New Baseball HOF Inductees

[bijanc]

To any baseball fans & historians on the board (I know- it was tough to follow and play baseball when you were a kid because you were on the track team), does Jim Rice merit HOF induction? Eight strong seasons (25 hr, 100 range), only 15 yrs. in The Show, eight-time All-Star, MVP, .298 clip, 382 jacks (three more than Cepeda or T. Perez)?

No answer would hurt my feelings either way, as I'm from Boston.

[bad hammy]

It was overdue. Good to see him in there.

[bambam]

Absolutely Jim Ed Rice deserves to be in there.

[Halfmiler2]

I think he clearly does.

There are really two ways of getting into the Baseball Hall Of Fame. One is to hang around for a really long time and build up lifetime stats - whether or not a truly dominent player at any point. Don Sutton who lasted long enough to get 300 wins is an extreme example. The other way is to be dominent for a much shorter period, at least four or five years, while meeting the total ten year minimum required by the Hall Of Fame. Sandy Koufax is the extreme example of this. He strugged from 1957-1961, was lights-out from 1962-1966, and retired early before his arm fell off. Ralph Kiner and Kirby Plunkett (who both had to retire early) are other examples.

Rice is a slightly lesser example of the Koufax model. He didn't hang around long enough to hit 500 home runs but in six of his fourteen full seasons, he was a top-five pick for MVP. He was truly the most feared power hitter of the late 1970's.

I think the only reason that Rice wasn't in earlier was that he did not get along well with the press. Which is an example why I do not think the press should not effectively be the sole decider - the alternative Veterans Committee process now makes it unlikely the Veterans Committee will pick any player in the forseeeable future.

[gh]

Absolutely Jim Ed Rice deserves to be in there.

And what would we expect somebody who grew up in New England to say?! :-)

[bambam]

Absolutely Jim Ed Rice deserves to be in there.

And what would we expect somebody who grew up in New England to say?! :-)

Plus we played golf together a few times during his rookie year. He and Fred Lynn were rookies together and lived in apartments (different financial era) in Framingham next to our golf club - Framingham County Club. They would come over in the mornings of night games and practice on the range and play 9 holes a lot. Jim Ed could hit a golf ball a very long way.

But I still think he deserves it although as GH noted, I am quite biased.