Sports Redux: Immortality and Mortality Edition

"I came to Boston to play professional baseball, and that's what I did. And I did it well." - Hall of Famer Jim Rice

If you were hoping for a 45-minute third-person rambling monologue by Rickey Henderson yesterday (we were), you might be a little disappointed today. But just a little. If you wanted, however, to see Red Sox legend Jim Rice take his place among baseball's immortals, humbly and majestically, you got what you've been waiting - a long time - for. MLB.com has some video, Bob Ryan has an appreciation, and the Globe has the transcript. Someone's even Internetized Letterman's old list of the Top Ten Perks of Being Elected to the HOF. Congratulations, Jim.

John Smoltz, meanwhile. He may well get the call to Cooperstown someday, but the chances of him going in in a Red Sox hat are not good. First, there's the matter of the 20 years he spent in Atlanta, but his tenure with the Sox so far is making people wonder when Dice-K will be back. Smoltz wasn't truly awful - 9H/6ER in five innings - but he's not doing nearly as well as we all had hoped. And when his team is scuffling at the plate the way they are - they only logged six hits in yesterday's 6-2 loss to the Orioles - we're going to need a lot better numbers than that. "This is going to work," said Terry Francona on the Smoltz Project. Whether it will work before the Yankees (back to 2 1/2 up) run and hide with the East is up for grabs.

The recent troubles do mean that Sox brass were in Cooperstown to network as much as to pay honor to #14. The Globe reports that Tom Werner says Theo Epstein hasn't given up on possible trades for Victor Martinez or Roy Halladay. The same notebook says that Wade Boggs is willing to have his number retired by the Red Sox. So is Rich Garces, but Boggs has a little better case.