What a card: Jim Rice was coming off a 1984 season in which he played in his most games (159) since the 1978 season. He drove in more than 120 runs for the second straight year, but was also in the midst of four straight seasons of leading the league in grounding into double plays.
My observation on the front: That's a pretty good look at Rice's intimidating stare when he was in the batter's box.
More opinion from me: Rice is one of those hot-button "should he be in the Hall/shouldn't he be in the Hall" guys. I have grown to loathe those arguments, so you won't hear any of that stuff from me. The late 1970s Red Sox are one of my favorite teams of all-time, so I'm not complaining about his inclusion whether it's "deserved" or "undeserved."
Something you might know: Rice's 1978 season was one of the most talked-about seasons of my childhood. Rice recorded 406 total bases that year, which was the most any player had accumulated since Joe DiMaggio in 1937. This fact was mentioned constantly in 1978. I often wonder if anyone would mention it now. Larry Walker was the next player to eclipse 400 totals bases with 409 in 1997. I don't recall hearing much about it (then again, I didn't pay a lot of attention to baseball then).
Something you might not know: Rice is a fan of the TV sitcom "Two And A Half Men." He came to my town and announced it right on television.
My observation on the back: The thing that leaps out at me is Rice had more than double the amount of strikeouts as he did walks. I suppose that's pretty common for a lot of sluggers, but it just looks glaring for some reason.
The blog wants to speak now: The News category is updated with the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft in 1985.
I always thought Rice was one of the more overrated players. Not that that is an argument either way for HOF inclusion. Oh, and Ted Williams had almost 3 times as many walks as strikeouts. I think he was a slugger.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Rice would stack up well in a comparison with Ted Williams.
ReplyDeleteI had planned to say that Rice's BB-SO ratio was glaring compared with other sluggers who struck out a lot, but then I looked at the all-time leading strikeout leaders and there were many that had double or more the amount of strikeouts than walks. So I amended the statement to say "pretty common for a lot of sluggers," because it is.
But obviously, there are players like Williams and Mantle and probably many others where that doesn't apply.
And I guess to be fair, nobody really stacks up well against Williams except that Ruth guy.
ReplyDelete