Part of it is the apparent sadism of the nomination limit. If you don't get in after fifteen votes, you're screwed. This was Rice's fifteenth nomination, and I'm glad he doesn't have to write personal "you suck" notes to all the voters.
He also deserves credit for winning over a tough crowd. Boston in the late seventies was basically Aggrieved White Person Central after the busing riots. This was a city that didn't want to hear it from black people, and the sports--intentionally or not--reflected this. Rice was an indispensible part of the Red Sox, though, and I think is an important figure in that regard.
There's also his lack of polish, something that may have kept him back. Globe sportswriter Dan Shaughnessy says:
Explaining his cold war with writers yesterday, he said, "Maybe they thought I was arrogant, and that wasn't true at all. My thing was I was very protective of the players that I played with. I got in a lot of trouble by not giving the writers what they wanted - and that was a story for them to probably talk about another player."
No. It's fair to say that Rice was shy and uncomfortable talking about himself. He never made excuses. He arrived with the city of Boston in a particularly inflammatory racial climate, which must have been difficult for a 21-year-old man from South Carolina. But to say he got in trouble by not talking dirt about his teammates is simply false. Rice was churlish more often than not. Not just with writers. Sometimes with his adoring public.
True to some extent, but not a disquakifier by any sane measure. Players and managers who are "a workhorse not a showhorse" or "let their bat do the talking" are always lionized at some point. This wasn't standoffish macho posturing on his part. Rice was a professional who didn't have handlers for his public appearances. These days that's at least as much of a surprise as the lack of juicing.
3 comments:
nice post! :) ...
my dad, i think, basically had 2 problems with rice: he was black, & he wasn't clutch. while i think that the first, tho true, is in no way a fair criticism, i know for a fact that the second has a certain amount of validity - naturally, pitchers were very careful with him in clutch situations, but true studs are supposed to deal with this at least somewhat effectively, & rice, at least when compared with similar hof power hitters, didn't all that well. add to that the stark difference in his home vs road numbers, throw in his weak fielding (good news: he had a rifle; bad news: you have to have the ball before you can throw it) &, were it me, i'd have a hard time, as much as i liked the guy, giving him my vote...
but,...
does it make me feel good to see him getting in? - absolutely :) ...
ps: i predict that rickie henderson's acceptance speech will be a statement for the ages - don't miss it!!! :) ...
pps: afa the voting system - once you drop out of contention, there's still the 'veteran's committee' route. this group gets to name 'over-looked' players to the hall (at most 1-2 per year). not as cool as getting voted in, but that didn't seem to bother phil rizzuto a few years back :) ...
Oh yeah, the Scooter did wait for quite a while, didn't he? He always seemed like a pretty gracious guy, in his way.
I like your rifle analogy. A few people have made their case against Rice as an individual player. I think he worked in context though. Or maybe that's just sentiment.
Rickey does seem to be enjoying his moment in the sun. Goods for him.
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