A new column from the Sports Guy is up, on revamping Halls of Fame.
Not really worth mentioning, except for this:
[Hall of Fame] Candidates have been discarded for not being friendly to the media (Jim Rice)
I'm tired of this crap that certain segments of the media -- particularly BoSox homers like Simmons -- are attempting to peddle, that Jim Rice is a deserving Hall of Famer who somehow has gotten screwed by a curmudgeonly baseball press, bitter over his treatment of them and their peers 25-30 years ago.
Rice wasn't a Hall of Famer. He was a mediocre defensive left fielder, a guy who brought very little to the table in the field. His candidacy lives and dies with his bat.
But look at the stathead stuff. Despite hitting in a hitter's park his entire career, he led the league in OPS once, was in the top 5 just 4 times, and the top 10 just 6 times. He only cracked the top 10 in OBP twice, finishing 9th one year and 10th another, and logged just a .293 EQA for his career.
Ignore the stathead stuff, and look at the "traditional" numbers...1 MVP award. 3 home run titles, 2nd in homers once. 2 RBI titles, second twice. No batting titles.
Rice didn't hit 400 homers -- a killer for a guy who is supposed to be making it as a power hitter -- and didn't get to 2500 hits. He didn't stick around...his last quality season was at age 33.
The reason Jim Rice doesn't get Hall of Fame votes is because he didn't put up the numbers to deserve them. And save me this nonsense about him being the most feared hitter in the A.L. for 10 years...he may have been feared, but pitchers didn't pitch around him, and he didn't put up dominant numbers -- he had a .319 EQA in his best offensive season.
If you want to complain about a BoSox outfielder getting screwed by the HOF process, complain about Dewey Evans, Rice's contemporary and a guy who deserves to be there.
Or complain about Bert Blyleven, Bobby Grich, Dan Quisenberry, or one of the other deserving Hall of Famers who can't get in.
But don't give me some throwaway, baseless nonsense that Rice isn't getting into the Hall because he was a jerk to the media.