I Am Bloody But Unbowed

As I have noted before, in his column explaining his Hall of Fame ballot this year, Jayson Stark again made it clear that he can’t bring himself to vote for Jim Rice. That is a perfectly acceptable decision to make. I don’t agree with it, but Rice is certainly not a slam-dunk vote, he makes people stop and think. Some are going to pass him over, for some very valid reasons.

But Stark did so this year in rather maddening fashion, and it pissed me off. Remember, Stark has always said that no player has made him think more about voting for him than Rice. He’s right on the edge of what Stark considers to be a Hall of Fame player, but he sees holes in Rice’s career that have always stopped him. Fair enough. It’s those holes that I, and I’m sure many others, have repeatedly attempted to address to Mr. Stark. Many of my previous articles on this subject on this site originated as lengthy emails to Jayson Stark. And, to be fair, he was gracious enough to not only reply to almost all of them, but to do so in a complimentary fashion while requesting that I keep in touch as each new ballot comes out.

I did exactly that this year. I’ve attached the full text of this year’s effort below, all 5000 words of it. It was, essentially, my all-out, guns-blazing assault on Stark, in the hope that I would not only convince him to change his vote, but to write about it in his national forum on ESPN. With luck, his voice could help sway other voters who sit on the fence about Rice as his eligibility nears an end. I had been chipping away at his stance for years, and I felt strongly that this year would be the coup de grace.

It didn’t happen. Not only did Stark not vote for Rice this year, but he did so in such a fashion that it may have damaged Rice’s case with others who were wavering. Stark renewed his stance that Rice was a one-dimensional player, despite volumes of evidence to the contrary and some acquiescence on his part in the past. He renewed his view that Rice’s career was too short, despite the fact that this is the same man who ignored the longevity issues of two other borderline candidates on this ballot – Dale Murphy and Bruce Sutter, without giving any explanation. And, tragically, despite his promise in the final line to keep his mind open to further arguments, the tone of Stark’s article was such that he appears to have finally put the Rice issue to bed for good. He seems to have reached a level of peace with rejecting Rice, and it doesn’t seem likely he will change his mind now after 10 years of rejecting Rice’s candidacy.

Not that I have any bullets left to fire. I mean, look at the email below. That’s 5000 words, some of which refer back to previous emails that were nearly as long. In total, I’ve probably dropped about three book chapters worth of prose on this guy, but he not only won’t change his mind, but really doesn’t give many solid response as to why. And remember, this is the same guy who voted for Lee Smith in his first year of eligibility, then dropped him from his ballot the very next year despite still having two open slots. He can change his mind at a whim, it seems, but won’t do so for Rice despite volumes of arguments in his favor. In fact, in the case of players like Dale Murphy and Rafael Palmeiro, it seems as if Stark uses one set of criteria to support election, but ignores those same criteria when considering Rice. He wrote an article about how Hall of Fame voters seem to have forgotten the 1980s, and has voted for several icons of that era, including Murphy, Sutter, Jack Morris, Andre Dawson, and Ryne Sandberg, but stops short of extending that support to Jim Rice, despite the fact that Rice dominated offensive statistics in the American League for most of that decade. Rice had decade-long stretches of leading the entire major leagues in at-bats, hits, RBI, and total bases. For the AL only, Rice spent decade or longer stretches leading the entire league in games, at-bats, runs, hits, home runs, RBI, slugging percentage, OPS, runs created, total bases and extra base hits. To Stark, these numbers would be convincing if we were talking about Dale Murphy, but when the subject is Jim Rice these facts fall short.

And he really doesn’t explain any of these contradictions. Ever. He just keeps repeating the same arguments as always – Rice couldn’t field, Rice could run, Rice’s career was too short – but never provides any comparative numbers or anecdotal information to support that, as Rice’s supporters have. He doesn’t substantively disprove anything Rice supporters say. It’s maddening.

I, for one, am done arguing with him. I don’t have anything left to say anyway, and none of it appears to be swaying him. Jayson Stark has some intractable stance against Jim Rice’s Hall of Fame candidacy that I don’t understand and he either won’t or can’t explain. Maybe he simply doesn’t have enough column space and there simply aren’t enough avid Rice supporters out there to justify a full-blown, column-length, documented explanation of why he thinks Jim Rice is unworthy of induction to Cooperstown. I would understand that, but it doesn’t make the situation any less frustrating.

