Posted By:
David SmithI don't know if Jim Rice deserves to be in the Hall Of Fame or not however, I started watching baseball and seriously paying attention to it during the 1975 World Series. In those first few years of watching, I thought Jim Rice was REALLY good. He might not have been much of anything else on the baseball field but he was a feared hitter.
There is one stat of Jim Rice's that has stuck with me from back then. In 1978, Rice accumulated 406 Total Bases. After he did that and won the MVP, sportscasters always seemed to bring that up when broadcasting a Game that he was playing.
I just looked it up and Rice is the last AL player to get 400 or more Total bases in a season. Before 1978, the last person to get 400 Total bases in a season was Hank Aaron in 1959. The last AL player to do it was Joe DiMaggio in 1937 when he had 418. After Rice, the next person to get 400 or more Total bases was Larry Walker in 1997 when he had 409.
I don't know if that really means anything but, to me, it shows Rice did have one DOMINANT season amongst a number of very good ones.
David