Player #74K: Edgar C. "Sam" Rice Part 2. Outfielder for the Washington Senators in 1915-1933. 2,987 hits and 34 home runs in 20 MLB seasons. 1924 World Series champion. 1920 AL stolen base leader. He was inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame in 1963. Led the Senators to three AL pennants (1924,1925, and 1933). Best known for controversial "over the fence" catch in the 1925 World Series. He had many excellent seasons, but one of his best was 1930 as he posted a .407 OBP with 121 runs scored in 669 plate appearances. He had 63 stolen bases in 1920. He last played in 1934 with the Cleveland Indians. His early life was marred by tragedy when his wife, two daughters, parents, and two sisters were all killed by a tornado in Indiana.
Perhaps the Tribune incorrectly assumed that Rice's background was well known to the Washington press and public. Perhaps he wasn't sure what to do with such unfathomable tragedy, particularly in a story that presumably was conceived as a celebratory feature story about Rice's shining moment, not an expose about his hidden past. For whatever reason, the writer and paper downplayed the biggest revelation it had about baseball's man of the moment. And in those days, it was much easier for news to stay contained within a market than it is today, when the Internet sends stories bouncing around cyberspace like pinballs. Also helping keep the story of Rice's tragic past quiet was the fact the writer of the story, Butzow, wasn't regularly a baseball writer but covered statehouse politics out of Springfield. By the next day, he had returned to his regular duties covering the Illinois state government. In the hands of a member of baseball's tight-knit fraternity of writers, surely Rice's secret would have spread like wildfire. Though it's possible that the more compliant sports writers of the era would have kept the story out of print at Rice's request, the fact that Shirley Povich, the legendary Washington sports writer, didn't even write about the tornado until 1985 would seem to indicate that it wasn't being passed along as oral history.
Rice's catch brought him nationwide attention, and momentarily drew the story of his tragic background to the surface. Apparently it was scarcely noticed, however, and wouldn't come up again until a decade after his death. . . . (This account will be continued in our next post.)
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