Sam Rice

Sam Rice

Edgar Charles "Sam" Rice (February 20, 1890 – October 13, 1974) was an American pitcher and right fielder in Major League Baseball. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1963.

Although Rice made his debut as a relief pitcher, he is best known as an outfielder. Playing for the Washington Senators from 1915 until 1933, he was regularly among the American League leaders in runs scored, hits, stolen bases and batting average. He led the Senators to three postseasons and a World Series championship in 1924. He batted left-handed, but threw right-handed.

Rice stood erect at the plate and used quick wrists to slash pitches to all fields. He never swung at the first pitch and seldom fanned, once completing a 616-at-bat season with nine strikeouts. As the ultimate contact man with the picture-perfect swing, Rice was never a home run threat, but blazing speed often turned singles into doubles, and his 1920 stolen base total of 63 earned him the timely nickname "Man o' War".

With 2,987 hits, Rice has the most of any player not to reach 3,000. He was 44 years old at the time of his last game. Rice later said, "The truth of the matter is I did not even know how many hits I had. A couple of years after I quit, Clark Griffith told me about it, and asked me if I'd care to have a comeback with the Senators and pick up those 13 hits. But I was out of shape, and didn't want to go through all that would have been necessary to make the effort. Nowadays, with radio and television announcers spouting records every time a player comes to bat, I would have known about my hits and probably would have stayed to make 3,000 of them."

Rice played his final year, 1934, for the Cleveland Indians.