(What follows is the text of my email to Jayson Stark, dated November 12, 2003. On this one, he sadly gave no reply. Please note that my references to WARP3 information on the site of The Baseball Prospectus are about 8 months old. Their links and their math may have changed in that time.)

Hello Jayson -

As promised and as you requested, I am pleased to offer this reminder for you to carefully review the case of one James Edward Rice on this year's ballot for the Baseball Hall of Fame. As is usually the case with my correspondence to you, this will be a lengthy email, so consider yourself warned.

My goal in this reminder is not to rehash arguments already made. You have been extremely tolerant of my ranting, so I won't re-state any of my previous points. I instead refer you to my previous emails (which you indicated you would put in your Jim Rice file - or perhaps your Lunatic Readers file) on the subject of your support of Rafael Palmeiro and Dale Murphy, respectively. They should provide a refresher of the comparative numbers between Rice and those players, as well as serve to point out the level of dominance compared to his league that Rice achieved. Also, please re-read the rather lengthy email I sent in which I tried to rebut your stated misgivings about Rice's qualifications. You were good enough to compliment me on the thoroughness of that response when you originally read it, and I think it still stands as a pretty comprehensive counter-argument to the criticisms Rice usually draws.

I will focus here on adding some additional detail to my previous arguments. I'd like to provide some numbers that show, compared to the current crop of left fielders already in the HOF, Rice seems to fit quite nicely. No, he is not the greatest left fielder ever. He's not even the greatest to play for the Red Sox. Or the 2nd-greatest for that matter. But he does compare well to HOF left fielders as a group. He wouldn't be barely sneaking in, dragging down the overall quality of HOF left fielders the way Tony Perez and Orlando Cepeda recently dragged down the overall quality of first basemen inducted into the Hall. Rice would fit somewhere in the middle of a pretty respectable group of Hall of Fame players - not top-5, not bottom-5, but somewhere in between.

For instance, as stated above, we already know that Rice is no Stan the Man, or Teddy Ballgame, or Yaz. Comparing him to any of them is meaningless. Rice is nowhere near their class of ballplayer. He is, however, exceptionally close to being the average of every other left fielder that is currently in the Hall. If we exclude The Big Three, acknowledging that they are far superior to Rice, and simply look at the average career numbers of the remaining 15 HOF left fielders, we find that the outcome closely matches the career numbers actually posted by Jim Rice:

	G	AB	R	H	HR	XBH	RBI	BB	SB	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
HOF AVG	2099	8009	1372	2490	196	765	1243	755	251	.310	.375	.477	.851
Rice	2089	8225	1249	2452	382	834	1451	670	58	.298	.352	.502	.854

There are, of course, some obvious differences. Rice was not a base stealer, as is no member of the Red Sox, so he's got about one-fifth of the Hall average in career steals. He also has to deal with the fact that a few leadoff types comprise the average, so he falls short of the average total of runs scored by 125. But he makes up for that shortfall, and then some, by exceeding the HOF average in RBI by more than 200. He's got a slightly lower batting average, and he has a significantly lower OBP, but his 25-point advantage in slugging allows him to post the same OPS as an average Hall of Famer. The other numbers are an extremely close match, or actually favor Rice. He's within 2% of the average in games, plate appearances, at bats, hits, and runs created. In all of the power categories, he enjoys a distinct edge over the average (9% more extra-base hits; 9% more total bases; 95% more homers). It's clear that using the raw totals of the group he is supposed to be compared to, Rice stacks up well. He played a career of average Hall length and posted offensive numbers the matched or exceeded most of the averages of Hall members.

Before you scream that the eras of all concerned don't match, let me be the first to agree with you. And allow me to point out that, in most cases, that actually favors Rice's case even more.

In order to make this clear, we need to even out the statistics to account for the various run-scoring eras. It would be easy, for example, to look at Goose Goslin's raw offensive numbers, lay them next to Rice's, and proclaim that Goslin was so clearly superior to Rice that we shouldn't even have the discussion. This is what that would look like:

	G	AB	R	H	HR	XBH	RBI	BB	SB	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
Goslin	2287	8656	1483	2735	248	921	1609	949	175	.316	.387	.500	.887
Rice	2089	8225	1249	2452	382	834	1451	670	58	.298	.352	.502	.854

But that comparison wouldn't be fair to Rice, for obvious reasons. Goslin played during a time when teams averaged 5.1 runs per game. Rice played during a time when they averaged just 4.4. That's a gap of better than 15% that needs to be accounted for, as does the 6.5% gap between the home ballparks the two men played in, a difference that favors Rice unless we adjust for it.

