E-Mail This Article to a Friend Should Jim Rice be in Baseball’s Hall of Fame? BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

Rick Aguilera, Tim Belcher, Will Clark, Gary Gaetti, Dwight Gooden, Ozzie Guillen, Juan Guzman, Orel Hershiser, Gregg Jefferies, Lance Johnson, Doug Jones, Roberto Kelly, Hal Morris, Jaime Navarro, Luis Polonia, Mike Stanley, Walt Weiss, John Wetteland, and Mark Whiten.

These are the baseball players who will appear for the first time on next year’s Baseball Hall of Fame ballot. Give any of those guys a chance at first-ballot induction? Give any of those guys any chance whatsoever at any point in time?

Probably not. If that’s the case, it means there are no sure-fire candidates who will jump off the page for the Baseball Writers of America this January, and therefore they’ll have to go back and see if they can find someone — anyone — who may have been shortchanged in previous elections.

Jim Rice, this could be destiny calling. You too, Bruce Sutter. And maybe even long shots like Goose Gossage and Andre Dawson, too. Either way, these folks don’t want to miss out on this chance, because the class of 2007 will most likely include at least two clear-cut Hall-bound candidates — Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn — along with a couple of other interesting ones (Bret Saberhagen and Mark McGwire). Therefore, it’s reasonable to speculate that Mssrs. Rice, Sutter, et al. don’t want to wait until they’re lumped in with those guys; they’ll get lost in the shuffle and the unfolding debate and ultimately fade forever from view among the voters.

So let the campaigning begin! Or more aptly: how hard does Jim Ed Rice need to work to convince the voting members that he’s deserving of baseball’s ultimate honor?

Ladies and gentlemen, start your evidence. Let’s start with Rice’s stats, pure and simple.

Sixteen seasons, 2089 games, 8225 at-bats, 2452 hits, 373 doubles, 79 triples, 382 HRs, 4129 total bases, 1249 runs scored, 1451 RBIs, .298 career average, .352 on-base pct., .502 slugging, and .854 (slugging plus OBS), .980 career fielding average.

Unfortunately, the normal clincher for any potential Hall-of-Famer is 400 home runs and a .300 average, and Rice falls just short on both counts (his career BA was over .300 before his final season, which saw him bat just .234 in 56 contests). But how about a few other relevant things: runner-up as 1975 Rookie of the Year (to teammate Fred Lynn, and that’s probably only because Rice missed the final month of the season after a HBP broke his wrist); the 1978 AL MVP, when he put together a gargantuan year (.315, 46 HRs, 139 RBIs) while playing all 163 regular-season games; eight-time All-Star; four 200-hit seasons, 11 20-HR seasons, and eight 100-RBI seasons while ranking in the top five in MVP voting six different times; over the course of a 12-year period, averaged .304, 29 HRs, and 106 RBIs.

What is often also overlooked is what a solid defensive player Rice became when he succeeded Yaz in the shadow of Fenway’s left-field wall, and that his speed was also nothing to sniff at — as he actually led the AL in triples in 1978 with 15. Sure, he probably should have called it quits a couple of years earlier, and his four-year streak (1982-’85) of leading the league in grounding into double plays certainly doesn’t help his cause. But was there any hitter back in the late ’70s/early ’80s who was more feared? We could go on and on about that one.

I could also trot out many current Hall-of-Famers’ stats that are comparable or perhaps not even as impressive as those earned by #14. Despite ratcheting up the debate quotient, that process would likely bore you to tears and fill your head with even more numbers than the brain was ever supposed to consume.

So let’s use just one guy in comparison, since it’s reasonable to say that all other things being equal, the stats are what make the man — and the Hall-of-Famer. Therefore, with all due respect, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Mr. Orlando Cepeda.

Cepeda’s career stats (Rice’s are in parentheses to aid the comparison):

17 seasons (16), 2124 games (2,089), 7927 at-bats (8225), 2351 hits (2452), 417 doubles (373), 27 triples (79), 379 HRs (382), 3959 total bases (4129), 1131 runs scored (1,249), 1385 RBIs (1,451), .297 career average (.298), .350 on-base pct. (.352), .499 slugging (.502), .849 OPS (.854), seven All-Star berths (8), and .989 career fielding average (.980). While not a perfect analogy because of other forces at work, the fact is that Rice has better stats than Cepeda in 12 of the 16 categories listed. Cepeda’s in (via the Veterans’ committee in 1999, by the way); by these standards, Rice should be, too.

Other than general grumpiness with the media, there are no character issues to deal with — in fact, on the field, few players carried themselves with more dignity than did Rice.

That’s good enough for me. Hall: Call Jim.

Now about Dwight Evans. . . .

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com, and Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com