Results tagged “baseballhalloffame”

There will be time to discuss precisely why writers waited until not the eleventh hour, but 15-minutes-til-midnight to elect Jim Rice into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Writers seemed to feel that that time was during Rice's first post-announcement press conference (SI.com covers both sides of the debate), but we here at Bostonist say that the right time for such pondering will come further down the road. After this summer, when Rice is finally inducted into the Hall in Cooperstown, perhaps.

Jim Rice just made it. The 2009 Hall of Fame voting was announced, and Rice got in by the skin of his teeth. He needed 75% of the votes; he got 76.4%. Guess his 382 career homers and .502 career slugging percentage looked a little better this year than it did last year. And this was his last chance; if he hadn't gotten in on the ballot this year, his candidacy would have been turned over to the mysterious Veterans' Committee. So it looks like all systems go for a #14 retirement ceremony this year. And perhaps a lot of cars headed out west on the Pike to Cooperstown this August?

The National Baseball Hall of Fame is based in Cooperstown, NY, of course, but they've been taking their show on the road. Their traveling exhibition, called "Baseball As America", makes its final stop at the Museum of Science beginning next week, and it's amazing.

Jeez, can't a guy catch a break and land 16 more votes? Poor Jim Rice. The man listened to the annual chorus of "maybe next year" time and time again while his Red Sox teams tried to bring home a championship; now he has to listen to the same call again, for the 14th time, as he wonders whether he'll ever get voted into the Hall of Fame. Once again the MVP could have been voted in. Once again it didn't happen - and the margin separating him from official baseball immortality was a tiny little margin.