It has been an extra special Christmas season for Dan. He can repeatedly blather on about two topics, Roger and Roids; and Rice and the Hall of Fame.
Today it is a combination of the two.
I don't think Rice belongs in the HoF. Too many mediocre or stinker seasons ('80-'81; '87-'89), too short of a career, and an unimpressive defensive reputation. But Dan will say anything and throw out any stat to support Rice's campaign.
He was the dominant slugger of his time, a man capable of inducing an intentional walk when the bases were loaded. He amassed more than 400 total bases when he was MVP in 1978. He hit 35 homers with 200 hits in three straight seasons. He was more feared that Tony Perez, who is in the Hall of Fame.
That statement says it all. He was feared, he had three very good seasons. But that is it. Jim Rice may have been the dominant slugger of the late '70s, but when do players get into the Hall based on three seasons? Mike Schmidt was the dominant slugger over Rice's career.
Dan tops it all off by stating that Rice "knows he was a better hitter than former teammates Perez and Wade Boggs."
Two things:
1) If Dan thinks that Rice was a better hitter than Boggs, he has lost all credibility regarding baseball analysis.
2) The argument "If player A is in the Hall, than Player B should be" is tremendously weak and would lead to absurd results. Every player needs to be considered individually and not against the worst selections in the Hall.
Dan ends with more Roger bashing. Yawn.
5 comments:
Jim Rice was never once intentionally walked with the bases loaded. This took me less than one minute to find. Why does Shank reference this so often when talking about Rice, when it clearly never happened? Next year when Rickey Henderson is up for the Hall, I'm going to start announcing that Rickey was capable of stealing all 4 bases, including first and home!
A blog post about "intentionally walked with the bases loaded. Dan is quoted as writing that teams "pitched around" Rice with the bases loaded.
One of many discussions about Rice on Baseballthinkfactory.org
A link to another discussion of Shank's article.
Is there a more self-important group than the BBWAA? Christ, they're writing about a game, not curing cancer.
Glad you folks started this back up again.
I stopped reading anything by Danny Boy back in the mid/late 80's. Funny enough, the thing that did it for me was the article he wrote trying to run Jim Rice out of town. It was in response to the incident where Rice reportedly had a physicial confrontation with their trainer. Shaughnessy went off the deep end with a column about "...thanks for the great years...but it is time to go..." It reminded me of the Robert Duvall character in "The Natural", -protecting- the game.
Is it really the case that old Danny Boy is tooting the Jim Rice for HOF trumpet these days? (I live 3000 miles away now and don't pay too much attention). If so, has anybody publicly reminded him of his attempt to run Rice out of town?
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