Washington DC Baseball

[GeoPoto]

Thank you, Val and Brian, for augmenting the Little Nemo display. And yes, Val, I try to stick to cards et al depicting players while they were with Washington. Now to your favorite in 1923 . . .

Player #74H: Edgar C. "Sam" Rice. 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.

Carroll takes us through the 1923 season: At the plate, Rice had a tremendous year in 1923. He batted .316, rebounding from the off year in 1922. He led the American League with eighteen triples, and he stole 20 bases, the sixth consecutive season he had reached that mark (not counting the war-shortened 1918 campaign). Rice scored 117 runs, the first time he had scored more than one hundred in a season. . . .

. . . Though it didn't keep him out very long, Rice had a frightening run-in with the right-field fence in St. Louis on July 11. He raced back on a long fly ball by Browns first baseman Dutch Schliebner. While the ball sailed over the fence, however, Rice collided with it. A nail in the fence dug a gash in his scalp and knocked him out cold. Obviously, a player who would sacrifice himself like that in a game that was already out of reach -- the Browns won 10-4 -- would likely gain the respect of his manager for his effort. Bush, however, didn't really see it that way.

In early September, Rice was suspended for insubordination. The trouble began when he and second baseman Bucky Harris argued over several short fly balls, which had been dropping between them at an unacceptable rate. Each blamed the other.

But Bush screamed at Rice in front of the entire team, and Rice, usually a picture of calm, "lost all restraint and fired both verbal barrels back at his manager," as one Senators historian put it.

Bush benched him. Griffith, for his part, was staying out of it, at least publicly. He said, "Bush is the manager of the (Senators) and the whole case rests in his hands. I do not believe, however, that Donnie will keep Sam on the bench long. These little arguments are bound to come up in baseball from time to time and the chances are that the two will straighten things out between them when the team comes back here for its long home stay, which opens with the New York Yankees Saturday.

The suspension lasted five days before Rice was finally reinstated by Bush. Though he backed his manager in the newspapers, behind closed doors there was no doubt whose side he was on in the dispute -- Rice's. Rice returned for a game against the Yankees on September 8. The fans, holding no grudge against him, gave him a "rousing welcome."

The stubborn dispute with Rice, along with the team's under whelming performance, sealed Bush's fate. After one season, he was fired. (Sam Rice by Jeff Carroll.)

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