At Home Plate - Jim Rice Should be in the Hall of Fame

Written by At Home Plate Staff (Contact & Archive) on August 20, 2008

I'm currently reading Don Zimmer's book "The Zen of Zim." This book came out a few years ago and even then Don was questioning why Jim Rice is not in the Hall Of Fame. He brought up a couple of interesting statistics. In a 12 year period from 1975 through 1986, Rice put up some remarkable numbers. Eight times he surpassed 100 or more RBI's, leading the league twice in that department. He won three home run titles. His career season high was 46. On four occasions he collected 200 or more hits. He batted over .300 seven times. Rice was named to the All Star team eight times.

Rice was the MVP in 1978. Check out these numbers for that season. He batted .315. There were 46 homers and 139 runs batted in. He scored 121 runs. Rice collected 213 hits with 15 triples. He had a .600 slugging average. What an awesome year!

Rice finished his career after the 1978 campaign. In 16 seasons, all with the Red Sox, he blasted 382 homers with 1,451 RBI's. His lifetime batting average was .298 and his career fielding average was a solid .980. Now please tell me again, why isn't Jim Rice in the Hall Of Fame?

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