Jim Rice has never liked talking to the press. During his 15-year career, all of which was spent with the Boston Red Sox, the slugging left fielder preferred to keep his head down and do his job. It wasn’t so much what reporters asked him as the types of questions they asked.
“He was a very shy guy from a small town in South Carolina who just wanted to play baseball,” said Joe Giuliotti, a former Boston Herald sportswriter. He told the New York Times 2003. “At the time, he was the only black player on the team and made it clear he wouldn’t get involved in black-white issues, but reporters continued to hound him even after he said he didn’t want to talk about it.”
Rice’s detached, quiet personality has not endeared him to the reporters who cover him, so would a little postgame chat be too much for him?
Those same journalists would have their revenge when Rice became eligible for the Hall of Fame in 1994. Baseball writers decide which players receive the honor, but Rice wasn’t eligible to be inducted until his 15th and final year of eligibility.
“Voting will be based on a player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character and contributions to the teams for which he played,” the Hall of Fame selection rules state. It’s entirely possible that sportswriters criticized Rice for not making his interviews easy.
But if character matters, then Rice should surely have been selected for the incident that occurred 42 years ago at Fenway Park on Aug. 7. The Red Sox were playing the White Sox, and Tom Keane was watching the game two rows up from the Red Sox dugout with his 4-year-old son Jonathan and his 2-year-old brother. Red Sox second baseman Dave Stapleton hit a foul ball that flew toward the family and struck Jonathan in the face.
The boy was screaming, blood flowing from his forehead, and people were calling for help. Jumped into the stands He grabbed Jonathan, wrapped his arms around him and ran to the dugout, where a Red Sox doctor was waiting to rush him to the hospital.
Jonathan’s skull was fractured and he was unresponsive, but after emergency surgery and a five-day stay at Boston Children’s Hospital, he made a full recovery. To this day, Jonathan and his father are grateful that Dr. Rice saved Jonathan’s life.
As usual, Rice didn’t want to make a fuss. “What would you do if it was your child?” he said. “The baby was crying, there was a lot of blood, and I think she was just in shock more than anything.” A typical team player.
