FanHouse Jim Rice

The Red Sox have a storied history of long-term, very popular left fielders patrolling the grounds in front of the Green Monster at Fenway Park.

Ted Williams spent 16 years in left field for Boston, Carl Yastrzemski lasted 11 and Jim Rice played 12 years. If you add the eight years of Mike Greenwell's tenure and seven from Manny Ramirez, those five players have spent 54 of the 69 years since Williams' first year in 1940 playing left field for the Red Sox.

Now, that's job security.

With only two years of eligibility left on the BBWAA ballot, Dave Parker's chances of getting into the Hall of Fame are looking awfully slim. In this year's balloting, his name only appeared on 15 percent of the writer's ballots, leaving him far shy of the 75 percent needed for induction. Barring a miracle, Parker's best shot to get in is going to be through the Veteran's Committee.

After attending a celebration at PNC Park this weekend to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the 1979 World Series champions, Parker told AP writer Alan Robinson that he often wonders if his involvement in baseball's drug trials in the '80s is what's keeping him from being inducted. It's a fair question and it's one that I've pondered myself in the past.

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The second half of the season is in full swing and lo and behold if capitalism hasn't reared it's ugly head once again. Billy Beane was spun off Matt Holliday (as expected of course) and the eleventy billion dollar payroll machine that is the New York Yankees are in first place in the AL East. (Of course, that can't explain why the Mets are horrible but that's a whole other thing.)

Will the Yankees' surge be enough to propel them into the critically important No. 1 slot of the FanHouse MLB Power Rankings? Find out after the jump.

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. (AP) - Jim Rice's icy glare melted into a wide smile. Brash, flamboyant Rickey Henderson was humbled by it all.

The former left fielders were inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday along with the late Joe Gordon, and Henderson, baseball's all-time leading base stealer, was briefly overcome before evoking some hearty laughs.

"My journey as a player is complete," Henderson said. "I am now in the class of the greatest players of all time, and at this moment I am very humbled."

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Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice will be inducted into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. on Sunday afternoon. In celebration of the festivities two of FanHouse's Hall of Fame voters, Jeff Fletcher and Ed Price, joined me to discuss what made Henderson and Rice great, what goes into the Hall voting process and to share their favorite Rickey stories.

For everything you need to know about this year's Hall of Fame ceremonies, listen in after the jump.

Reggie Jackson is right. So is Jim Rice, along with Rick Telander, a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, who joins me as a baseball Hall of Fame voter and as a hardliner who agrees with Jackson and Rice:

No steroids guys in Cooperstown.

No Roger Clemens. No Barry Bonds. No Mark McGwire. No Sammy Sosa. No Rafael Palmeiro. No Alex Rodriguez. Nobody within a syringe of evidence showing they were artificially enhanced during any portion of their playing career.

I don't care that Ty Cobb was a racist (and possibly worse), that Mickey Mantle joined others as prolific drunks, and that Gaylord Perry spit his way into Cooperstown. They're already in the Hall of Fame. I can't do anything about their entries, but I can do something about Clemens, Bonds and the rest.

I don't know if you know this or not, but since he's commissioner of Major League Baseball, Bud Selig seems to think this gives him special privileges that nobody else in America is entitled to. Why, as commissioner of baseball he's not bound by the ex post facto laws of our society, which means he's allowed to suspend Alex Rodriguez for breaking rules that weren't yet in place.

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You don't have to look very hard for the player who will take Jim Rice's place as a lightning rod at the top of the 2010 Hall of Fame ballot. Just look one spot down in this year's voting and ready yourself for the same arguments all over again.

Andre Dawson's career numbers aren't very impressive. Dawson played before the "steroid era" and has to be judged differently because of it. Dawson has a mediocre on-base percentage. Dawson didn't play in a time when on-base percentage was valued. Dawson's numbers don't merit inclusion to Cooperstown. Numbers can't represent how feared a hitter Dawson was during his career.

Every one of those arguments raged about Rice's candidacy and they'll all be revived when discussion begins about Dawson in advance of next year's ballot. But, just like Rice, the biggest story isn't about any of those arguments.

For better or worse, this is Jim Rice's moment in the sun. The former Red Sox outfielder was elected to the Hall of Fame in his final try last week, and now everyone wants to hear what he has to say about anything and everything, no matter how misguided it is.

Enter intrepid Newsday reporter David Lennon, who asked Rice about failing to win a World Series during his playing career and got an answer that seems both faulty and unbecoming of a guy about to be enshrined in Cooperstown.

Of course, that's just one of the revelations that the two newly-elected members of baseball's Hall of Fame both admitted to Tuesday night while doing the Top 10 list on the Late Show with David Letterman. I have no idea how Alex Rodriguez is going to react when he hears the news, but, on the bright side, it seems as though sleeping with Madonna does improve your Hall of Fame resume. Jose Canseco has hope! (Hat tip to SPORTSbyBROOKS)