As I said in one of my previous emails, there is an easy means of translating these numbers into a more neutral context, one developed by Bill James and outlined in The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract a couple of years ago. Performing that translation for Rice and Goslin results in these numbers:

	G	AB	R	H	HR	XBH	RBI	BB	SB	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
Goslin	2287	8526	1367	2605	234	876	1483	896	165	.306	.375	.483	.858
Rice	2089	8198	1221	2425	377	823	1422	662	58	.296	.349	.498	.847

Suddenly we see that, once historical contexts are accounted for, Rice proves nearly the hitter Goslin was. There is only an 11-point gap in their OPS, with Rice showing significantly more power and slightly more run production per plate appearance than Goslin. That conclusion is born out by other statistical examinations as well. The OPS+ numbers of both men, according to the indispensable www.baseball-reference.com web site, is 128, meaning that each had a career OPS that was 28% better than the average of the leagues they played in. Looking at Total Baseball, we see that Rice had a Total Player Rating, or TPR, of 27.1 compared to Goslin's 26.1 (these may have changed - I'm looking at the 6th Edition; there has since been a 7th). Or, looking at the WARP3 calculation (which stands for Wins Above Replacement Player - a full explanation can be found here) developed by the gentlemen at The Baseball Prospectus, we see that Rice scored 92.6 to Goslin's 90.7. All signs point to the conclusion that Jim Rice and Goose Goslin were equally valuable and effective baseball players. Goslin, of course, is in the Hall of Fame and is generally considered to be a pretty average Hall of Famer. Rice, to date, has been overlooked.

These same adjustments can be made in a slightly different way. Instead of calculating the adjustments for both players in a neutral setting, you can leave one player constant and adjust the other player to the same conditions. For instance, I looked at both Al Simmons and Jim Rice, leaving Simmons' actual stats untouched, but performing the Bill James calculation on Rice's, giving him the ballpark factors Simmons enjoyed, as well as the run-scoring averages of the leagues Simmons played in. I made one final adjustment to Rice's numbers, discounting them to account for the difference in the 154-game versus 162-game seasons. The results were surprising:

	G	AB	R	H	HR	XBH	RBI	BB	SB	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
Simmons	2215	8759	1507	2927	307	1095	1827	615	88	.334	.380	.535	.915
Rice	1985	8079	1411	2519	403	883	1635	705	64	.321	.376	.540	.916

Simmons certainly retained his durability/longevity edge, but from a qualitative perspective, Rice comes out with a career OPS one point better than Simmons. Breaking the two down to an average 154-game season, we get these numbers:

	G	AB	R	H	HR	XBH	RBI	BB	SB	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
Simmons	154	609	105	204	21	68	127	43	6	.335	.381	.535	.916
Rice	154	562	98	180	28	62	114	49	4	.320	.375	.539	.914

Again, Simmons' durability allowed him to produce slightly higher counting stats, which certainly counts in his favor, but it's still clear that Rice, in context, was nearly as productive a hitter as Al Simmons, who is widely considered one of the top 6 or 8 left fielders of all time. Now, Simmons was a superior defensive player to Rice, capable of excellence in center field as well as left, and he contributed to World Series champions, which counts in his favor as well. He is a better overall baseball player than Jim Rice, but not by nearly the margin that the raw statistics would lead us to believe.

Similar comparisons can be made between Rice and other left fielders that are currently considered to be perfectly respectable, even high-ranking, members of the Hall of Fame. Such as Ed Delahanty:

	G	AB	R	H	HR	XBH	RBI	BB	SB	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
Delahanty	2173	8906	1905	3081	119	956	1735	880	640	.346	.411	.505	.916
Rice	2150	9054	1791	3102	486	1057	2076	830	78	.343	.398	.577	.975

(These numbers assume 162-game schedules.)

And Jesse Burkett:

	G	AB	R	H	HR	XBH	RBI	BB	SB	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
Burkett	2394	9767	2015	3319	87	677	1120	1201	458	.340	.417	.449	.866
Rice	2150	8952	1724	3000	481	1035	2000	804	76	.335	.390	.569	.959

(So do these.)

