Posts tagged JimRice at FanHouse

Jim Rice Is Very Comfortable Living in the Past, Thank You Very Much

It's always so much fun when old ballplayers feel the need to remind us that today's players couldn't carry their jockstraps. Especially when part of their argument seems to be that the current guys are more interested in promoting themselves at the expense of winning games.

That's part of Jim Rice's approach in an interview with the Watertown Daily Times. He slams today's MLB as being watered down by too many teams and says that of the current Red Sox, only Jonathan Papelbon would be good enough to replace the guy who played on the 1975 club. My immediate thought was that Rice was forgetting that he wasn't as good as Manny Ramirez but Rice has a nifty argument all lined up for that.

"I'm tired of people saying, 'Manny being Manny. It's not like I'd take my 11-year old kid to go out and watch 'Manny being Manny,' that's not baseball. (Sunday) he hit home run 501, but, even though he hit 501 they still almost lost the game. Did you see those two plays he made out in left field? Now, do you want your kid to be 'Manny being Manny' missing those balls?"

Rice, no great fielder himself, isn't nearly the hitter that Manny is and certainly wasn't in 1975. He could hit into a hell of a double play, though. Which is how you help teams win games! Or maybe Rice is just the self-serving one.

Jim Rice Answers Torii Hunter's Claims About Racism at Fenway Park

When Torii Hunter recounted instances of fans at Fenway Park yelling racial slurs at him last month, response was varied. There was the time-tested belief that Boston is generally a racist city, accusations that Hunter wasn't telling the truth and, via David Ortiz among others, a thought that it was more about being on the opposing team than true hatred.

Now we're hearing from Jim Rice. As a black former Red Sox outfielder, Rice is in a good position to enlighten us about the goings-on in that part of Fenway. He took to his blog to respond to Hunter's claims. He said he never heard anything negative in Boston nor on the road, interesting because one would imagine the times he played in being more racially charged than recent years. He went on from there.

I think for a situation to escalate to that level, you have to do something to incite that type of behavior. If you talk about the fans or acknowledge their taunts by responding to them, that is when the situation can deteriorate into the type of behavior Torii alluded to. Again, I can't say for certain what Torii experienced or what led up to it, you would have to ask him about that.

What exactly does a centerfielder have to do to incite racial slurs?
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