COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. - The overriding message we take away from Jim Rice’s Hall of Fame induction weekend is this:
He cares. Boy, does he care.
During those long years of what would have to be called rejection, he always offered the stiff upper lip, never acknowledging the disappointment or indicating that getting into the Baseball Hall of Fame would change his life. He had put up the numbers, he would tell us, and if they weren’t good enough, tough whatever.
But now we know the truth. Rice yearned to be in the club, and now he is.
After identifying all the ways in which he is known to family and friends (e.g. “Ed’’ to his brothers), he arrived at this designation. “Finally,’’ he said, “and I do mean finally, I am called Jim Rice, a Hall of Famer.’’
In case someone didn’t get the point, he quickly referred to getting into the Hall as something that “means so much more than you ever thought it could mean.’’
It wasn’t a knock-your-socks-off speech, but none of them were. Rickey Henderson disappointed those of us who eagerly had been anticipating his acceptance address for at least the last 10 years by taking a very high road, presenting himself as Mr. Humble from start to finish, consistently and forcefully enough to make us believe he actually meant it. It was heavy on the appropriate thank-yous and light on the braggadocio. And nope, no third person, either.
About the only flash from Rickey was his suit, a garment enabling him to channel his inner Tom Wolfe. He was white on white on white, with the exception of a brown shirt. Custom-made, of course.
As for our guy Jim, he, too, was heavy on the requisite thank-yous, with particular gratitude shown to seventh- through 11th-grade coach John Moore (“There was one way, and that was the correct way’’); American Legion Post No. 14 coach Olin Saylor, who practically coerced him into playing when the young Ed Rice would rather have taken his summer off to make some money; Don Zimmer, “who believed in me and was my mentor’’; Johnny Pesky, “my personal hitting instructor, who kept me grounded, and who I could always talk to’’; and teammate Cecil Cooper, “my ace, my buddy, my friend to the end.’’
He spoke of the dramatic upheaval in his life when integration hit Anderson, S.C., between his junior and senior years, resulting in him having to leave Westside High, where he had gone from seventh through 11th grades, for T.L. Hanna High. He said, however, he was received with “open arms,’’ and why not? He was, after all, the best athlete in town, a two-way football standout (WR/DB) and a terrifying basher of baseballs.
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