1912 Muscatine Wallopers RPPC with Sam Rice?

[jb217676]

I believe this to be a 1912 Muscatine Wallopers RPPC with Sam Rice (standing in the middle of the back row with the butt chin). The AZO stamp box on the back dates it to 1908-14 and Rice was on the team in 1912. Thoughts?

[h2oya311]

If it's Mr. Rice, then that's an awesome pick-up, Jeff!! Hopefully Mark can chime in on this one...

[jb217676]

Hopefully this roster had a lot of height to it Derek!

[Bicem]

Can you post a close up hi res of him?

[WillowGrove]

"Paging Val. Val?"

[bcbgcbrcb]

Hey, Jeff:

Hoping for your sake and the fact that it would be a very cool discovery that it's a match but comparing to this pretty high res 1916 image of Rice that I found on the internet, I don't think so. It's the ear thing....

[ValKehl]

Although I'm not good at facial comparisons, I don't think the player on the RPPC is Sam Rice. Strangely, although baseball-reference.com shows that Rice appeared in 18 games for Muscatine in 1912, neither a biography of Rice written by a Jeff Carroll nor the SABR bio of Rice makes any mention of him playing for Muscatine. Rice experienced a very tragic loss in 1912, which is described in the paragraphs below which are taken from his SABR bio:

"... Following his wedding, Rice worked on the family farm during the week, and sometimes found time to play baseball on the weekend. Rice himself, in a 1920 interview with Baseball Magazine, claimed that he did not play a great deal of organized baseball during his younger days--"no more than a few games" [4] -- but Frank Butzow, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune who interviewed a number of Watseka residents in 1925, reported that Rice was known to have played sandlot ball in the area as a member of the Watseka Pastimes, a well known local semi-pro team. Butzow further reported, however, that Rice, despite several years of trying, failed to attain a spot as a regular on the squad, squaring, perhaps, these seemingly disparate recollections. [5]

Whether he played a lot or a little or was a success or not on the diamonds of Watseka, Rice signed a contract in October of 1911 with the Galesburg Pavers of the Class D Central Association. [6] He made the 150 mile trek across state the next April in hopes of securing a spot on a professional baseball team for the 1912 season.

Rice and the other new Paver recruits reported to Galesburg's Illinois Park on Thursday, April 11 for their first practice. Two days later they met the local Knox College nine in a pre-season tune up game, during which Rice made his professional pitching debut. [7] In all, Rice made four pre-season appearances for the Pavers, two against the local college boys, and two against the nearby Central Association rival Monmouth Browns. [8] His performance in these contests led a local reporter to pronounce Rice "one of the most promising of [Galesburg manager] Ducky Ebert's recruit pitchers." [9] The most promising of his pre-season outings occurred on April 21 in a Sunday afternoon encounter with the Browns. Rice gave up a run on one hit and two walks while striking out four in three innings of work, helping the Pavers to an eventual 6-1 victory. [10] Unfortunately, any celebration that might have accompanied either his team's win or his own improving pro prospects was quickly curtailed.

While Rice was away in Galesburg, his wife and children moved in with his parents on the family farm in Donovan. On Sunday, April 21, as Rice took to the mound in Galesburg, his family took to the road to visit friends in his wife's hometown of Iroquois. Shortly after the family returned from their outing that evening, a violent tornado ripped through Donovan. The high winds destroyed the Rice farmhouse and killed Rice's wife, both of his children, his mother, and his youngest two sisters. According to a report published in the Kentland Democrat a few days later, "... the house, with contents, and everything else on the premises ... was seized, torn, and whirled into fragments and strewn entirely across the farm. ... [family members'] ... bodies were found ... 150 [to] 400 yards south of where the house was ... all nearly entirely naked, the clothing having been whipped into shreds and torn away by the wind." His father survived the storm, but was seriously injured. "When neighbors came upon the scene, they found Mr. Rice running distractedly about among his dead dear ones in the ravine, and carrying in his arms one of the children that yet showed evidence of life, but died a few moments later."[11] All told, the storm left over 70 dead and as many as 200 injured while destroying over $1,000,000 in property as it thundered along a line beginning southwest of Donovan in Illinois, through Rice's birthplace of Morocco in Indiana, and to points beyond. [12]

Rice was notified of the tragedy by telegraph the next morning [13] and immediately set out for home. He arrived in time for his mother's and sisters' funerals on April 23 and for those of his wife and children the day after, at services reportedly attended by "thousands" of mourners. [14] He stayed with his father afterward, helping care for him at the neighboring farmhouse where he had been taken after the storm. The elder Rice succumbed to his injuries shortly thereafter, however, dying on April 30. [15]

Word of the Midwestern storm and its toll on life, limb, and property traveled from coast to coast, spread widely by the national wire services, appearing in news reports from Boston in the east to Los Angeles in the west, and in many of the major cities in between. [16] Accounts of the storm's particularly tragic impact on the Rice family were not limited to local Iroquois and Newton county papers, but appeared in reports across the state in Galesburg, and upstate in Chicago, as well. [17] Despite its widespread newsworthiness, the tragic tale was seldom repeated in later years as Rice gained prominence in the sports world, nor in the years that followed his retirement from baseball. The event, at least as it pertained to the baseball player Sam Rice, was largely, if not completely forgotten until nearly a decade after his death over 60 years later.

Rice returned to the Pavers shortly after his father's passing, but did not remain with the team for long. Back in uniform on May 5, [18] he entered his first (and only) regular season contest for Galesburg on May 9, giving up a run on four hits in two-and-a-third innings of relief in a game ultimately lost by the Pavers to the Burlington Pathfinders, 5-4. When the final Galesburg roster of 13 players for the 1912 season was delivered to Central Association officials the next day, Rice's name was not included. [19]

Rice reportedly spent the rest of 1912 wandering across the Midwest, taking on a series of labor-intensive jobs. [20] His wandering ceased on January 24, 1913, however, when he enlisted in the Navy. [21] He was assigned to the USS New Hampshire, a battleship in the Atlantic fleet that was docked in Norfolk, Virginia, as a "coal passer", a rank equivalent to Fireman 3rd class. [22]..."

[Hankphenom]

Because this would be a younger image of Rice by several years than others I've seen, I wouldn't rule it out completely. But if I had to say one way or the other, I would say no.

[btcarfagno]

Also, Rice was a pitcher in 1914 and 1915 for Petersburg, yet he is listed as a 2nd baseman for Muscatine in 1912 with no pitching record at all. That seems very odd to me.

Tom C

[jb217676]

I was thinking if you cut about twenty years off of a Washington photo that really could be him in his younger years. I wonder if any photos of him on this team even exist!
Jeff

[h2oya311]

I will add one more bit of fuel to the fire...despite how cool it would be if this postcard did include Mr. Rice (or at least the HOF Sam Rice)...he's listed as being 5'9". The guy in the middle back row appears to be about 5'6" given the size of his teammates and the average size of a ball player back in the day.

Not that this amounts to much as there are certainly some late bloomers in this world (check out what happened to David Robinson of San Antonio Spurs fame during his college years at Navy).