The Boston Red Sox have had great hitters in their franchise history, and left fielders are among them. Consider these names: Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, and Jim Rice, the player I’ll honor in this article.
Jim Rice played his entire career, from 1974 to 1989, with the Boston Red Sox.
Rice’s first full season was 1975, and he finished 2nd to his teammate Fred Lynn in the American League (AL) Rookie of the Year voting. That was just the beginning. Over the next decade, Rice became one of the feared sluggers in Major League Baseball.
Photo courtesy Fine Art Storehouse
Rice had his best season in 1978 (and it was a monster year) when he led the AL in hits (213), home runs (46), runs batted in (139), slugging percentage (.600), on-base plus slugging percentage (.970), and total bases (406). To no one’s surprise, he was the league’s MVP in 1978.
Overall, Rice finished in the Top 5 of MVP voting six times (1975, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1983, 1986), and he led the AL in home runs three times (1977, 1978, 1983), runs batted in twice (1978, 1983), slugging percentage twice (1977, 1978), and total bases four times (1977, 1978, 1979, 1983).
Because Rice had a complicated relationship with the media, it took longer than you’d expect for him to secure the votes needed to enter the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
I view Jim Rice as one of the best to have ever played the game, and I regret that I never had an opportunity to see him play in his prime.
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This article was published originally on Anthony’s blog.
