US – Friday, March 19
Published 00:12, January the 13th, 2009
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Rice finally gets call to Hall

Joins Henderson as a member of the Class of 2009

Through the Years

• 1974
The 21-year-old Rice is called up from Triple-A by the Red Sox and makes his big league debut on Aug. 19, going 0-for-2 against the White Sox. He would go on to hit .269 with one homer and 13 RBIs in 24 games down the stretch.

•1975
Rice teams with Freddy Lynn to help lead the Sox to the American League pennant. He hits 22 homers, drives in 102 and finishes with a .309 average. While Rice will always be known more as a power hitter, the 1975 season will mark the first of seven times Rice will hit over .300. He finishes second in Rookie of the Year voting to Lynn, and he is third in MVP voting. A broken hand late in the season leaves him sidelined for the postseason.

•1977
The first of three legendary seasons for Rice. He would cement his legacy as a feared slugger by crushing 39 homers, driving in 114 runs and hitting .320.

•1978
His crowning achievement. Rice would hit a career-high 46 homers, drive in 139 runs and hit .315. In the midst of his hottest streak of the season — when he would go on to hit 11 homers in 18 days — Kansas City manager Whitey Herzog orders a shift that puts four Royals in the outfield. Rice wins the AL MVP award.

•1983
After a couple of relatively down seasons, the Sox outfielder would produce the final truly great statistical season of his career, hammering 39 homers to go along with 126 RBIs and a .305 average.

•1986
Reinvigorated by the arrival of Don Baylor and a young fireballer named Roger Clemens, Rice undergoes a career renaissance. His power numbers were down, but his numbers as a pure hitter — he tied a career-high with 39 doubles and reached 200 hits for the first time since 1979 — were never better.

 

Jim Rice waited 15 years to get the stamp of endorsement from the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Yesterday, it finally happened.

Rice received 76.4 percent of the vote in his final year of eligibility on the writers’ ballot and will join Rickey Henderson for a July 26 enshrinement at Cooperstown.

Rice became one of just 32 former Sox players to gain enshrinement and is only the fourth to do so while donning Red Stockings throughout his entire career — joining Bobby Doerr, Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski.

“It’s been a long time and I’m glad to wear the [Boston] hat to go into the Hall of Fame with the Red Sox,” said Rice. “I didn’t have any weight on my shoulders before I got the call, but it seemed like everything just kind of fell back [afterward].”

Rice was the HOF heir apparent to Ted Williams and Yaz when he began patrolling left field back in 1975, and he became a premier slugger during his 16 seasons in Boston. He batted .298 with 382 home runs and 1,451 RBIs in 2,089 games during his career, and finished among the top five in AL MVP six times.

His brilliant body of work was short-circuited quickly when his body began breaking down and his knees worsened, and Rice retired with dignity intact rather than hanging on to just pad an already impressive resume for Hall consideration.

“It’s about time,” said former teammate Fred Lynn. “It’s very difficult to compare players from different eras. Throw out the statistics. Jimmy was the dominant force in his era.

“That’s really all you can say when you’re trying to compare guys that played in the ’70s and ’80s with guys that are playing now.”

 
 
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