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Rice wasn't the greatest performer in the clutch that I've ever seen. That's the negative on the field stat. What he was to the press shouldn't matter. Nobody in the history of baseball had a worse relationship with the press than Ted Williams, and the press didn't hold it against him come HOF time. Not that they credibly could. But when you have a borderline case like Rice's, everything seems to matter.
Interesting that Dave Parker is on there. He and Rice were kind of talked about in the same breath back then. Their careers almost paralled each other, and his career stats are right there with Rice's. Roughly the same career average (.290 for Parker to .298 for Rice), they both won MVP once and in fact, in the same year (1978), Rice had more HRs (382 to 279), Parker had more RBI (1493 to 1451), Rice had a better slugging percentage (.502 to .471). However, Rice grounded into 315 DPs over his career, which was another on the field nagative, to Parker's 209.
Also--when you recite Mickey Mantle's stats--bear in mind that he played on one leg for well over half of his career, and like Willie Mays, held on too long.
And the news that came in just a few minutes ago--Rice was passed over again, getting only 72% of the votes.
Last edited by Mike P; 01-08-2008 at 03:03 PM..
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