These are quality baseball players, among the best ever to play left field in the majors. And Jim Rice compares well to them once we remove the blinders that narrow our vision to just the raw numbers that should never be considered out of context.

The Baseball Prospectus has another number, EQA, which stands for Equivalent Average. It tries to produce, in a format that resembles batting average so it's easier to comprehend, the total value of a player as a hitter. For instance, Ted Williams' batting average in real life was .344, but his EQA is .368 since he hit so well but also displayed so much patience and power. It's a very solid measurement of the overall career value of a player's hitting ability.

These are the career EQA numbers for every left fielder currently in the Hall of Fame, with Jim Rice's included:

	EQA
T. Williams	.369
Musial	.331
Kiner	.319
Delahanty	.315
Stargell	.312
Burkett	.305
Medwick	.302
B. Williams	.301
Yastrzemski	.298
Rice	.298
Hafey	.298
Simmons	.296
Kelley	.295
Goslin	.293
Clarke	.292
O'Rourke	.290
Wheat	.285
Manush	.285
Brock	.282

As you can see, of the 18 current HOF left fielders, eight rank better than Rice, eight rank worse, and two are tied. As an offensive player, he is firmly in the middle of the group of left fielders who have been officially recognized as the best in the history of the game. Now, I concede that some of these players weren't the greatest selections (Joe Kelley, Chick Hafey, et al), and that other skills besides pure hitting are involved in evaluating a player's worth as a ballplayer (speed, defense, longevity, etc.). But you have previously stated that you believe Rice can be judged solely on his abilities as a hitter since you doubt his contributions in those other areas. (Something I have disputed in detail previously, and stand by to this day.) This makes it perfectly clear that for the one criterion you are measuring, Rice not only meets the standard of current Hall of Famers, but he does so comfortably. Jim Rice was a Hall of Fame hitter. There really can't be much of a dispute on that issue.

Another way to look at the issue is with Win Shares. As a system, I think it is still evolving, and it certainly isn't forgiving of a player of Rice's type, since it penalizes him harshly for strikeouts as well as double plays grounded into. (Without, it's only fair to note, allowing for the huge disparity in DP opportunities he faced. The system goes on raw totals only. In addition, any player whose career took place prior to World War II has an unfair advantage under Win Shares, since the very stats that drag down Rice's Win Shares totals - strikeout, double plays, caught stealing - we largely not officially kept and don't count against them. Win Shares makes no allowance for this fact.) Still, it does give a single number grade for a season, which can then be compared to players who achieved the same score in a different season. It allows us to do a fairly quick era adjustment. For instance, Rice's monumental MVP season of 1978 scored 36 in Win Shares. Only two players exceeded that this year - Barry Bonds and Albert Pujols. Gary Sheffield's ridiculously good season is the closest comparison, with a 35 score.

What if we look at Rice's career Win Shares total, season by season, and find a 2003 comparison? Wouldn't that give us a fair look at what Rice's numbers would compare to in today's environment? I think it would. So, here goes.

WS	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SB	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
282	2110	7795	1303	2350	481	37	407	1370	887	75	.301	.375	.529	.904

These totals represent a career with 282 career Win Shares, same as Jim Rice, only compiled with the 2003 stats of several players. Included, in order of Jim Rice's seasons they represent, were the seasons of Jason Lane, Preston Wilson, Hank Blalock, Chipper Jones, Gary Sheffield, Manny Ramirez, Kevin Millar, Jay Payton, Aubrey Huff, Luis Gonzalez, Hank Blalock, Jay Payton, Manny Ramirez, Eric Karros, Michael Tucker, and Dernell Stenson. Some of those players were repeated because Rice achieved the same Win Shares total in more than on season.

