Jim Rice / The Monster
Rice was elected to the baseball Hall of Fame two years back and it didn't sit well with me for reasons I, at the time, couldn't quite figure out. He was a real good hitter for the Sox back in the '70s and '80s, had a terrific career. But to me he was no Hall of Famer, especially when his teammate Dwight Evans doesn't even get mentioned as someone who should be there. Why was I so opposed to Rice's election? It was hard to put my finger on it, but I knew what I believed: Jim Rice didn't belong in Cooperstown.
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I figured it out this afternoon during my visit to Portland's Hadlock Field to watch a Sea Dogs game.
The Dogs have a replica of Fenway's The Green Monster in left, built a few years ago to give the ballpark a major league feel. In one of the middle innings somebody hit a home run over the wall to left and the leftfielder turned and ran back in a futile effort to field the ball. I started thinking Wall ...childhood...Fenway...left field....Jim Rice, and, in a flash, remembered the time, and it probably happened more than once, that Rice's pitcher gave up a shot over The Monster and Rice stood there, hands on knees, shaking his head. Didn't move a muscle.
The memory hit me hard: I have never, ever seen a more bush league move by a major leaguer than that by Rice. I don't know the year, I don't know the pitcher for the Sox, but I know it happened. And that kind of thing has colored my view of the man ever since, despite the fact that I had forgotten what he'd done specifically.
Rice may have spent years rehabbing his image, becoming an analyst for NESN, but there was always something about him that didn't sit well. Today I remembered what that was. Is it petty of me to bring this up decades later? Heck yeah. But in trying to find out why things are the way they are today sometimes it is best for people to reach back into the past, no matter how distant and remote.
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PS: I ripped on Bill Simmons the other day for being racially insensitive in some of his writings. Now I'm gonna do the same to the writers who voted in Rice. Did they vote for him because he is a black guy and the largely white voters felt some sort of collective racial guilt, and Dwight Evans doesn't get votes because he's just another white guy? Yes, I think that's possibly the reason for the Rice/Evans conundrum. I'm sure of it actually.
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PPS: It's posts like these that remind me why I'm not married and haven't had a date in SIX YEARS: I have to analyze everything. Fuck, it's tiring.
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I figured it out this afternoon during my visit to Portland's Hadlock Field to watch a Sea Dogs game.
The Dogs have a replica of Fenway's The Green Monster in left, built a few years ago to give the ballpark a major league feel. In one of the middle innings somebody hit a home run over the wall to left and the leftfielder turned and ran back in a futile effort to field the ball. I started thinking Wall ...childhood...Fenway...left field....Jim Rice, and, in a flash, remembered the time, and it probably happened more than once, that Rice's pitcher gave up a shot over The Monster and Rice stood there, hands on knees, shaking his head. Didn't move a muscle.
The memory hit me hard: I have never, ever seen a more bush league move by a major leaguer than that by Rice. I don't know the year, I don't know the pitcher for the Sox, but I know it happened. And that kind of thing has colored my view of the man ever since, despite the fact that I had forgotten what he'd done specifically.
Rice may have spent years rehabbing his image, becoming an analyst for NESN, but there was always something about him that didn't sit well. Today I remembered what that was. Is it petty of me to bring this up decades later? Heck yeah. But in trying to find out why things are the way they are today sometimes it is best for people to reach back into the past, no matter how distant and remote.
===============
PS: I ripped on Bill Simmons the other day for being racially insensitive in some of his writings. Now I'm gonna do the same to the writers who voted in Rice. Did they vote for him because he is a black guy and the largely white voters felt some sort of collective racial guilt, and Dwight Evans doesn't get votes because he's just another white guy? Yes, I think that's possibly the reason for the Rice/Evans conundrum. I'm sure of it actually.
===============
PPS: It's posts like these that remind me why I'm not married and haven't had a date in SIX YEARS: I have to analyze everything. Fuck, it's tiring.
posted by joe sweeney at 5:01 PM
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