Note a couple of things. First, since Gary Sheffield's season was actually of slightly lower quality than Rice's 1978 campaign, to get the Win Shares total to match Rice's real total of 282, I had to use Jay Payton's 15-Win Share season to stand in for Rice's 14-Win Share 1985 campaign. Also, I tried to stick to players whose totals came from mostly offensive positions - the corner outfield and corner infield positions - to equate to Rice more closely. As you can see, building an equivalent to Jim Rice's career using 2003 statistics only, reveals that his failure to reach 400 homers and a career .300 batting average are flukes. In today's numbers, he would reach both. Also note that his real-life OBP and slugging percentages need to be inflated by about 25 points each to equate to the numbers being thrown around today. Rice's real-life OPS of .852 equates to an OPS of .904 in today's terms. This simulation actually shorts Rice one All-Star season and one 100-RBI campaign as well. But it does give him a 36 HR, 141 RBI rookie year that would usually garner the Rookie of the Year Award, indicating that his failure to get it in 1975 was also a fluke since he happened to have the misfortune of debuting on the same team as Fred Lynn. To make the same point in reverse, this simulation probably costs Rice his only MVP, since it's pretty clear that Sheffield (standing in for Rice's 1978) won't win it this year. Again, a fluke. In most years, Sheffield would be an obvious MVP, but he had the misfortune of putting up monster numbers the same year Bonds and Pujols did.

Note a few other things. For instance, this simulation gives Rice 925 career extra base hits. Only 37 men have done that. It's more than such unquestioned HOFers as Goslin, McCovey, Paul Waner, Gehringer, Killebrew, DiMaggio, and Heilmann, just to name a few. It gives Rice both a .300 career average and 400 homers. Only 10 men in history have done that and all of the eligible ones are in the Hall of Fame (Aaron, Ruth, Mays, Foxx, Williams, Ott, Gehrig, Musial - the other two are Jeff Bagwell and Frank Thomas). It gives him a career OPS over .900. The only men to accomplish that in as many plate appearance are Ruth, Williams, Gehrig, Bonds, Foxx, Hornsby, Mantle, Musial, Ott, Mays, Cobb, Aaron, Robinson, Heilmann, Speaker, Simmons, and Schmidt. Obviously, they are all in the Hall or soon will be.

Here's another way to look at it: In his rookie year of 1975, Rice was 41st in the league in games played, 16th in at bats, 4th in runs, etc. These translate into percentiles. He was in the 73rd percentile in games, for instance, and the 89th percentile in at bats, the 97th percentile in runs, etc. Going back to the 1924-1939 time period, what would those percentiles translate to? For instance, how many games would a player play in 1924 to be in the 73rd percentile? Using any number of handy baseball stats databases as a reference point, we find that it's 138 (remember, they played a 154-game season back then). Likewise, Rice's 22 homers in 1975 (92nd percentile), equates to 15 in 1925. His .309 batting average (97th percentile), equates to .344 in 1925. Doing this for every year from 1924 through 1939 gives us the numbers a player would have to post in that time period in order to equate to the number Rice posted from 1974 through 1989.

Note that I am NOT saying Rice would have posted these numbers himself - he has no time machine and even if he did, his race would have kept him out of the American League of that day. But these numbers do represent, in that league's context, a set of accomplishments that equate to the standing in relation to his league that Rice actually put up. Here they are:

G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SB	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
2078	8526	1629	2816	503	156	412	1869	818	85	.330	.389	.555	.944

(Note: Since he played so few games in 1974, I just stuck Rice's actual numbers into this graph, rather than hunt down the 1924 equivalents. Also, note how the total number of games played almost matches Rice's actual career total of 2089; even though they played on 154-game seasons at the time, they also didn't have a players' strike, which nearly makes up for the games Rice lost in 1981.)

Ten consecutive years with both 100+ runs and 100+ RBI. Fourteen consecutive years exceeding a .300 average. Nearly 1100 extra base hits. Nearly 1900 RBI. A .330 career average and .944 career OPS. This fictional player would be an immortal. Jim Rice obviously isn't, but how much of that is because of his own limitations and how much can be attributed to the fact that he didn't reap the benefit of playing in the kind of run-scoring environment that other HOF left fielders (Simmons, Goslin, Manush) enjoyed? Even if these were deflated to nullify the Fenway affect, they would barely dent the obvious qualifications of the man for Cooperstown.

The fact that Rice didn't reach these numbers is more indicative of the depressed run-scoring era he played in than his abilities to hit. I recognize the reverse of this argument is also true - had he played in the 1960s or in the Dead Ball Era, Rice's adjusted numbers wouldn't look to great at all. But this does illustrate that basing any judgments on his falling just short of a few statistical milestones is a poor practice. Had he played 50 years earlier or 20 years later and posted equivalent seasons to what he actually posted, he would be considered one of the game's all-time greats. It's all a trick of perception. Strip that away, making the context neutral, and it is clear that Rice, as a hitter, was of obvious Hall of Fame quality.

Whether being a Hall of Fame hitter makes him a decent selection as an overall Hall of Famer is the real issue. I believe that it does, based on the knowledge that left fielders are not on the field for their defense. They are there to hit, something Rice excelled at. Even if you don't agree with that, Rice's other contributions on the field were good enough - not stellar, but solid - that he ranks in the middle of current Hall of Famers even when measurements of a player's entire career are examined.

For instance, using that WARP3 calculation that I mentioned previously, these are the scores for current HOF left fielders, with Rice's score included:

	WARP3
Musial	188.2
T. Williams	170.1
Yastrzemski	157.0
B. Williams	119.3
O'Rourke	115.4
Delahanty	114.7
Simmons	113.5
Clarke	105.1
Medwick	100.9
Burkett	93.5
Wheat	92.9
Rice	92.6
Goslin	90.7
Stargell	88.3
Brock	87.3
Kelley	85.9
Kiner	77.0
Manush	68.5
Hafey	54.3

Even with other factors (defense, speed, etc.) considered, Rice is ranked higher than 7 of the current 18 Hall of Famers at his position. Just eleven are better, with Rice rating nearly the same as a player who few dispute belongs in the Hall, Zack Wheat. We would see similar results by examining Total Player Rating.

It think it's fair to say that few players who rate in the top dozen among Hall of Famers at their position don't belong in the Hall. There are certainly non-Hall members who rank as the equivalent or better of Rice (Barry Bonds, Rickey Henderson, Tim Raines, etc.) but in judging a player's Hall qualifications, it hardly seems fair to say "Well, I can't vote for him because, even though he's qualified based on the current group, a few better players will be coming down the pike in a few years. Once they're included, he won't rank as high." Well, yeah, but that's the whole point, isn't it? Based on that assumption, would anyone have been allowed into the Hall, other than the absolute elite? Would Lou Brock be a Hall of Famer using that scale? Or Ralph Kiner? Or Willie Stargell? Or Kirby Puckett? A-Rod, Nomar, Jeter, and the like are in the process of re-defining the shortstop position - does that mean the selections of Ozzie Smith or Luis Aparicio should be reversed? Under this kind of rule, the list of those thrown out on their ears would total about two-thirds of the current members. It's an unfair standard to apply. Based on the present, Jim Rice is a solidly qualified Hall of Famer at his position.

These measurements, of course, don't include any of the off-field intangibles you like to consider. I think I've already made my point that Rice's total off-field character hasn't been portrayed fairly, that he has actually been a very active member of his community and has contributed his name, time and money to a wide range of charitable activities. But, even if the worst is assumed of him, a shoddy character has rarely, if ever, been the sole reason used to bar a player from the Hall if his performance warranted induction. The list of pure bastards in the Hall of Fame would take a while to recite. And it includes some middle ground or even borderline players who have been inducted into the Hall despite being less-than-stellar citizens. Ralph Kiner and Jesse Burkett stand out in the left field group. Enos Slaughter's rampant racism didn't keep him out, despite a questionable baseball resume. Kirby Puckett is a pretty mediocre selection, but he made it in despite having snowed the entire baseball world into thinking he was a peach of a guy. Orlando Cepeda's drug conviction was forgotten long enough to induct him. Rice didn't do anything that even approaches the sins of these guys, all of whom are no better than average in terms of their Hall of Fame qualifications.

Okay, I think I have finally exhausted the points I wanted to make. And I'd like to think that they make it clear that, while he is not ever going to be considered a member of the super-elite, Jim Rice would be a respectable addition to the group of left fielders currently in the Hall of Fame. I'll refrain from throwing around a couple of junk arguments in his favor. (Such as; Did you know that only nine other players have matched or exceeded Rice's career totals in all three Triple Crown categories - Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Stan Musial, Jimmie Foxx, Hank Aaron, Mel Ott, Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle?) Those are always fun, but they don't tell us much. And besides, I think the more detailed numbers above are harder to argue with.

Now will you please just vote for the guy so I can start bugging you about other candidates? (Alan Trammell, for example, springs to mind.)

Regards as always,

Paul White